The Pizza Bible - A Book Review

I am a lover of pizza.  So, besides pizza, what does a pizza lover need?  Well, a Pizza Bible of course.  Well at least that's what I thought I needed.  Turns out I was wrong.  Although I enjoyed reading The Pizza Bible, it really hasn't enhanced my life much.

I'm just an average girl who likes pizza on Friday nights.  For an average person like me, this book is way over rated.  It is better suited for the dedicated cook or someone who is super serious about making pizza's.  The author Tony Gemignana is an 11-time World Pizza Champ and he takes pizza making VERY serious.  He has a motto "respect the craft" and in The Pizza Bible he shares his secrets of "the craft".  The thing for me is that it is just too complicated.  Out of all the recipes in the book, there were none that I had everything on hand for.  For the pizza crust he uses specialty flours that you have to order online, yeah not that all-purpose flour that we all use, and it actually takes three days to make.  Yikes!  There are a lot of times that I don't know I want pizza three days in advance!  On top of that there is a Gearing Up section that lists the things you need before starting and there were several items that I don't own.  I'm not looking to spend a lot of money just so I can make great pizzas.  According to my family, my homemade pizza's are pretty great anyway.

Another thing that disappointed me was the quality of the book.  At first glance it looks like a nice sturdy book, but after looking through it a couple times the spine is already tearing away from the hardcover.   According to other reviews I have read this is a common problem with the book.  Also, there is an insert in the beginning of the book of corrections.  Apparently there are several mistakes within the book and their way to correct this is by including an insert that I overlooked at first.

What I did enjoy about the book was the style.  Tony has a great way with words that made the reading sections of the book very entertaining to me.  He included some pizza facts and history that I though was very interesting and in true Bible form he included The Ten Commandments of Pizza.  The pictures were great and look delicious!  I would love to try one of the pizza's in the cookbook, but not enough to go out and spend a bunch of money, time and energy!

***This book was provided to me through the Blogging for Books program in exchange for my honest review.