Question: Should I cook or not cook my pizza sauce? Answer: Okay, this doesn’t address dough, but it is a common question nevertheless. I can’t tell you not to cook your sauce, but I can give you some reasons why I personally wouldn&rsquo...

You can have the best coffee bar in the biz, but it doesn’t do you any good if no one knows about it. Here’s how to get the word out: Customer education. Coffee newbies may hesitate to order something because they can’t pronounce it...

Ask ten French chefs to make a Béarnaise sauce and each of the sauces will taste the same. Ask ten Italian chefs to make a Bolognese sauce and none of the sauces will taste the same. No reflection on the expertise of either group of chefs, but...

Vitello parmigiana, veal parmigiana, or veal Parmesan? Take your pick as to which wording you want to use to list this classic dish on your menu since all of them will serve your customers well — as long as you make it great. You have to admit, tho...

The Organic Trade Association provides background and information about organic food on its web site, www.ota.com. The OTA defines organic as food that is produced in soil that is free of toxic and persistent pesticides and fertilizers. The food itse...

Menu Development Cheese Primer: Mascarpone By Pasquale “Pat” Bruno Jr. Mascarpone (mahs-kar-POH-neh) is not actually a cheese (no starter or rennet is used to produce it), but it is always included in the cheese family when the subject of...

If we look at a pizza crust as a canvas on which the pizzaiola can create his art, then it follows that the sauce becomes the foundation for the work. Pizza sauce has come a long way. Not too many years ago (less than 40, in fact) it was tomato,...

If you serve pasta-based dishes that feature chicken or fish, a velouté may be a sauce worth exploring. Veloutés are cheap to make, tasty and perfect matches for pasta. Start with a basic chicken stock — canned, concentrated or fr...

We’ve all seen those menus in restaurants –– Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese — where the heat level of certain dishes is marked by a small chile symbol. Usually, one chile is mild, two chiles means hot and three chiles, we...

Have fun with this “five-course” summer special: appetizer, salad, pizza, pasta, and dessert. I have a lot of recipes to cover, so let’s get right to it. Each of these recipes can be scaled up in direct proportion. APPETIZER Mozzare...

What’s it going to be for that meat lover’s pizza? Three meats? Four meats? Five meats? Be careful –– don’t turn that pizza into a meat casserole or a grease trap. Common sense must prevail when putting together a meat l...

To keep you ahead of the curve, here is the way I see the sauce ladle being used in the year ahead for both pasta and pizza. However, as the song goes, you can’t have one without the other. For example, if the trend in pizza is toward a thinner...