Book Review: The Ultimate Wood-Fired Oven Book

We've all got our mental lists of things to do. Some are chores: this week I've gotta mow the lawn, go to the dry cleaner, etc. Some are things we want, and actually plan, to do:  going to an upcoming event, perhaps, or trying that new pizza place that just opened up. And of course, there's the bucket list:  "If I live long enough, someday I will ___."
And then there's another list, that I'll call the fantasy list. It's the list of things you'd like to do, but that deep down you know you almost certainly never will.
I, for example, have a fantasy of someday visiting the Faroe Islands. (It would take too long to explain here.) I'm pretty sure I never will, but that doesn't stop me from daydreaming about it.
And that's more or less how I feel about a home wood-fired oven. I'd like to have one. Love one, in fact. But deep down, I know I don't have the combination of the means, desire and know-how to get it done.
But that doesn't mean I don't like thinking about it. That's why it's a fantasy. And who knows? Things could change. Maybe I'll finally get on Jeopardy!, win enough to pay off the mortgage and send our daughter to college, and still have enough left over to pay somebody to build me a state-of-the-art wood-fired oven, while I'm off hiking across the Faroes.
So I was happy to accept a review copy of the second edition of The Ultimate Wood-Fired Oven Book, from Schiffer Publishing. In its 144 pages, author Anna Carpenter addresses what you need to know about designing, building and using an outdoor wood-fired oven. It's got enough practical advice to guide you through the entire process, and enough eye candy to keep you amused, even if all you want to do is fantasize about what your dream oven might look like, someday.
The book is lavishly illustrated, with lots of full-color photographs. But those photos are accompanied by enough text to make this a useful guide to actually constructing a wood-fired oven.
Let's start with the text. The book is logically organized, starting with the anatomy of a wood-fired oven, and progressing through planning, materials, building and using your oven, as well as a chapter on tools and accessories that you'll want to keep handy once you start cooking.
Naturally, I zeroed in on the pizza recipe. Keeping in mind that this is not a cookbook, it's fine, as far as it goes. The dough recipe calls for a short two-hour rise (better to plan ahead and refrigerate the dough overnight) but it's good enough, as a basic quick recipe. And the instructions on baking the pizza are useful, but if you've taken the trouble to build a wood-fired oven, you'll want to learn more about mastering the art of wood-fired pizza.
One thing I found interesting is that the pizza recipe calls for applying fresh mozzarella in cubes, rather than round slices. I guess the idea is that the oven will be so hot that the cubes will quickly liquefy and spread out. I'll try that next time I make pizza.
As useful as the text is, the photos are the best feature of the book. They are varied enough to give the reader good ideas about how to place, design and build a wood-fired oven. Where I live right now, the spot I've picked out for my fantasy oven is right underneath a tree, which concerned me, but the photos in the book indicate that it might be very doable. (So there goes one of my excuses for not having built an oven yet.)
There are also photos and hand-drawn illustrations of the construction process, as well as cross-section diagrams of different types of wood-fired ovens. The latter include detailed specs identifying the particular components and their placement.
Even the photos that don't have any direct relevance to my situation, I found fun to look at. They run the gamut from relatively modest ovens, in a variety of settings, to behemoths worthy of a Roman emperor (speaking of which, there are some photos at the beginning of the book of an excavated oven in Pompeii, Italy, that show how little has changed in the basic design of wood-fired ovens over the past 2000 years).
If you're seriously considering installing a wood-fired oven at home, you'll want this book. I'm sure you'll want to consult some additional resources, too, but for its combination of how-to advice and inspiration, this volume is hard to beat. It might even get you to move "wood-fired oven" from your fantasy list to your bucket list.

Book review: Rochester Haunts

I make no net income writing this blog, believe me (IRS, are you listening?). But I do get a perk or two, one of which is the occasional offer to review a book. As an avid reader, I find that hard to pass up, particularly if a book (1) sounds interesting and (2) has some relationship to this blog.
Rochester Haunts: A Ghost Hunter's Guide, from Schiffer Publishing, met both criteria. It's not pizza-related, but it has a Rochester connection, and it did intrigue me.
I'm no ghost hunter, or even ghost believer. (As I'm sure we'll hearing this summer, "I ain't afraid of no ghost!") But I do enjoy reading about local history, and allegedly haunted sites often involve historic sites and local landmarks. So this sounded interesting. And it was. It's a fun read, even if it doesn't quite have me believing in ghosts just yet.
According to the book blurb, author Dwayne Claud is "the director of Western New York Paranormal as well as a specialist in the field of Demonology." (I should probably mention here that Claud is not some kind of devil worshiper. He believes that God has called him to save people from demonic influences.)  Claud's website states that he grew up in Leicester, in Livingston County, so he's presumably got some familiarity with the Rochester area.
The book is divided into fifteen chapters, arranged thematically. For example, "'Rest' In Peace" covers local cemeteries, while "Praise the 'Spirit'" addresses local churches.
Many of the sites listed are no surprise, mostly because they're old, and because they've seen a lot of people come and go. In the case of cemeteries, I guess the people mostly come, don't go.
I don't start a lot of books by reading the index, but it makes a good starting point here. It covers the places and individuals mentioned in the book. Some I would have expected, like Mount Hope Cemetery and Frederick Douglass. Some I wouldn't necessarily have expected, but wasn't surprised to see, like the Main Street Armory, or what's left of the Rochester subway system. Some I'd never heard of at all, like the Stryker Road barn in Scottsville. Others were a complete surprise. The Greece Applebee's is haunted? Who knew?
Claud's approach varies from passing on rumors, of the "there are reports of ..." variety, to more detailed claims, many involving on-the-spot investigations by Western New York Paranormal.  He reaches few definitive conclusions, but it's fair to say he's not a skeptic.
Most readers of this book, though, are not going to be looking for somebody to punch holes in every ghost story that's ever come up around Rochester. And even as a skeptic myself, I liked reading about some local haunts, literally, that I will now see in a different light. Next time I visit the Reunion Inn on Culver Road, I may not attribute that sudden cold breeze to the air conditioner.

Book Review: The Essential Home-Ground Flour Book

Besides buying pizza on a regular basis, I occasionally bake it at home. Beyond that, I frequently bake in general. A week rarely goes by that I don't bake at least one loaf of bread.
Those breads often include some whole wheat flour that was ground in our home flour mill. I use home-milled flour on a regular basis. So I was happy to receive from publisher Robert Rose a review copy of The Essential Home-Ground Flour Book by Sue Becker.
Becker clearly believes in her subject. In the introduction, she describes whole grains as "a nearly perfect food." From there, she spends roughly the first half of the book ("All About Home-Ground Flours") covering a general description of the history and benefits of using home-ground flour, the basics of how to do so, as well as a rundown of the various grains that are available to the home baker. Becker offers particularly good advice on choosing and using a grain mill.
Part 2 covers recipes, which run the gamut from basic yeast-risen breads to quick breads, muffins, biscuits, cookies, and just about anything else made from flour. As is typical of books I've gotten from Robert Rose, the recipes are also complemented by two sections of full-page color photos.
The only thing I found wanting in the book was that it doesn't discuss how to create white flour at home. The author seems to assume that if you're grinding your own flour, you want to use whole-grain flour. That's probably true for most people, most of the time, but I'd like to try making my own white flour, which necessitates removing the bran. (I think it's a fairly simple process of sifting the flour, but I was hoping for some guidance.) The book's only suggestions are to use various combinations of whole-grain flours.
That aside, I'll be consulting this book when using my whole-wheat flour, and it may embolden me to try some other grains as well. (Kamut, anyone?) I'd recommend it for any home baker who wants to get into grinding and using home-ground flour, or who simply wants to incorporate more whole grains into his or her baked goods.

Book Review: Cure Back Pain

This is a non-pizza-related post, but I couldn't pass this up.
I have back pain, my wife has back pain, most of us, eventually, have back pain. So I readily accepted a review copy of Cure Back Pain by Jean François Harvey. It's a guide to "80 personalized easy exercises for spinal training to improve posture, eliminate tension & reduce stress."
I'm a skeptic, in general, so I'm not apt to believe in every health claim that comes along. By the same token, I think we're an overmedicated society. I don't think I should have to take a pill every time my back hurts.
It also seems reasonable to me to believe that the right kind of exercise can alleviate a lot of common back pain. There's nothing unconventional about the idea of physical therapy. And that's basically what this book is about - creating a simple, safe program of physical therapy that almost anyone can carry out at home, to improve or maintain back health.
The author, an osteopath and kinesiologist, has been studying back-related issues for over 25 years, and it shows. The first hundred pages of the book comprise an explanation of what causes back pain, and what can be done to address it. I found that alone very useful, to help me understand my back better.
I was pleased to see that the book doesn't make outrageous or questionable claims. The author doesn't claim that back exercises can cure diseases, nor does he get into truly unconventional medicine; there are no crystals involved here, no chakras, none of that. Harvey also acknowledges the importance of seeing a physician for diagnostic purposes, and informs the reader what symptoms require immediate medical attention.
The second part of the book, running to 150 or so pages, is devoted to the exercises themselves. A page or two is devoted to each, with accompanying photographs.
In general, the exercises are pretty simple, and doable by virtually anyone who's ambulatory. They range from the "central axis" exercise, which involves little more than standing (but with good posture, as prescribed by the instructions) to the "deep gluteal stretch," which calls for lying down, crossing your legs in the air, and pulling with your hands on one leg.
That's about as tough as it gets. In fact, the author specifically advises against certain exercises, like headstands, and even weightlifting. He concedes that some people may not agree with that advice, but says that over the years, he's seen many back problems caused by these exercises.
I found that the most questionable part of the book. I don't doubt that a lot of people have done themselves more harm than good by lifting weights, but I imagine that's usually because they've gone about it badly, using too much weight and poor techniques. The usual, and probably best advice is to speak to your doctor or other health professional first.
But the author makes clear that what exercises are right for you depends on your particular circumstances. He does a good job of guiding the reader to an appropriate set of exercises, and lays out very clearly how to carry out an effective program. A concluding chapter sets out several suggested routines to address various types of back problems.
Lately, my back's been pretty good, and I only got the book recently, so I can't sit here and say that this book has changed my life. I simply haven't had the opportunity to put it into practice sufficiently.
But I will say this. Sometimes, when I get "review" books, I end up giving them away or discarding them. This is a keeper. Again, I've been through physical therapy, more times than I wish, and I know from experience that even simple exercises, if appropriate and if carried out regularly, can achieve significant positive results. This book offers a means to do so, in a way that's tailored to the reader's specific needs, and that's easy to understand and quite doable by the average person.

Book Review: Serbian Cooking

I don't like to apply the term "foodie" to myself, but I am interested in food, beyond just pizza, and I'm particularly interested in the foods of different cultures, especially those with which I'm unfamiliar. So when I was recently offered a choice of titles to review from Schiffer Publishing, I quickly chose Serbian Cooking:  Popular Recipes from the Balkan Region.
I think my geographical knowledge is better than the average American's (which isn't saying much), and I had a rough idea where Serbia is, but it was a little fuzzy. Serbia is in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe. Hungary lies to the north, Macedonia and Greece to the south. At various times, Serbia has been part of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, and more recently, Yugoslavia. So considering all those neighbors, and Serbia's history, I was intrigued by what Serbian food might have to offer.
The book comes in at a relatively modest 104 pages, but it is well written and illustrated, and it's made for thumbing through. Most dishes take up two pages, with the recipe on the right and a color photo on the left.
The recipes, which are arranged in three chapters -- appetizers, entrees and desserts -- do reveal cross-cultural influences. The recipes for chicken paprikash (two versions), baklava, stuffed peppers, and cherry strudel take in culinary influences from Hungary to Greece, Poland and Austria.
The more intriguing recipes, to me, were for dishes with which I was unfamiliar, even if the ingredients were pretty basic, like djuvec (baked pork chops with rice and tomatoes) and cevapi, a hand-formed sausage of ground pork, beef and turkey. Many recipes include interesting ingredient combinations, like the roasted peppers with cheese, balsamic vinegar and capers.
The desserts also encompass unfamiliar but interesting dishes, like bombica, which are basically little chocolate bombs, and tulumbe, a pastry soaked in a vanilla-and-lemon syrup. Again, some familiar-sounding recipes include a twist, like peach pie made with puff pastry.
Some of the recipes were a bit obvious. The recipe for "cold cuts platter" was, literally, "arrange various cold cuts and other foods, including the must-haves of olives, goat cheese, and lettuce." And the recipe for fried potatoes was essentially, slice potatoes, season them with "Vegeta," whatever that is, and fry them.
I would've appreciated a little more narrative from the authors of what makes these recipes particularly Serbian, as well as a glossary. For example, there are recipes for "burek" with meat and with cheese, but only through deductive reasoning could I figure out that "burek" seems to be a kind of pastry.
Nonetheless, I like Serbian Cooking, and I plan to prepare several of its dishes. Serbian cuisine is obviously far broader in scope than Serbia's geographical area, and I'm happy to add Serbian Cooking to my kitchen bookshelf.

Serbian Cooking: Popular Recipes from the Balkan Region
by Danijela Kracun and Charles McFadden
104 pages
Schiffer Publishing, Ltd. (March 28, 2015)

Book Review: Vegan Everyday

I'm not a vegan by any means -- you can have my chicken wing when you pry it from my cold, dead hand -- but in my household, we do try to incorporate vegetables and grains into our meals, and occasionally we eat what amount to vegan meals. I do enjoy it, now and then. If the day before I ate a 16-ounce steak, or a half rack of ribs for dinner, my body often tells me to go meatless the next day.
In other words, you don't have to be a full-time vegan to be interested in vegan recipes. So I was glad to accept a review copy of Vegan Everyday, written by Douglas McNish and published by Robert Rose.
At 576 pages, this is a hefty book. It starts with a brief but useful summary of  a "vegan gluten-free pantry." The recommended pantry includes no foods made with genetically modified organisms ("GMO").
There are 500 recipes here. organized into a dozen categories. So if you're looking for vegan recipes, this is about as comprehensive a volume as you're going to find.
Personally, I don't agree with, but am not surprised by, the book's recommendation that you avoid GMO foods. I think the GMO phobia is a left-wing version of the right-wing's denial of climate change; in other words, a stubborn refusal to accept what scientists tell us, which is that GMO foods, in general, are safe to eat. But I know that many vegans will never accept that, so I get it. (But if you want to read about an example of this, read this NY Times article.)
I'm a little more puzzled by the emphasis on avoiding gluten as part of a vegan diet. It's not animal based, and though I know some people can't tolerate it, most of us can. Humans have eaten wheat-based foods for thousands of years, mostly with no significant adverse effects. And there is substantial evidence that going gluten-free can have adverse effects, if you go about it willy-nilly.
Having said all that, I liked the book. Its not a treatise on veganism, but a cookbook, pure and simple. The book is broken down into chapters covering breakfast foods, soups, snacks, pasta, beans and grains, drinks, and more. Individual recipes average about a single page each, with some more complex recipes, like "tempeh croquettes with vegetables and rice," stretching to two full pages. Instructions are clear, and useful tips accompany each recipe. The recipe for peanut sesame soba noodles, for instance, includes information about what soba noodles are, and advice on how best to use and prepare fresh gingerroot and cilantro.
Naturally, I looked for pizza-related recipes. I found one for pizza with a crust made from chickpea flour (which I had never heard of), and another for pizza rolls using a gluten-free flour blend. 
The book is not fully illustrated, but there are two sections of full-page, full-color photographs. The index is well detailed.
I don't plan to go vegan anytime soon, and I don't think I'll ever be a fan of tofu or mushrooms. But if I can add some variety to my diet, in a healthful way, I'm all for it. Moroccan-style collard greens? Sweet potato, ginger and coconut soup? Sauteed vegetables with a three-chile blend? All sound good to me. So while, as a confirmed omnivore, I don't plan to try all, or maybe even most of the recipes in this book, there's enough here to keep me busy in the kitchen for some time. If you or anyone you know is a vegan, or considering veganism, this would be a useful volume to have around.

Vegan Everyday: 500 Delicious Recipes, by Douglas McNish
Paperback: 576 pages
Publisher: Robert Rose (May 15, 2015)

Book Review: Passion for Pizza

At the very beginning of Passion for Pizza:  A Journey through Thick and Thin to Find the Pizza Elite, authors Craig Whitson, Tore Gjestland, Mats Widen, and Kenneth Hansen ask the question, "Does the World Really Need Another Book About Pizza?" After reading their book, I agree with them that the answer is "yes."
A lot's been written about pizza, and given its popularity, the steady stream of books will continue for some time. So a book worth buying, and reading, had better have a fresh take on the subject.
The authors here have taken an unusual approach, dedicating the first half of the book to profiling over 60 "iconic" pizzerias in the U.S. and Italy, and the second half to over 50 recipes for making pizza at home, similar to what's produced by those pizzerias. It's a pretty entertaining read, even if it left me wanting a little more.
That first half consists mostly of interviews with pizzeria owners and pizzaioli, from well-known figures like Domenico DeMarco of Di Fara Pizza in Brooklyn to Scott Wiener, who has made a successful business out of conducting New York City "pizza tours," to pizza personalities who will be less well known to American readers, like Maria Cacialli, who, as a female pizzaiola, is relatively rare in Italy.
The interviews are concise but well-informed. They're not just a series of "what's your favorite style of pizza" questions. Along the same lines, while the book is well illustrated with color photographs, it's not all photos and no substance. Yes, you'll read about some of the interviewees' favorite styles, but you'll also learn about the personalities behind the pizzerias, their history, and the techniques they use. The interviews are interspersed with features on various pizza-related subjects, from ingredients, to reheating pizza, to what to drink with pizza
As much as I enjoyed the interviews (which got me thinking that I should do more of those for this blog), I was more interested in the recipes. I've got a shelf full of pizza books, but if you're like me and you like to cook, or bake in particular, it's never a bad thing to pick up more advice and ideas. While I wouldn't recommend this as a first book on how to make homemade pizza, if you have a little experience, the authors do a good job on explaining the process. I've long been interested in Chicago thin-crust style pizza, which few people outside of Chicago have even heard of, and the recipe here is well detailed and clearly laid out. I plan to give it a shot, with this book opened on my kitchen counter, in the near future.
Many of America's truly iconic pizzerias are covered here, but I was surprised to see New Haven, CT omitted in the interview section (although New Haven style pizza does appear in the recipe section). I've not been to New Haven, sad to say, but it has almost mythic status among American pizza lovers. I would've liked at least a brief feature on Connecticut pizza.
But the authors don't make any claim that this book is a comprehensive guide to pizza, American or otherwise. That's both a weakness and a strength. Passion for Pizza is a mixed bag, part overview of the pizza scene in the two most important pizza countries in the world, part cookbook, and part reflection of the authors' personal pizza-related experiences. It may not be your go-to book on all things pizza, but neither is it just another glossy, generic coffee-table book. There's enough here to keep any pizza lover occupied for many hours of happy reading, in the living room, den, or kitchen.

Passion for Pizza:  A Journey through Thick and Thin to Find the Pizza Elite. 286 pages. (c) 2015 Pizza Angels AS.

Book Review: Bob's Red Mill Everyday Gluten-Free Cookbook

As you might've guessed, I don't have a problem with gluten, but I know people who do. At some point "gluten free" became a diet trend, with some people unnecessarily avoiding gluten, but there are certainly people who legitimately need to avoid gluten in their diets.
So I was curious to take a look at Bob's Red Mill Everyday Gluten-Free Cookbook, from Robert Rose Publishing. While the title is a bit cumbersome, the name itself gave me some confidence, as Bob's Red Mill is a brand I've come to trust in my own baking, especially for typically hard-to-find grains. 
Logically enough, the book pretty much presumes that the reader wants to pursue a gluten-free diet, or at least to cut back on gluten. Other than a brief mention in the preface about how "[m]ore people than ever before are seeking ways to cut back on gluten or completely eliminate it from their diet," there's scant mention of whether or why you should do so.
But this is a cookbook, after all, not a treatise on the role of gluten in one's diet. And as a cookbook, it succeeds admirably.
The book starts with a primer on various gluten-free grains, such as amaranth, millet and quinoa, with some basic information on their origins, uses and cooking methods. That's followed by a rundown of items that should be in every gluten-free pantry (which for the most part aren't much different from what should be in any other pantry), and from there it's on to the recipes.
These are arranged thematically: "Breakfasts," "Soups, Stews and Chilis," "Salads and Sides," "Meatless Main Dishes," "Seafood, Poultry and Meat Main Dishes," "Breads, Muffins and Snacks," and "Desserts." The recipes are clearly laid out, and mostly pretty simple, with an average of three or four steps.
Surprisingly, there wasn't much here in the way of pizza, other than a "pizza quinoa casserole," which sounded good, if not particularly pizzalike.  I ended up more interested in some of the regional and ethnic dishes, like the Chinese-inspired pork, bok choy and millet hot pot, the Persian-spiced lentils and millet, and the Ethiopian injera (flatbread), which I've tried making before, rather unsuccessfully. It may be time to give it another go.
Not all of the 281 recipes are illustrated, but many are, with beautiful, full-page, full-color photographs. The index is comprehensive, which is helpful if you can't remember whether a particular dish was classified as a "side" or a "snack." And despite the name, the book is not one big ad for Bob's Red Mill; you won't find recipes calling for brand-specific products, and pretty much everything listed can be obtained at a good supermarket or natural foods store.
Health issues aside, I've enjoyed adding new grains to my diet and my cooking. Some of them are quite tasty, and as far as I'm concerned, the more variety the better. So while I don't see myself cutting back much on gluten, I'm looking forward to trying a number of the recipes in this book. But if you or a loved one are serious about avoiding gluten, for whatever reason, this volume would make a worthy addition to a kitchen bookshelf.

Book Review: Food Substitutions Bible

If you cook much, you know the feeling:  you get started, but then you go to your cupboard, spice rack or pantry, and a key ingredient is missing.
I know the basic rule of mise en place:  have everything ready to go, before you start. It makes eminent sense. I just don’t always do it. Or I try to do it, only to discover as I’m getting everything ready that I’m missing a key ingredient. And I may not have the time or desire to go to the store to get it.
So what’s a home cook to do? The best alternative, if it’s possible, is to come up with a substitute ingredient. Sure, for some things there are no easy substitutes, but if comes down to a teaspoon of coriander or oregano, there must be some way around it, right?
At that point, I tend to get online and start searching for substitutes. That’s fine, but it can be time-consuming, especially when you start to find contradictory advice.
So it’s nice to have an authoritative book on hand to answer these questions. And that’s why I was so happy to receive a complimentary review copy of The Food Substitutions Bible, by David Joachim.
Joachim is the co-author of The Science of Good Food, has won the International Association of Culinary Professionals award and been nominated for a James Beard award, and has been involved in the writing of more than thirty cookbooks. So he knows whereof he speaks, foodwise.
This is, literally, not a lightweight book. It runs close to 700 pages, and lists more than 6500 food and ingredient substitutions. For sheer comprehensiveness, it warrants the “bible” monker.
There are the basics, of course, like brown sugar, eggs, and evaporated milk. But the book goes well beyond that. One of the pleasures of thumbing through this book has been to read about the myriad ingredients I’d never even heard of, like Bryndza, cupuaçu, and kefalotyri. Get familiar with these terms, and you’ll be a Scrabble champion in no time.
The list is not limited to ingredients, either. There are also entries about equipment, like rice cookers, electric mixers, and cheesecloth.
If that’s not enough, there are several excellent appendices. These include sections on measurement equivalents, and ingredient guides covering coffee, chiles, rice and other kitchen staples. One of the handiest is the guide to pan size equivalents, so you’ll quickly know, without needing a calculator and geometry formulas, whether your rectangular cake pan holds more or less than the round pan called for by the recipe.
I keep my cookbooks in a couple of places, with my frequent go-to books close at hand, and the “occasional” books on a shelf further from my stove. (Anything below “occasional” gets given away to my local library for their book sale.) This one’s going on the go-to shelf. It’s terrific.

The Food Substitutions Bible, by David Joachim
Paperback: 696 pages
Publisher: Robert Rose; (2nd ed.)

Book Review: Pizza: A Slice of American History, and a Giveaway!

I recently received a review copy of Pizza:  A Slice of American History, by Liz Barrett. Actually I received two copies:  one for my bookshelf, where it is going to remain, and one to give away to one lucky reader.
And I do mean a lucky reader, because this is a terrific book. Barrett, who's an editor at PMQ Pizza Magazine, and the author of EatingOxford.com, has written one of the best all-around books on pizza I've come across.
There are some recipes and cooking tips in here, but it's not a cookbook as such. This is a broad-based exploration of pizza, its history and its place in our culture.
Barrett got my attention on the very first page of her text, where she writes about her memory of her first taste of pizza. I can't say that I remember my first pizza, but I do have fond memories of the pizzas of my childhood, which I suspect is true of many pizza lovers.
From there, Barrett provides a capsule summary of pizza history, and she then canvasses all the major styles, from the biggies like Neapolitan, Sicilian, and deep-dish, to less common styles such as New England Greek pizza and Ohio Valley pizza, which I'd never even heard of before. Our upstate neighbor Utica also gets a mention for its contribution to the development of "tomato pie."
There are also chapters on pizza crust, cheese, ovens, side dishes and beverage pairings, and even a movie trivia quiz. You'll find interviews with several prominent pizza experts, like author and baker Peter Reinhart, and Adam Kuban, the founder of Slice, America's foremost pizza blog. The text is accompanied throughout by both color and historic black-and-white photographs, and even a few New Yorker cartoons.
After receiving the book, I emailed Liza a few questions, to conduct a kind of virtual interview. Here they are, with her responses.

Have you tried all the styles you describe in the book?

- I've tried all of the main styles and most of the styles mentioned in the "More Pizza Styles" chapter. There are still a few from that chapter I need to experience.

Do you have any particular pizza goals on your to-do list (places to go, styles to try etc.)?
- There are dozens of pizzerias I still have on my list, but specific styles I'd still like to try include the grilled pizza at Al Forno in Providence Rhode Island, and the Colorado-style Mountain Pie at Beau Jo's in Colorado.

Based on all your travels, what would you say is the best city for pizza? Is there one city or pizzeria that should be on every pizza lover's bucket list?
- New York City is definitely the place to go if you want to try several styles of pizza, and really feel the history of pizza in America. Just strolling down a street in New York you can smell the pizzas cooking. Walking into one of the order-at-the-counter pizzerias and seeing the pizza maker tossing the dough and sliding the pies into the oven...there's nothing else like it in the world. On the same block, you can try New York-style, Sicilian, Grandma, Tomato Pie, Neapolitan and more. Whenever I want to just immerse myself in pizza, I always head to New York.

You wrote a little about your background, but how did you end up in pizza journalism?
- It was really by accident. I moved from Los Angeles to Oxford, Mississippi, in 2006, with plans for some laid-back southern living. But after about of year of freelancing, I got a little restless and wanted something else to do. That's when I picked up the paper and saw the ad for an associate editor at PMQ Pizza Magazine. Within three months I took over the editor-in-chief position. After five wonderful years, I hired the talented Rick Hynum as our managing editor, hoping that he would eventually replace me. When he did in 2012, I became PMQ's part-time editor-at-large, freeing up time for projects such as Pizza: A Slice of American History.

I've often said that to me, great pizza is all about balance:  among the different components, the crispness and chewiness of the crust, and so on. And that came to mind in reading this book. It balances history with recipes, interviews, pop culture, and great illustrations. Pizza: A Slice of American History is a fun yet informative read, that belongs on the bookshelf of any serious pizza lover.

Here's your chance to add it to your own bookshelf, for free. I'll be giving away one copy of Pizza: A Slice of American History, totally free, to one reader of this blog.

Same as always, to enter, simply leave a comment here, following this blog post. You need not leave your full name and address now, but you cannot leave a purely anonymous comment. If you win, I will need to get the book to you, so I will need your name and mailing address at that time.

I will pick a winner at random one week from this coming Friday, in other words, on Friday, October 17, 2014, a little after noon. I will post the winner here, on Facebook, and on Twitter. IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO CHECK AND SEE IF YOU'VE WON. You can send me your email address now if you'd like, at rocpizzaguy@gmail.com, or include it in your comment, and if you do, I'll email you directly if you win. Otherwise, you must check back here on October 17 to see if you've won. And remember, emailing me will not get you entered. You must leave a comment here to enter.

If you're reading this blog, you must like pizza. So you'll like this book. If you don't win, it's available on Amazon (click on the photo above to go straight there). Let the comments begin!

Book Review: 125 Best Chicken Recipes

If there's one standby meat in American kitchens, it's probably chicken. I like beef, I like fish and seafood, pork, and the occasional vegetarian dish. But chicken is reliable, versatile, and relatively inexpensive.
So the more ways I can find to cook chicken, the better. I was glad, then, to get a copy of 125 Best Chicken Recipes from publisher Robert Rose. 
Author Rose Murray, who has been writing about food for over forty years, has put together a compendium of recipes covering just about every edible part of the chicken, using a variety of techniques.
Like other Robert Rose cookbooks, this is laid out logically and simply, informative but easy to follow. A brief introduction covers the basics of cooking chicken, including kitchen tools, ingredients, and cooking techniques.
From there, the book moves on to the recipes. You'll find everything from wing recipes to soups, roasts, one-dish meals, and grilling.
Most recipes occupy a single page, with clearly laid-out ingredients and steps, as well as useful side notes and tips. The index is also very user-friendly and complete.
This book was a useful eye-opener. I've cooked a lot of chicken over the years, but I have found myself going back time and again to the same old dishes. And yes, I can go online to search for recipes, but again if you do that, you're apt to come up with the same things every time:  roast chicken, southern fried, cacciatore, and so on.
This book offers a lot more. The basics are all here, but so are dishes that I would either not have thought of on my own, or not known how to prepare if I did, like Moroccan baked chicken, orange-rosemary glazed chicken breasts, and grilled chicken satay with coconut-peanut sauce. But even the most exotic recipes are presented simply, in a manner that any average home cook can handle.
If you'd like to expand your chicken repertoire, 125 Best Chicken Recipes is a fine resource. You'll be pleasantly surprised at how much more you can get out of this humble bird.

125 Best Chicken Recipes by Rose Murray. 191 pp. Robert Rose Inc. © 1999, 2003, 2014

Book Review: 300 best Stir-Fry recipes

(Note: the book that is the subject of this review was provided to me by the publisher for free. I received no other compensation for this review.)
I consider myself a pretty decent cook, and I like Chinese food, but I've never mastered the art of stir frying. I get the general idea, which is to cook one or more ingredients, put them off to the side, and then cook more, so that everything comes together at the right moment of doneness. I just have never had a great feel for which ingredients go in when, and I usually end up with everything cooking together at the bottom of the wok, which defeats the whole purpose of using a wok.
So this book, 300 best Stir-Fry recipes, is a welcome addition to my kitchen bookshelf.  It provides a good overview of stir-fry cooking, and a wealth of recipes.
This is more a recipe collection than a how-to guide. There is a brief but useful introduction with a glossary of ingredients and equipment, but most of the instruction is contained within the recipes themselves.
The recipes are well written and clear. And that's probably all that's needed, since the techniques of stir-frying aren't that difficult; it's mostly a matter of knowing what to add when.
The recipes are broken down into chapters based on the main ingredient:  chicken, beef, pork, shrimp, and so on, with additional chapters on fried rice, noodles, and various sides. Many of the recipes are, of course, Asian, or Asian-inspired, like five-spice pork with bok choy and green onions, and Singapore-style noodles with vegetables in curry sauce. But there are a lot of other recipes that marry other cuisines with stir frying, like green beans and hominy with country-style sausage, and a leftover Thanksgiving turkey stir-fry that includes cranberry sauce. There are also quite a few meat-free recipes, with and without tofu (I'm not a fan of tofu, but the other vegetarian recipes look tempting).
Like other cookbooks from this publisher, the recipes are accompanied by useful tips on food preparation, ingredients, kitchen techniques, and so on. Two sections of full-color photographs are another plus.
Author Nancie McDermott's relationship with Thailand began with three years she spent there as a Peace Corps volunteer. Since then she has gone on to write several cookbooks and is a frequent contributor to prominent food-related publications. Her expertise comes through well here, as she provides concise, easy-to-follow directions. With the help of this book I hope to finally get some good use out of that wok on my shelf.
300 best Stir-Fry recipes
Nancie McDermott, author
352 pages
Robert Rose ©2007

Book Review: The 250 Best Cookie Recipes and The 250 Best Brownies Bars & Squares

I have been consistently impressed with the cookbooks I've gotten from Robert Rose, and here are two more winners:  the 250 best cookie recipes, and the 250 best brownie bars & squares.
Sure, you can go online and find recipes; I do it all the time. But it can be time-consuming to sift through them, and often the comments and reviews aren't very useful--somebody is sure to say that they substituted one ingredient for another and changed the oven temperature and cooking time, and then they base their review on that. And for me, if you do a lot of a certain type of cooking, it's nice to have a book handy in your kitchen.
What I like about these books is that they're well-organized, concise, easy to follow, and well illustrated. One trend these days is cookbooks that are dominated by the chef/author's personality, like a cross between a recipe collection and a group of essays. That's fine, but sometimes I just want good recipes. And that's what these books deliver.
The cookie book includes an introductory section on making cookies, with tips on ingredients, mixing, baking and storing. The bulk of the book is taken up by recipes, organized according to cookie type:  drop cookies, sliced, sandwich, and more. The recipes are concise and easy to follow, and though not every recipe is illustrated, there are two sections of excellent color photographs. In addition to the introduction, baking tips are interspersed throughout.
The same format is found in the 250 best brownie bars & squares. The introduction covers how to melt and store chocolate, troubleshooting baking problems, and other basics. The book goes on to cover bars and squares based on chocolate, coconut, fruit, and nuts, plus frostings and glazes and no-bake varieties. You want a basic brownie? It's here in four steps. Want something a little more impressive, if just as easy? How about spicy oatmeal bars with citrus glaze? You'll find them here. And again, the book is well-organized and helpfully laid out with easy-to-follow recipes.
Most of my baking is centered on bread and pizza, but I do like to bake the occasional dessert for family or guests, or a batch of cookies or brownies to share with coworkers. I am pleased to add these volumes to my bookshelf, to give me ideas and simple instructions next time I'm feeling like baking some sweet treats.

Book Review: 150 Best Desserts in a Jar

Until recently, I was unfamiliar with the concept of dessert in a jar, but apparently it's a trend. And as trends go, it's not a bad one.
There's nothing new, I guess, about layered desserts, like parfaits, served in glass containers. So this is just an offshoot of that. The nice thing about it is that they present well, are fairly easy to make, and lend themselves to individual servings, so they're good when you have guests. There's also something less intimidating about making several individual desserts than trying to tackle one large dessert, where one mistake can doom the entire thing.
As a guide to this culinary species, 150 Best Desserts in a Jar is probably as good a guide as you're likely to find. Author Andrea Jordan, a food writer and cookbook author with 25-plus years of experience, takes the reader through "warm and comforting" desserts - think puddings, custards and cakes - through chilled treats like trifles, panna cotta, and, yes, parfaits. You'll find "adult" desserts like the inelegantly named but intriguing "strawberry, basil and vodka whiz," kid-friendly desserts like a peanut butter and chocolate cup, and one of my all-time favorites, tiramisu. There are also plenty of fruit-based desserts, which are perfect for our upcoming fresh-produce season.
As I've found with other Robert Rose publications, this book is well organized and illustrated, and the recipes are easy to follow. The bulk of its pages are devoted to recipes - not a lot of filler here - but the sidebars are given over to helpful tips and brief comments by the author. If you're tired of the same old chocolate cakes and apple pies, or would like to find some new use for all those Mason jars in your basement, 150 Best Desserts in a Jar is a fine source of ideas.
150 Best Desserts in a Jar
Andrea Jourdan, author
224 pages
© 2013, Robert Rose

Book Review: Easy Indian Cooking

There are certain ethnic cuisines that I just have to go back to now and again, and Indian is one of them. When I think of Indian food, I think of intoxicating blends of spices and other ingredients that yield complex, yet complementary blends of flavors and aromas that are a delight to the senses.
Probably like most Americans, though, my experience of Indian cooking has mostly been limited to Indian restaurants; I rarely attempt to cook Indian food at home. So I gladly accepted a review copy of Easy Indian Cooking from publisher Robert Rose.
Author Suneeta Vaswani, a native and (after some years spent in Houston, Texas) resident of Mumbai, knows her stuff, as is evident from the many tips found in the sidebars to the recipes. The book covers a gamut of Indian cuisine, from street foods to breads, meat- and vegetable-based main dishes, chutneys and sweets.
For the most part, the recipes are kept fairly simple, and though the ingredient lists can be long, there's generally nothing in them that you couldn't pick up at Wegmans, or at one of Rochester's Indian groceries, like this one or this one or this one.
You'll find Indian-restaurant staples like tandoori and pork vindaloo, as well as less familiar and vegetarian dishes, such as mussels in cilantro broth, potatoes with fenugreek leaves, and creamy broccoli curry. Not surprisingly, there aren't a lot of beef dishes here. When beef does appear, it's usually as an alternative to lamb, which is what you're more likely to find in Indian cooking, but if you want to use beef, the lamb recipes are easily adaptable.
As a home baker, and a lover of the flatbreads that you can get at Indian restaurants, I was especially interested in those recipes. The chapter on "Rice, Cereal and Breads" contains recipes for various Indian breads, but they're mostly either griddle- or deep-fried breads. Oven-baked breads are not to be found here. But any good, general baking cookbook should have recipes for those, and their absence is more than compensated for by the wealth of other Indian dishes found within these pages. Contrary to some people's impressions, Indian food is not all spicy hot, but I'm a pepperhead, and I was pleased to see recipes like "Fiery Fish," which Vaswani cautions is "not for the faint-hearted." Don't worry, you'll be able to cool your palate with a mango lassi or cucumber raita.
With 150 recipes, Easy Indian Cooking offers plenty to keep lovers of Indian food busy in their kitchens for a long time. And if you're a novice in this area, it makes for a good, user-friendly introduction to one of the world's great cuisines. 
Easy Indian Cooking, by Suneeta Vaswani. Robert Rose (2d ed. 2013). Paperback, 240 pp.

Book Review: Championship BBQ Secrets for Real Smoked Food

Certain foods tend to inspire more passion in people than others. Pizza is a perfect example, but barbecue is right up there too. And although pizza is my particular food passion, I do love good barbecue. In fact I've toyed with the idea of expanding this blog, or creating a companion blog, to cover the local BBQ scene.
And I do take a stab at barbecuing at home every now and again. The results have generally been good, but it's a difficult art to master, if you really want to do it right.
I'm one of those people who, when they get into something, do research and read up on it, so they can get better at it. And so over the years I've amassed a small library of books on barbecuing.
The latest addition to my BBQ bookshelf is Championship BBQ Secrets for Real Smoked Food, by Karen Putnam and Judith Fertig. I recently received a review copy from publisher Robert Rose.
This is mostly a recipe book - over 80% of its 405 pages are devoted to recipes - but it starts off with a concise overview of BBQ basics, including various types of ovens and smokers, wood and other heat and smoke sources, and hot vs. cold smoking. The authors also offer advice for those planning to enter BBQ competitions, although with a few exceptions (such as choosing a team name), most of the advice relates to techniques that would be useful for the noncompetitive, home barbecuer as well.
One thing about the book that I particularly like is a section covering the basic process for various types of meat, such as pork ribs, beef brisket and chicken, accompanied by full-color photos. Those instructions then form the template, on which you can build by using the more detailed instructions for the individual recipes which follow. Those recipes cover everything from rubs and sauces to every kind of meat and cut you're likely to run across, and a few that you're not (cold-smoked ostrich, anyone?), as well as vegetables, fruits, cheese and nuts. Not every recipe is illustrated, but a color photo section does provide representative pictures from each chapter.
Karen Putnam clearly knows her stuff - she's got some BBQ world championships on her resume - and Judith Fertig presents the recipes clearly and simply.
This isn't the most comprehensive book on the subject that I've got, but not everybody wants or needs an 800-page tome every time they cook. Championship BBQ Secrets is thorough enough for all but the most hard-core BBQer, it's well organized, and it's easy to read. If I had to choose only one of my BBQ books to keep, that would be a very difficult decision to make. But as a solid manual on the art of barbecuing, with enough recipes and ideas to interest even an experienced 'cuer, this would not be a bad choice.
Book Title: Championship BBQ Secrets for Real Smoked Food
Authors: Karen Putnam and Judith Fertig
Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Robert Rose (2nd ed. April 2, 2013)

Book Review: Kids in the Kitchen Cookbook

I was recently given a review copy of the TIME for Kids Kids in the Kitchen Cookbook:  Fun Recipes for Kids to Make! That's a long-winded title for a book that comes in at a relatively modest 160 pages, but it's a good starter cookbook for kids who are learning their way around the kitchen.
My nine-year-old daughter has recently taken on some cooking duties, and the recipes in this book are well designed for someone her age. The 80+ dishes here will generally appeal to kids, such as sloppy Joe sliders, quesadilla treats, and chocolate chip cookies. And there are more healthful but kid-friendly dishes like "broccoli trees" with Parmesan and "frushi" (fruit sushi). You'll even find a few ethnic dishes like Mexican posole soup and soba noodles with sweet & spicy shrimp.
Ingredient lists are short, typically no more than ten items long, with many coming in at six or fewer. And the instructions are likewise short, simple and easy to follow. A brief introduction covers some kitchen basics, like food safety and how to measure ingredients.
Each recipe is accompanied by a full-color photograph, and additional tips and food trivia are provided in the sidebars. One especially good feature of this book is its spiral binding, which allows the pages to lie flat for easy reference during food prep and cooking.
My daughter was excited to get this book, and it wasn't long before she prepared some very tasty chicken fingers (artfully plated in the photo) for our dinner. I'm looking forward to her taking on one of the pizza-related entries, such as Margherita panini, globe-trotter pizzas (made with English muffins), or pizza sticks (made with refrigerated pizza crust).
Yes, a lot of the recipes do call for prepared ingredients. But this is for kids, after all. The recipes, which run the gamut from breakfast to lunch, dinner, dessert and snacks, are complex enough to give kids the satisfaction of having genuinely prepared and cooked a dish (as opposed to just putting something in the microwave, or making a cold sandwich), without making them feel intimidated or overwhelmed. If you know a budding young chef, this book would make a fine gift, and a good stepping stone in his or her culinary education.
TIME for Kids Kids in the Kitchen Cookbook:  Fun Recipes for Kids to Make! (TIME for Kids Books 2013). 160 pp. $19.95 US, $21.95 Can.

Book Review: the 8-week Healthy Skin diet

I was recently sent a review copy of The 8-Week Healthy Skin Diet by Karen Fischer. I'm frankly not particularly skin-conscious, but most women seem to be, and my wife is no exception, so she was eager to take a look at this book.
The best and most honest endorsement I can give this volume is to tell you that she loves it. After adopting several of the recommendations contained in the book, my wife tells me that her skin is smoother, softer, and not as dry as before. She even tried some of the suggestions (like eliminating dairy foods) on our daughter, who had been having a problem with dry skin on her hands, and sure enough that cleared up too.
One of the things my wife especially liked about the book is that it lays out a clear scientific basis for its advice. And it does contain a lot of information about the underlying science, explaining the meaning and importance of pH, different types of fats, proteins, UV light and more.
The book is well organized, and despite the title, it's more than just a dietary plan. There's a discussion of different skin types, general guidelines for maintaining healthy skin, and specialized programs for particular issues like acne, dandruff and children's skin problems.
The final third of the book is taken up with Fischer's healthy skin diet program, including over 100 pages of recipes. No pizza, I'm afraid, but as long as you're OK with cheese-free pizza, I think you'd be within her dietary guidelines.
Am I following Fischer's program? No. But as I said, I'm a guy, and an old-school guy at that. Unless I have an obvious problem, my skin is not something I give much thought to, even though it is the largest organ in the human body. But my resident expert raves about this book, and is planning to buy copies as gifts for her girlfriends (who I hope aren't reading this). That's a strong recommendation, as far as I'm concerned.
The 8-Week Healthy Skin Diet, by Karen Fischer. Robert Rose, Inc. (2013). 480 pp.

Book Review: The Complete Gluten-Free Whole-Grains Cookbook

Gluten-free eating has become something of a trend, but there are certainly those for whom it's necessary. I'm glad I'm not one of them, but sufferers of celiac disease would do themselves a favor by picking up a copy of The Complete Gluten-Free Whole Grains Cookbook: 125 Delicious Recipes from Amaranth to Quinoa to Wild Rice, by Judith Finlayson. This 224-page book opens with a primer on what gluten is, why it matters (to some people), and the various alternative grains that are out there.
The bulk of the book consists of recipes, arranged according to to the type of dish in question, from breads and brakfast foods to main dishes, soups, sides and desserts. An appendix of diabetes food values and a thorough index round out the volume.
The recipes are well thought out, from basics like fritters and arroz con pollo to quinoa-based stews and jambalaya made with Job's tears, a grain you're sure to be seeing more of soon. Although Finlayson explains why she chose particular grains for the individual recipes, it seems to me that other grains could be substituted in many of them with equally successful results.
To her credit, Finlayson doesn't devote much space to recipes that try to imitate wheat; there is one recipe for gluten-free pizza crust, but for the most part, the recipes put the grains called for to best use, by taking advantage of their unique flavors and textures rather than trying to come up with a wheat substitute. The book is also well illustrated with full-page color photos, and helpful tips and nutritional info accompany each recipe.
I know a family friend with celiac disease, and I'll be passing along my copy of this book to her. If you or anyone you know suffers from this condition, this is a great, information-packed volume with plenty of ideas for gluten-free, flavorful dishes.
The Complete Gluten-Free Whole Grains Cookbook: 125 Delicious Recipes from Amaranth to Quinoa to Wild Rice [Paperback] by Judith Finlayson. Pub. by Robert Rose (January 17, 2013)

Book Review: Back of the House

While the concept of selling prepared food to customers probably dates back at least as far as the ancient Romans, the modern restaurant is generally thought to have originated in late 18th-century France. Over the ensuing centuries, the restaurant has mutated into many different forms, from the humble "family" restaurant to the world-class places that most of us will never set foot in.
Somewhere along the line, the chef went from being merely "a skilled cook who manages the kitchen" - Webster's definition - to a celebrity in his or her own right, who rarely gets involved anymore in the act of cooking. 
Television and other mass media undoubtedly contributed to this trend, inasmuch as they have caused an explosion of our consumerist and celebrity culture. Undoubtedly, most Americans remain unaffected by this phenomenon, and don't care who's doing the cooking as long as the fries are hot and crisp. For some of us, though (and I don't count myself among them) it's no longer enough to go to a great restaurant - you have to see, if not have your meal prepared by, the chef, who's the real star of the show. Those of us who can't afford it, but who are still intrigued by the celebrity-chef culture, will make do with TV shows featuring said chefs, frozen meals bearing their names, and perhaps an occasional visit to restaurants nominally run by them in vacation spots like Orlando and Las Vegas.
The apotheosis of the chef has had the ironic effect of distancing many chefs from the ostensible reason for their fame:  the food. It's hard to get much cooking done when you're busy running a restaurant empire. And it's also led to the elevation to chef status of people who probably don't know much more about cooking than you or I do, but whose looks and personalities are more telegenic than ours (or mine, anyway).
But there are still great, dedicated chefs out there, and one of them is the focus of Back of the House:  The Secret Life of a Restaurant, by Scott Haas. Haas, who, interestingly, is both a food writer and a clinical psychologist, spent a year and a half in the kitchen - or wherever else he wanted to go - of Craigie on Main, a Boston restaurant headed by James Beard Award-winner Tony Maws. Maws gave Haas virtually unlimited access to all areas and employees of the restaurant, allowing him to observe the dynamics of running a successful, high-end restaurant, and to get to know the employees both as individuals and as part of a team.
At least, the ideal is that they would operate as a team. Haas repeatedly comments upon the dysfunctional nature of the staff at Craigie on Main, a problem that he lays at the feet of Chef Maws. As Haas sees it, Maws is a culinary visionary, with his own, unique concepts about food, but Maws never seems able to transmit those ideas to his staff, or willing to trust them with executing what he has in mind. The result is high turnover, frustrated employees, and frequent outbursts of anger from Maws, interspersed with periods - or at least moments - when the kitchen is hitting on all cylinders, like a well-oiled machine. In the end, despite all the difficulties, it's clear that for many of the players in this drama, Craigie on Main is a de facto family, albeit an exceptionally screwed-up one. 
Back of the House was a quick, and mostly entertaining read, but at times I found myself wondering what the point of it all was. I can't say that it's an insider's guide about what "really" goes on in a restaurant kitchen, because the idiosyncratic nature of Craigie on Main means that what went on during the year and a half that Haas spent there was to a great extent unique to that restaurant. As Haas himself notes, he realized early on that "Tony's story was unique."
But looking at Back of the House as simply the story of one particular restaurant, during one particular stretch of time, I'm not sure that the story was compelling enough to carry the book. I ended up with a good sense of what life and work were like at this one restaurant, but I wasn't sure why I was supposed to care. 
The one thing that seemed to propel Haas was his quest to understand what motivated Maws. Maybe that's a product of Haas's background in psychology, but he seemed driven to figure out what makes Maws tick, why he chose to become a chef, and why he runs the restaurant the way that he does. I found Haas's analysis generally interesting, but again, I never quite became as fully invested in the subject as Haas himself obviously was.
One thing I did take away from the book was a sense of how intense and serious the restaurant business can be. I've never read Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, but I've read enough about it to know that it contains passages of drugs, sex and general debauchery. You'll find none - well, almost none - of that here; at one point in the book, an employee struggles with a heroin addiction, and sex comes up only tangentially, when two of the employees become romantically involved, which does not sit well with Maws. But the business of the kitchen, as recorded in Back of the House, is all business, which tells us something, I suppose, about the changed culture of today compared with the drug-soaked era in which Bourdain came of age, as well as the highly competitive, money-driven nature of the restaurant business, at the stratospheric level at which a place like Craigie on Main operates. When customers are routinely dropping hundreds of dollars for a single meal, which they expect to be among the finest available on the planet, there's no room and no tolerance for back-room shenanigans, of any kind.
While I love good food, I can't call myself a true "foodie," and at times Maas's chef- and restaurant-namedropping (Wylie Dufresne, Heston Blumenthal, L'Espalier, Chez Panisse, to name a few), and his casual use of esoteric food terms (yuzu, cotechino) left me feeling like one of the clueless diners at Craigie on Main who are there because they've heard it's good, but who frankly don't get it, and who reflexivlely order the one thing on the menu they've heard of and feel comfortable with - the hamburger (which drives Chef Maws to such distraction that he ends up taking it off the main menu). 
But the mark of a good book is that you want to keep reading it, and I did. I got to know, vicariously, Maws and several members of his staff, and I wanted to know where things would end up. Would Maws's autocratic, unpredictable ways prove his undoing, or would the staff finally learn how to work together? And while I didn't learn any great, hitherto secret bits of arcane knowledge about the restaurant business, I did come away with more respect and appreciation for the sheer work that goes on to put an attractive, palate-pleasing plate of food on my table when I dine out.