We're making a little movie about pizza margherita and it's going change your life.

Greetings from the Delta SkyClub at MSY--the airport formally known as Louis B. Armstrong International in New Orleans. It’s a small club, but the gumbo is really good. Plus, Emeril just came through, which I’m taking as a good omen.
 
This week’s Saturday Afternoon Pizza Post is not any kind of pizzamaking tip. Nor is it another crazy piece of pizza metaphysics, or a random rant about misguided anchovy hate. It’s just a postcard from the road. We're heading into round two of rolling cameras for our movie, Little Miss Margherita: A Misunderstood Pizza In A Misunderstood Place.
 
You’d enjoy the pizza people were talking to on this swing through New York and North Carolina. They’re some of the bounciest, most entertaining pizza geeks you’d ever want to meet.

If you don’t care (and who can blame you—you probably came just for the pizza), you can drop out right here—and make a quick visit to the new Little Miss Pizza page at Free The Pizza.
 
That page is where you’ll find the big, bold movie poster, along with a series of production stills taken at three pizzerias. We’ve shot some great looking footage of these extraordinary people and their exceptional pizzas.
 
By the time you read this, we will have interviewed Scott Weiner of Scott’s Pizza Tours in NYC. This is a guy who makes pizza fun and engaging, and the fact that Scott has the world’s largest collection of pizza boxes (really--he holds the Guinness Word Record) is testimony to the level of his commitment.
 
So, too is the fact that Scott went to Italy with a team of chefs to consult with legendary pizza-flour miller Caputo in developing an American-style pizza flour for the US market.
 
Scott has been in films and on TV and he seems tireless in his ability to have public fun with everyone’s favorite flatbread.
 
After interviewing Scott on Friday, we’re getting on his Sunday-afternoon tour bus in downtown Manhattan. We’re shooting film of pizzerias, pizzamakers, and pizza fans in the throes of pizza thrills.
 
It’s going to be four hours of scintillating pizza madness in front of the camera from which we will slice about one intense minute for the final film. (Such is the reality of documentary filmmaking. The legendary Fredrick Wiseman is noted for his shooting ratios: for every one foot of film that ended up in his movies, 100 more feet were left on the cutting room floor.)
 
Next, after visiting the city that never sleeps, we’re venturing to the city where it feels like they roll up the sidewalks at 5pm. Braving the residual air-travel mayhem of the federal government shutdown, we’re winging our way into Charlotte, NC. That’s where we’re going to sit down with the ever-ebullient, James Beard Award-winning Peter Reinhart.
 
Like Scott Weiner, Peter is another guy who, despite knowing me personally, is still willing to be in my movie. Not only that, Peter has had me on his podcast—not just once but twice. Of course, my second appearance also included The Fabulous Honey Parker talking about her books, some of which are now being developed for TV, so there was less of me to worry about in that show.
 
I maintain that Peter Reinhart is the nicest guy in pizza. And like Scott, he’s one of the most entertaining. He’s also great with process, which is what you’d hope from a master instructor of bread at one of the nation’s most famous culinary education institutions, Johnson and Wales University.
 
Despite what you might expect about lessons in the science of baking, Peter’s teaching is far from dry. Granted, I’ve never been in his classroom. But I have been in some of his professional seminars. People pack themselves cheek to jowl inside those rooms and will sweat like monsters just to hear Peter speak about things like world domination through manipulation of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. (You know: yeast.) Every seat is full and people are standing in any available space.
 
Also, during the nascent stages of this little movie project, I got on a Zoom call with Scott and Peter. I asked them if the pizzaiolo has a responsibility to pizza Margherita. Peter responded without hesitation: “That depends on how big his balls are! If they're willing to bear the brunt of people kicking them there, they can do whatever they want.” 
 
Such is the reputation of Margherita, the lionized, deified, put-up-on-a-pedestal pizza of legend.
 
So that’s all I got right now. More excitement to come. In the meantime, you can see the production stills, including some great pizzas, at the free the pizza website.
 
You can learn more about Scott’s Pizza Tours at the website for Scott’s Pizza Tours.
 
The great Peter Reinhart, his Pizza Quest podcast and all his books can be found here.
 
This film would be very different without the Executive Producer, my wife, the Fabulous Honey Parker. She loves to ask the hard questions, like “Are you sure you want to wear that?” and “How much is this going to cost?” You can learn more about her often hilarious novels at Honey Parker Books.
 
And our director of photography and editor, filmmaker Steve Mims is the lynchpin to so much of this. He’s a man with a camera who’s making my project look far better than I ever could on my own. You can see his work at his website. And I recommend his charming feature film, Arlo & Julie. It’s a rental on Amazon Prime and worth the four bucks if you like quirky little films.
 
My next book, The Lazy Way To Pizza, is slated for release in January. If you’re interested in updates about its availability for your viewing pleasure, the place to be is on the Free The Pizza mailing list.

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I live in a house full of pizza. There is so much pizza coming from my home oven that we finally had to enact a moratorium while we catch our collective breath and eat a few carrots. Would you like to be so prolific with pizza? My weird little award-winning book is one way to make it so. It's less a cookbook than an entertaining guidebook about how to get from zero to pizza using the oven you already have. Besides learning to make great pizza, there’s not much else you can do with it. In fact, you can’t even use it to level a table leg if you buy the Kindle edition (which is less expensive than the print editions and has links to instructional videos and printable kitchen worksheets). To learn more about Free The Pizza: A Simple System For Making Great Pizza Whenever You Want With The Oven You Already Have, click here.
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