Pizza Blog from pizzatherapy.com

Ed LaDou , Pizzaiolo I sadly received the news, Ed LaDou had passed away. There were many tributes and praises given to Ed. Each one, well deserved. Ed LaDou , was the pizzaiolo, who saw the endless possibilities of pizza. He took pizza to new levels of creativity. He was a true original. He is credited with creating the pizzas at Spago's , Wolfgang Puck's famous restaurant. " Wolf certainly gave Ed the toppings that he wanted, but it was Ed that ran that department single- handedly in the beginning," said Nancy Silverton , former pastry chef from Spago's . It is no secret, he created the entire menu for California Pizza Kitchen. Larry Flax, co-creator of CPK , explained: "We had Ed come in and work with us at the beginning of the restaurant." Not one to take a back seat, LaDou left CPK soon afterward, and created his own innovative restaurant, Caioti Pizza Cafe. He was able to feature his own pizzas in his own unique style. Adam Kuban , Ne...

Its been a strange year filled with Pizza News and Weird Pizza Mis-Adventures. The year started with a phone call from Chris Bianco, of Pizzeria Bianco , who had just been featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show. It seems like I kept having more unusual pizza adventures, in 2007. I was contacted by Jimmy Kimmel's staff and for about 5 minutes, I thought I was on my way to Hollywood to make pizza. No kidding! I took Nine Time World Pizza Champ, Tony Gemignani to lunch in Honolulu ... Legends of Pizza Volume 1 and 2 was released as an e-book. That was good news. The Big Green Pizza Truck shared a Recipe for Pizza and other pizza secrets. More good news. I had a very revealing Interview with Jay Vogler from Pizza on Earth in Vermont... I reviewed Rachael Ray's pizza smackdown as she took on the pizza fanatics of Chicago and New York . I got into this incredible controversy about Vino's vs. Gino's in Little Rock, Arkansas. I announced how Nine time World Pizza Champi...

Everybody knows that to cook great pizza, you need a hot oven. The hotter the better. My electric stove at home is barely nudging up to 550 F. +, give or take a few degrees. I recently got an email from someone who claims his pizza ovens will heat up to 1,000 F. Now we're talking! Now we're taking. His name is Willard Gustavsen and here is what he had to say" Albert: Have you been making pizza long? Willard: I started baking my own pizza 5-6 years ago, but I didn’t start making my own dough until a couple of years ago. I would buy the unbaked pizzas from the local pizzeria and bake it myself in a make shift wood-fired oven, and finally took the plunge a couple of years ago and started making my own dough and sauce. Albert: How did you come about to develop your pizza grill?Tell me about the process... Willard: As a kid growing up my dad would bring home pizza from an Italian pizzeria that had a wood-fired oven. It had that special taste that I came to associate with wood ...

Ed LaDou, A Pizza Hero I went to lunch with some friends the other day. We ended up at California Pizza Kitchen . Certainly not my first choice, but I was out voted. Not that I have anything against CPK , the pizza there is OK. It's just that when I see the sign, I think it should be called "Ed LaDou's California Pizza Kitchen". Let me explain. Ed LaDou is one of the true unsung heroes of pizza. When CPK was slated to open, the chef quit at the 11th hour. That left a brand new restaurant, without a menu. In a panic, the owner's contacted Ed to put a menu together. He was able to create an extraordinary menu of pizza, pasta and salads. Ed LaDou created the whole CPK concept. He also is credited with creating Wolfgang Puck's pizza menu. Nobody really talks about the fact that Ed is a pizza genius. You can read the whole story by Joan Nathan , right here. It is a fasciating tale of pizza wonderment and adventure. You can see Ed in Pizza, The Movie . This m...

Let's face it: if you have a blog or website, you need to get traffic. Multiple streams of traffic. Viral traffic. You need to unlock viral markets. If you don't, you're stuck in no-where land. What's the purpose of sharing information, if you are not getting your message out there? Pizza Therapy had a case of the Low Traffic Blahs . I mean the Alexa rating was so low, the site didn't even show up in the rankings. Oh my. That's all changed. I'm very pleased to announce, I found a cure. I was invited by Brett Ingram to help promote his brand new web tool called Viral Link Tracker . I was honored he came to the rescue. When I started playing around with Viral Link Tracker , I couldn't believe it. Brett is onto something BIG here. Huge. Gigantic. Viral Link Tracker has the ability to cloak links as well as give stats. You need to be able to cloak your affiliate links. As any serious marketer knows, stats are also extremely important. You need to know w...

Ever since I created The Pizza Therapy Pizza Book, I have dreamed of a follow up volume. I didn't want my follow-up book to be like the The Pizza Therapy Pizza Book, I wanted it to be completely different. I wanted something that would help pizza fans, celebrate pizza. Of course it would contain recipes, but I wanted it to be more than that. A Pizza Book that would be an operations manual and guide to help with the pizza celebration. Of course you have heard of Chicken Soup for the Soul. It's a book of heart warming tales and stories. Each one unique and wonderful. Each one original. I decided to borrow an idea from the authors of that book. You know they asked for help in writing the book. They wrote some of the book, but not all of the book. Most of the book, was written by other people. Then they went ahead, and with the help of others, wrote a bazillion other Chicken Soup Spin off books. Then I thought: why couldn't I do the same thing? I only want to write one book.....

Pizza is a universal food. Most of us grew up with pizza. All of us have an opinion about pizza. If you are from New York, it's New York pizza. If you are from Chicago, it's Chicago Deep Dish. The West Coast pizza fans have their own traditional Italian pizza as well as New Wave pizza. Of course if you are from New Haven, Connecticut, you spend hours debating who makes the best apizza: is it Sally's or Pepe's? Then there are those who favor Modern Apizza. New Haven pizza fans are fanatics. Woven across the U.S. are small pockets of regional pizza favorites. For example, on Long Island, New York, it's a type of pizza called Grandmother's Pizza. If you are from a certain area in Pennsylvania, you favor Old Forge, pizza. There are types of pizza for every different taste: there is thin crust Neapolitan pizza, and there is thick crust Scilian pizza. Chicago deep dish, is a pizza unlike an other. California pizza can be thin with unusual ingredients for unique tastes...