Pizza: Any Way You Slice It! [Hardcover]

Michele Scicolone (Author), Charles Scicolone (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 20, 1998

Can't resist the warm, enticing aroma of a perfect homemade pizza with a crisp crust topped with creamy mozzarella and juicy tomatoes? Now you can become an expert pizza maker using Charles and Michele Scicolone's Pizza--Any Way You Slice It.  Their simple techniques and 100 innovative recipes will have you making top-quality, authentic pizza right in your own kitchen.

Inspired by a trip to Naples, the birthplace of pizza, Charles and Michele became determined to find ways to duplicate their favorite dish at home.  Charles, who didn't even know the difference between a teaspoon and a tablespoon, had to start from the beginning.  He made pizza after pizza, and soon Charles, who had never cooked anything in his life, was able to make perfect pizza from scratch.  Friends were amazed not just by how good Charles's pizzas were, but by how simple his techniques were.

Now, after mastering the art of making pizza, the Scicolones share their easy-to-follow tips and shortcuts: from mixing, kneading, and shaping the dough to choosing the right toppings.  Pizza--Any Way You Slice It includes Italian classics, such as Pizza Margherita (tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil) and Florentine Pizza (with spinach), and pizza American style, with favorites like Chicago Sausage and Cheese Deep-Dish Pie and New Haven White Clam Pizza.  And there are easy recipes for unique stuffed pizzas, Italian regional pizzas, focaccia, and flatbreads--something for every taste.

Rounding out this comprehensive pizza book are recipes for pizza accompaniments, pizza history and trivia, a suggested wine list, and a list of the Scicolones' favorite pizzerias in the United States and Italy.  With Pizza--Any Way You Slice It, you're just one recipe away from perfect pizza at home.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Pizza--the tender-crisp crust, savory tomato topping, and bubbling, toothsome cheese. And the trip to the pizzeria--until now. With unprecedented clarity, Charles and Michele Scicolone's Pizza: Any Way You Slice It provides the step-by-step basics and 100 recipes to make authentic pizza, focaccia, and calzones at home. The Scicolones' explicit instructions, tips, and shortcuts--plus precise illustrations--make mixing, kneading, and shaping the dough--as well as preparing toppings--remarkably easy. Even timid cooks will find themselves achieving toasty crusts that balance crispness and chewiness perfectly (hint: a little flour sprinkled on the baking stone adds smoky flavor) and toppings that far surpass the pizzeria's in freshness and taste.

The recipes are international. Traveling from Palermo to Chicago, from Naples to Brooklyn, the Scicolones have gathered recipes for such classics as Pizza Margherita (made with tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil) and Spicy Pizza Marinara; new Italian favorites including Eggplant Parmesan Pizza and Pizza with Prosciutto and Arugula; and American pies such as Garlic and Cheese Pizza Bianca and Chicago Deep-Dish Pizza with Sausage and Cheese. Among the focaccia and other flatbread recipes is a must-make focaccia studded with pancetta and rosemary. Included also are suggestions for starters, salads, and side dishes, as well as wine and beer suggestions. Color photos present the pies in all their glory (and profile the all-important crusts), and there's a glossary of necessary equipment and ingredients. In Pizza: Any Way You Slice It, the Scicolones have included everything a pizza-lover needs to start baking beautiful homemade pies. --Arthur Boehm

Review

"I have long admired Michele's work, because her passion for Italian cooking leaps from the pages.  Now Michele and Charles have written a gem of a little book, Pizza, which should keep pizza lovers happily in the kitchen for weeks."
--Biba Caggiano, Biba Restaurant, author of Italy al Dente

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Clarkson Potter; 1 edition (October 20, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0767901479
• ISBN-13: 978-0767901475
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #876,273 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #74 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Baking > Pizza

More About the Author

MICHELE SCICOLONE

Michele Scicolone is an award winning food writer and the author of 17 cookbooks. Her latest book, THE FRENCH SLOW COOKER was published in January 2012. It is a collection of classic French recipes adapted for use in the electric slow cooker (Crock Pot). Dorie Greenspan, author of Around My French Table wrote, "I'd bet that if French cooks could get their hands on Michele Scicolone's FRENCH SLOW COOKER, which is filled with smart, practical and convenient recipes, they'd never let it go."

Michele's previous book THE ITALIAN SLOW COOKER, was published in January 2010 and immediately became a bestseller. She was also one of the editors of the 75th Anniversary edition of the classic, Joy of Cooking, and writes about food, wine, and travel for many publications, including Every Day with Rachael Ray, Prevention, The Washington Post, The Wine Spectator, Gourmet, and Bon Appetit. Previous books include The BLT Cookbook with Chef Laurent Tourondel, The Sopranos Family Cookbook, a #1 New York Times Best Seller that was published in 9 languages and a sequel, Entertaining with the Sopranos, both co-authored with Allen Rucker. She has also written 1000 Italian Recipes, and Pizza--Anyway You Slice It!, co-authored with her husband Charles Scicolone, an Italian wine (and pizza) authority.

Michele's television appearances include Emeril Live, The CBS Morning Show, Good Morning America, and Cooking Live with Sara Moulton, as well as many local television and radio programs She teaches cooking at schools around the country including De Gustibus at Macy's, Sur la Table, and the Institute for Culinary Education and is a consultant to many restaurants. Michele has been a spokesperson for the Italian Trade Commission and Williams Sonoma, and lecturer on Italian culture and cuisine at Hofstra and Henderson State Universities, and The Smithsonian Institute. Michele is also a consultant for several restaurants and food companies.

Together with her husband, Michele hosts culinary tours to Italy several times a year. Visit her website at www.MicheleScicolone.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pizza: Home-Made and Why It Should Be, May 4, 2001

By 

Bill Marsano (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pizza: Any Way You Slice It (Easy Recipes for Great Homemade Pizzas, Focaccia, and Calzones) (Paperback)

With pizza parlors strewn like confetti through even small American cities and several national chains offering home delivery, why would you make you own?

Because that's probably the only way you'll get a good one short of going to Italy. Most American pizza is awful--topped with tasteless "pepperoni," dotted with the synthetic glop the USDA calls "cheese-type food product."

So get Charles and Michele Scicolone's book and get to work. I only wish they'd written it sooner: I spent several years trying to figure out how to make a decent pizza without their help. Let me tell you it was a long, involved, expensive and frequently messy process. The results, in the end were excellent--except for the dough, which I could never get quite right. The Scicolones have solved that problem by doing real research in the field--by which I mean IN ITALY. As a result they recommend mixing regular flour witha certain amount of cake flour. Cake flour (the stuff used by pastry chefs, not the self-rising stuff) is softer than regular bread flour and the blend of the two types produces a soft, stretchy, easily worked dough that gives superb results.

Another reason for making your own pizza, by the way,is that it's a lot of fun. Get this book and try it.--Bill Marsano

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars it won't produce your ordinary pizza, March 24, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Pizza: Any Way You Slice It! (Hardcover)

The recipes in this book won't produce the type of pizza you are used to seeing and tasting from Pizza Hut. If you are looking for a healthier, more authentic version, you will enjoy and use this book. Yes, you will need a pizza stone. I bought this book and a pizza stone at the same time, excited about what my results would produce. The crust turned out perfectly on my very first try. The recipes are easy to follow and the results leave you with a beautiful creation. The book's chapters include, ingredients and equipment you will need, pizza dough, neapolitan pizza, american pizza, filled pizzas, calzoni and turnovers, regional italian pizzas and flat breads, focaccia, antipasti and accompaniments, what wines to serve with pizza, a list of the author's favorite pizzerias, and mail sources for those items you may not be able to find in your area. Try the margherita pizza, the focaccio and the deep dishes. They're fantastic. Our particular favorites are follonico's summer seafood pizza and the pancetta and rosemary focaccia. The results are wonderful because the recipes call for the freshest ingredients you can find. Our favorite part of the book, however, is the trivia interspersed about the book filled with the history of pizza and the people who love it!

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delicious, Healthy Pizza From Your Oven, March 20, 2004

By 

Peter A. Farrell (San Mateo, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pizza: Any Way You Slice It (Easy Recipes for Great Homemade Pizzas, Focaccia, and Calzones) (Paperback)

This is a very accessible, thorough book on how to make great pizza (and other Italian breads) from scratch at home.

I echo the sentiments about American pizza in Bill Marsano's review; I grew up buying soggy, greasy pizza, and I swore off that kind of junk in order to eat more healthy. But when you make your own pizza, you can control how much cheese and meat you put on it. Using the recipes from this book, your pizza will taste better than anything you can buy and no pizza joint can deliver the feeling of accomplishment that comes when your efforts get better and better.

Every week I make pizza using the recipes for dough and sauce from this book. Friday has become homemade pizza night at our house, and even my notoriously picky 7 year old nephew devours our pizza. The "pizza maker's sauce" (p. 67) drew raves from our guests when we used it on pasta. The dough recipes are flexible: the pizzas in the pictures have thick crusts, which is the way my family likes it. If you want thinner, crispier crusts, simply roll the dough thinner.

The book contains recipes to approximate authentic Italian pizzas using American flour. Being brought up in the US I wouldn't know authentic Italian pizza any more than I'd know authentic Indian food, but the Scicolones traveled to Italy for a taste of the real thing. So if you're a purist, it's all here, including recommendations for quality pizza joints worldwide.