Pizza Quest

This week Peter talks with Blaine Parker, the creator and host of the website "Free the Pizza," a site devoted to the unending quest of making pizza in a home oven as good as those from a pizzeria. Can it be done? Blaine says yes, and has written an entire book showing readers how, as well as posting humorous essays regularly on his site to chronicle his journey at freethepizza.com.

He also started a Pizza Prousti thread, inspired by Marcel Proust's famous book, "Remembrance of Things Past" (aka "In Search of Lost Time"), in which Peter contributed a short essay of his fondest pizza food memories. Hear all about it on this week's episode of Pizza Quest!

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Two of the most creative forces in the ever-growing pizza community join Peter this week in a conversation recorded at the Pizza and Pasta Northeast Expo in Atlantic City, NJ. Both are monthly contributors to Pizza Today Magazine, and are regular presenters at both Pizza Expo's.

At Avalanche Pizza in Athens, Ohio, John Gutekanst continually brings together his early background in white tablecloth fine dining into his current world of pizza, expanding the boundaries of what we narrowly think of as pizza.  Scott Wiener, meanwhile, has become one of the most visible global pizza ambassadors as a result of his Scott's Pizza Tours in NYC, his many television and Instagram appearances, Zoom pizza classes, and his man-on-the street articles in magazines. These are the go-to guys when it comes to all things pizza, whether past, present, or future, and they're here in the latest episode of Pizza Quest.

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Francesco Marra is the co-founder of Marra Forni, and also the founder of Pizza University (in Maryland, near Washington DC), where some of the most famous pizza makers in the world teach hands-on classes for both professional and home pizza enthusiasts. In this episode, Francesco tells us of his journey from food service marketing, to creating world class ovens, and now to education, all in the service of advancing the quality and growth of pizza.

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Ed Zimmerman is a name not many people outside the pizza and food service industry know (though those of us in the pizza world all know him), but all of us, whether inside or outside of the profession, are impacted by the creative work he does. His company, The Food Connector, organizes the annual Real California Pizza Contest, on behalf of their client, The California Milk Advisory Board (the CMAB). This has turned into a major event for professional pizza makers, with serious prize money, and a great way for home chefs to find inspiration for new ways to make pizza by tracking the results and the recipes. Ed fills us in on this year's contest results and many other creative things he and his team do to help promote the pizza industry and its many products. He is a human bundle of creative ferment, as you will see during this stimulating conversation.

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Peter welcomes Oron Franco, co-creator (along with his wife Riki) of Prime-6. If you watch Shark Tank, where the Franco's landed a major "Shark," (Keven O'Leary, aka Mr. Wonderful), you already know that this is not ordinary charcoal and fire logs, but is made from 100% hardwood sawdust that has been compressed into logs without the addition of any binders. As you will learn during this conversation, the burning properties of this product change the whole equation of wood-fired cooking -- burning hotter, slower, with more intensity, and with lower emissions than conventional hardwood. With the help of their "Shark," Prime-6 firewood is now available to both the food service and the home consumer markets, and is primed to tip over big-time as a game-changing technology that is already being used in a number of major pizzerias and restaurants. You'll hear all about it, straight from its co- creator, Oron Franco, in this new episode of Pizza Quest!

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Most culinary savants are familiar with Chef Wylie Dufresne, who, at his groundbreaking Manhattan restaurant, WD 50, brought modernist molecular gastronomy in the style and spirit of Heston Blumenthal, Grant Achatz, and Ferran Adria to NYC about 10 years ago. Since then, like so many other great fine dining chefs, Wylie has fallen under the spell of pizza and is now expressing his creative genius at Park Avenue's Stretch Pizza. Hear all about Wylie's journey, from his Rhode Island origins, to the global stage, and now finding his voice in the ultra-competitive pizza sector. The expectations are high, but so is his intent, as we'll discover on this new episode of Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart.

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Korshak Bagels, nestled in the heart of Philadelphia's historic Italian Market Neighborhood, was like the mouse that roared. Producing only 1,000 hand-shaped sourdough bagels a day, Philip Korshak's love-child of a Bagelry garnered national press during its brief two-year run, and elicited deep mourning and lines two blocks long during its final week, even when folks were warned they could buy only two bagels per person. Was it Korshak's Instagram poetry posts, the original shmears and curated smoked salmon and pastrami lox, or simply the amazingly plump bagels themselves that cemented Korshak Bagels as an eternal star in Philadelphia's legendary food constellation? Find out straight from Phil's own mouth as he joins Peter for an enlightening and heartbreaking debrief in this week's episode of Pizza Quest.

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On this episode, Peter talks with Kyle Ahlgren, the producer/director of the Artisan Baking Center (ABC). A year ago, Peter and Kyle collaborated at the Artisan Baking Center, the educational component of Central Milling in Petaluma, CA. The two recorded a video pizza course based on Peter's most recent book, Pizza Quest. Kyle and his team chose four of the featured pizzas from the book, along with Peter's dough and sauce recipes, and created a dynamic, seven-part pizza course that is available now for purchase.

If you choose to buy the course (or any other courses in their catalog), Kyle is offering a 35% discount for Pizza Quest followers when you use the discount code PIZZAQUEST at checkout. Could be a great holiday gift for friends or loved ones! Hear the behind-the-scenes stories of how Kyle Ahlgren created this and all their video courses on this episode of Pizza Quest.

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Ajith Dharmawardhana (aka Ajith Dharma) is the owner of Fire Within, the leading manufacturer of mobile wood-fired oven rigs. In this episode, Ajith describes how Fire Within trains the growing number of oven owners at their Wood-Fired University to achieve maximum success by providing detailed business plans, strategies, and training on the many uses of their mobile ovens. Learn all about this uniquely American success story right here on this week's episode of Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart.

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Jason Rosenthal started making pizzas in his apartment for a few lucky locals as a way to maintain his sanity and explore his creativity while exiting a job he didn't love. Soon, he started doing successful pop-ups, then he found a couple of kindred pizza-obsessed spirits, and lo and behold, they teamed up to open Brick+Dough in Montclair, NJ, where the locals are going mad for their inventive, neo-traditional wood-fired pizzas. Based on the buzz, their restaurant seems destined for Razza status in the ever-growing New Jersey pizza renaissance (yes, New Jersey is undoubtedly having its moment!). Hear all about it in this week's episode of Pizza Quest.

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