Cookbooktober is the best month of the year for cookbook hoarders like me, and this year has offered a HUGE bounty of quality books. Once all of the new releases are in I’ll be doing a blog post on my personal favorites from the season.
One of the books I’m really enjoying right now is Tony Gemignani’s, “The Pizza Bible”. This book is a comprehensive how-to tome on pizza making including a wide range of international and regional US variations, including Neopolitan, Deep-dish, Wood-Fired, Calzones and Focaccia, New York, Chicago and Detroit style pies. I love the detailed “how to” component of this book as well.
As someone who is most inspired by the old school authentic dishes of Italy, this isn’t my favorite specialty pizza book. There are some other quality contenders if you want to go deep into a particular style of pizza, such as Pizza Alba Pezone for Neopolitan pizza. It is, however, a great instructional guide to help you master the basics and then make changes based upon the style you prefer. If you only buy one pizza book, this is a good choice. If you’re a hoarder like me, it’s a good start so you can go deeper with other books. The photography isn’t the most inspiring I’ve seen in a book of this genre, but again—to help you master the basics the step by step photographs map nicely to the instruction set.
This one is worth having in your collection, regardless of the style you prefer. Give it a go. You won’t regret it.
On a 1-5 Scale:
Content: 4
Photography: 3.5
Ease of Understanding / Use: 5
Overall: 4
Full disclosure: I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.