Pizza: A Slice of Heaven: The Ultimate Pizza Guide and Companion

Levine wrote and compiled a great book! I've probably read this 6 times... i just pick it up at night before nodding off and read a chapter or two. At first I was kinda thrown by the layout but there are great pizza stories and excellent critiques. I make my own pizza in a 730 degree oven in the kitchen with two stones so I can really relate to what he writes about. I've got about 6 of these types of books and Ed's is right at the top. If you like this you should also read American Pie by Peter Reinhart.

I'm Swiss-Italian and lived in Milan for 12 years; Now I live in New York. Ed Levine is completely correct about Chicago Deep-dish "pizza". I admit that it can be tasty, but it's not pizza. His cleverly worded comment ("[deep dish pizza is like] a good casserole at best") captures all of that. When it's good, it's like a good casserole (or chicken pot pie, or soup in a bread bowl), but it's certainly not pizza. In response to Kyle Garrett, adding too much cheese is a sure-fire way to ruin a pizza - the crust gets soggy, especially if you compensate by adding more sauce. The crust is the star player is pizza, which is something that he must not have had the pleasure of finding out. It's this kind of "more is better" mentality that results is excellent foreign recipes being butchered in this country.

Most of this book is written as a guide; depending on where you live, you can look up your area to find the best pizza around. Ed Levine ranks pizzas all across the country and in Italy. In general, the best pie is found in the New York City area. The best in the world is Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix, Arizona - Chris Bianco is originally from the Bronx. I have gone to Totonno's Pizza - rated the best in New York - and it is exceptional. SPECIAL NOTE: Levine is ostracized from Chicago for calling deep dish pizza "a good casserole at best." The negative reviews on this cite are all from disgruntled citizens of Chicago. The beginning of the book contains the history and science of pizza, as well as pizza essays by various writers. Of course, there is also a recipe. The trouble is, to make pizza right, you need a nine-hundred-degree brick oven. The method they have of duplicating this at home is to have an outdoor charcoal pit. Without the pit, you use your own oven. Most ovens only get up to about five-hundred-degrees so the pizza takes a little longer to cook and the crust does not come out perfectly. However, home-made pizza is almost always better than delivery pizza. I tried the recipe in my own oven and it came out pretty good.

Have you ever visited a city on vacation and wanted to know where to find the very best pizza? Well look no further than this well-written and comprehenisive guide to America's favorite food...Pizza! Food Writer Ed Levine who has had a lifelong love affair with Pizza provides the info in this outstanding book that comes in the year when Lombardi's in New York celebrates its 100th anniversary as the first licensed pizzeria. Levine spent over a year touring over 200 pizzerias in 20 states, Canada, and Pizza's native home of Naples, Italy and sampled thousands of slices to provide the necessary ammo for this ambitious book. But not only that, Levine consulted with the food writers in the various cities he visited with many contributing essays on pizza for the book. Levine visited the mom & pop pizzerias as well as the major chains. Levine doesn't try to hid his disdain for the big chains noting that, "It kills me when people say Pizza Hut's great." He has similar dislike for frozen pizza, even the new, gourmet rising crust pizzas don't grab accolades from him. But more than that Levine reveals how passionate people are about good pizza and how people can vividly recall their favorite pizza joints even if they are no longer around. He guesses that perhaps only 1,000 pizzerias out of 63,000 serve something better than mediocre, a sobering thought to those of us who truly love a good pizza. Clearly Levine favors Northeastern part of the country due to their long Italian heritage but Levine has found many good pizzas in the south and west as well such as Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix. Perhaps Levine's biggest excitement comes not with the the pizzerias that have been around for generations, but with many of the new stores with chefs who adopt old ways such as wood burning stone ovens for the perfect crust. Just a fun and fascinating book and indispensable for any pizza lover.

The best book on pizza pie that I have read. And to think that I missed eating a pie at Chris Bianco's when lived in Scottsdale. Casserole in Chicago, right on. Frozen pizza is ca ca, how true. Too bad that Ed missed Frank and Angie's in Austin, a place that I rate at three pies. QUIK AG Georgetown, Texas