I’m going to go out on a limb here, and call another WellFed author for being bogus. If you read the article Will Work For Pizza at the end you get a typical homemade pizza recipe. This will leave you with homemade pizza. It will not be something your friends rave about, and it will not satisfy your pizza urges like going to a real pizza shop will. This is where American Pie comes in. For example, your pizza should be well cooked before 10 minutes have gone past. If it takes 20, you’re hosed.

There are all sorts of tips that lead you to making “real” pizza, but the first and most important one is this: turn your oven on as hot as it will go, and leave your stone in there for at least an hour before you make a pizza. This alone will change your world. But there is more.

I’m not going to tell you everything of course, because I want you to buy the book, but suffice it to say that after reading and digesting American Pie, my pizza is world-changing.

Here’s the basics for the New York Pizza Dough. My sourdough is still in-progress.

Take your 5 cups flour, your 1 1/2 tsp instant yeast, a tsp and a half sugar ( I like brown in this recipe ), 1 1/2 tsp salt, 3 tbsp oil ( don’t go using something too strong, stick with extra light olive oil or canola ), 1 3/4 cup room temperature water and mix it all together in a bowl. Uh, a mixing bowl. Anyway. Once combined into a rough dough, either throw it in your KitchenAid, or on your counter and have at it. With the KitchenAid, go 5 minutes on number 2 ( I’ve got the 450 Watt model, basically you want it to be kneading. If it’s not, then fool with it until it is. ) Then let your dough rest for 5 minutes, and mix for 2 more minutes. By hand this is going to take longer, but the concepts are the same. Frankly, if you’re mixing by hand you should be comfortable with making dough. Check for the windowpane ( mentioned in the book but also in Bread Baker’s Apprentice ), basically try and stretch a small piece of dough until you can see the light through it. If it tears, keep kneading.

By the way, you want to do all this the day before you want pizza.

Let your dough sit for 15 minutes, and then toss it in the fridge. Two hours before you want to bake, pull it out. An hour before, turn your oven as high as it will go. When you’re ready to cook, stretch your pie ( like you see in the pizzeria, flour on your hands helps quite a bit ), add some toppings ( or not ), toss it in and let her rip. Mine have been taking about 6 - 7 minutes, at 550, on a thin $20 stone. Watch it closely! There is a small window of perfection and you don’t want to miss it. Once you pull it, let it set for a minute or two before you cut so your toppings don’t slide off into a puddle.

Be wary of a few things. One, not too many toppings. Two, be really lean on the sauce. Three, don’t go too nuts with the cheese. Anything that adds a lot of grease is going to screw with your pizza. Four, practice simply and get the basics down. They are simple rules, but take some getting used to. It’s like anything else, you’ve got to know the rules to break the rules.

We’ve all suffered through the “homemade” pizza, which is why, according to the book, the vast majority of pizza consumed in the U.S. is frozen. Even a frozen DiGiorno is better than a typical homemade pie, even if cooked on a pizza stone. I was hoping, reaching, grasping for something that could bring good pizza into my home.

I started into the book’s lengthy anthropological section, in which the Reinhart heads all over the country, tasting different styles and relating them all to his mythical White Whale of pizza. It gave a great overview of the development of pizza across the country, and I definitely related to a lot of the stories. The Inspiration had arrived, and now it was time to get to the goods.

The recipe section contains a lot of general instruction on how to get the best performance from your oven, how to deal with any pizza scenario, and the philosophical outlook that Reinhart approaches the art with. He’s a gifted instructor, and these types of hints are, in my opinion, the most useful part of any cookbook. (sidenote: my own cooking is inspired by many, but largely self-taught) He basically says “If you want to make world class pizza, first love the pizza, and then follow these simple rules.” I can dig it.

I started with the New York Pizza Dough, since Lombardi’s in New York is my White Whale. I’m from Seattle, and I’ve only been to New York once, but the mark that pizza left on my mind is indelibly etched. The dough is simple to make, and resulted in mind-blowing pizza. When I first learn new techniques, I like to pare them down to the simplest parts, to make sure I master each bit before moving on to the next, so my first 5 pies were all just cheese and tomato sauce. I wanted to be sure I followed the rules, and got the crust I was looking for. I was not disappointed. The crust had a huge puffy rim was full of air bubbles and beautifully golden, a thin crisp center with just the right amount of snap, and a fantastic tanginess that left me picking at my 2 year old’s pieces on her plate. (Bad Daddy!)

By now I’ve read the whole book, perusing many of the recipes while cooking some of them. They have all been so shockingly good that we’re currently eating homemade pizza 2-3 times a week and I’m still loving every minute of it. I started his recipe for Sourdough Starter, and my sponge is looking pretty good so I may have some results from what I would consider to be the hardest recipe in the book soon; Sourdough Pizza Crust.

Rating: 10 thus far. I’m in love.

I was raised by the best natural cook I’ve ever seen in action. However, I was a negligent child and chose not to learn much from my mom while I lived at home. Such is the way of kids I suppose.

Once out in the world I occasionally enjoyed cooking, but it wasn’t one of my real passions until the perfect storm hit. First I realized that the only person who’s cooking I like to eat regularly, other than my mom’s, is my own. I will try anything, and I eat a huge variety of food, but I suppose I’m a picky eater. Anyway, that helped. The next thing that happened was I became a Housewife.

In my former life I spent a lot of time doing mentally complex things. This does not describe the typical day of a Housewife. However, there is something you have to do every day, which is to cook. Somewhere a light bulb went off, and I knew that I could entertain myself while still fulfilling my duties by focusing on my cooking as a creative outlet. I dove in headfirst, and now my kitchen is cemented in its rightful place as the center of our household ( as opposed to sitting in front of the computer. )