James McNair's Vegetarian Pizza

Lots of neat ideas for pizzas - they're more gourmet style than anything. Each recipe has a picture which is just wonderful - large, colorful. The recipes themselves don't get me all that excited. Some of them are things that you might have for dinner (like a salad or a chinese stir-fry) and the author put them onto a pizza crust. But there are some interesting ones like the spinach pizza (sauted spinach with garlic, raisins and pine nuts put onto a pizza crust with melted cheese) and some ofthe eggplant recipes are neat. The Athenian pizza is excellent - feta, red onion, mushroom, olives etc baked on the pizza crust. And there are some interesting ones that I'm looking forward to trying that use different pestos. Overall good cookbook with inventive ideas and very pretty presentation that you could easily serve to guests.

The unbelievably beautiful photographs (taken by the writer himself) showed me uses for things I never would have dreamed of putting on a pizza--okra, eggs (sunny side up!), fruits, and a wide variety of vegetables such as cauliflower. McNair is a bit of an ingredient-snob (he seems horrified by the idea that anyone would use anything but a tomato ripped from the vine moments ago to make a pizza). That said, the book will help you unleash your creativity before you stick that Boboli in the oven. A few really ambitious people might actually try to follow one of these recipes, which would be quite an adventure, and one with a delicious conclusion.

This cookbook has an extensive collection of creative pizzas...all beautifully presented in color photos. I have tried several and all are delicious and fun. I took off one star because some take a long time to make. Enjoy!