Dear Pros,
Erika here. There's a pizza revolution in full swing across America right now, and we've been celebrating with a full-on pizzapalooza around the office this month. The 'nduja pie at new-school New York City pizzeria Ceres was our November cover star, marking the first time since 1987 that Food & Wine had not published a Thanksgiving-themed November cover. (One reader called the move "un-American." The dozens of American pizzerias featured in the issue say otherwise.)
F&W contributor Joshua David Stein was our guide through this ambitious, sauce-splattered landscape. Buckle in for a wild ride that starts at the International Pizza Expo at the Las Vegas Convention Center and ends in Forest Park in Portland, Oregon, where Stein forages for pizza toppings alongside one of the industry's genre-bending innovators, Sarah Minnick of Lovely's Fifty Fifty.
That's just one slice of the pie. Stein also got world champion pizza makers Tony Gemignani and John Arena to tell us how to eat pizza like a pro. F&W Best New Chef alumni from across the country weighed in with their picks for the top pizzerias in their home cities. Pizza chefs told contributor Ling Zi why they are ditching wood-fired ovens for electric deck ovens, while contributor Adam Callaghan divined the reasons why water is the key ingredient to achieving an excellent pizza crust.
Of course, the pièce de résistance: Stein consumed untold amounts of pizza for a gigantic, audacious, debate-inducing list of the 27 best pizzas in America right now.
Raising a slice, Erika |