I began making pizza soon after I got married (now 20 years ago). Like many of you, I began trying to make pizza similar to what I ate growing up. In the beginning, I focused on three different styles of pizza to duplicate the tastes of my youth. After a while, I was able to duplicate and even improve on the New York-style pizza I remembered. I made and served many hundreds of pizzas to my family and friends over the years. My pizzas became more and more consistent and I kept getting rave reviews; that is, when they were not begging me to make something other than pizza! Many of my friends said, "You should open a pizzeria!" Others said, "Can you teach me to make pizza like that?"
The first really good pizza cookbook I found was Evelyne Slomon's "The Pizza Book". Over the years I have purchased 15 or so pizza cookbooks and I've read many others. I found that many of the pizza cookbooks give terse, short descriptions that leave much room for error and do not help the beginning pizza baker enough to be successful in their first few pizzas. I think this makes it somewhat difficult for a neophyte to become comfortable making pizza before they decide that it's just not worth the bother.
I decided to write a book to capture the techniques that I had learned and developed to help others make great pizza, too. My book takes a different approach from any pizza cookbook I have seen and I think it will make a good addition to the pizza cookbook world.
I have just self-published a cookbook entitled "Passionate About Pizza: Making Great Homemade Pizza". I printed a short 100 book print run at the end of 2008. The book was extensively proofread, copy edited by a professional (twice, in fact), and read/smoothed many times. I am calling this my Friends and Family edition because those may be the only people that will be interested enough to buy one! I have sold 33 copies in three months so it has been reasonably well received.
You can find more information about my book at:
Passionate About Pizza Cookbook. It is available as a paperback book or an ebook. The cost of the paperback is high due to the high quality paper and small print quantity. The ebook is priced much lower.
My cookbook has been reviewed by the
Pizzameister who says "I Never Met a Pizza Cookbook I Didn't Buy". He has reviewed 100 pizza cookbooks (yes, that number is correct!) and he rated my book five stars and number one on his list! You can see his review at
Pizzameister Reviews Passionate About Pizza. I would be glad to take constructive criticism so that I can make the next version even better.
