Peter Reinhart

[Jason Perlow]

Please join Peter Reinhart, bread expert, author and culinary instructor, for an exclusive eGullet Q&A the week of October 4. He’ll discuss his newest book, American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza, as well as his other books and all things bread and yeast. As an added bonus, thanks to Ten Speed Press, three lucky participants will receive a copy of either American Pie, The Bread Bakers Apprentice, or Crust & Crumb in a drawing at the end of the week.

Peter founded the award winning Brother Juniper's Bakery in Santa Rosa, California. He now holds the title of Chef on Assignment at Johnson and Wales University in Charlotte, North Carolina, having taught at the university’s Providence campus the previous four years. For five years previous to that, he was a full time instructor at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco.

Peter released his fifth book, The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, in November 2001. It won both the James Beard and IACP Cook Book of the Year awards, as well as the International Gourmand Award for Best Baking Book in the World.

He is also the author of Bread Upon The Waters: A Pilgrimage Toward Self Discovery and Spiritual Truth; Crust and Crumb: Master Formulas For Serious Bread Bakers; Sacramental Magic In a Small Town Cafe: Recipes and Stories From Brother Juniper's Café; and Brother Juniper's Bread Book: Slow Rise As Method and Metaphor. He has been regularly interviewed on national television and radio including CNN, All Things Considered on National Public Radio, Here and Now and The Connection on WBUR (NPR); and he was a frequent guest on The Mike and Maty Show (ABC). In addition, Peter was one of the featured chef instructors on the PBS series Global Cuisine From The California Culinary Academy and Master Class from Johnson & Wales (began airing in April, 2002). Peter was a guest chef on The Mollie Katzen Cooking series, also on PBS, and was recently featured on "Follow That Pizza" with Gordon Elliott on TVFN. He was also interviewed and profiled in Pastry Arts Magazine and Spirit, the in-flight magazine of Southwest Airlines. He was the regular food commentator on One Union Station, on National Public Radio’s WRNI, as well as a guest commentator for the op-ed page of the Providence Journal.

He is also on the Chefs Council of The Center for Culinary Development (CCD), a culinary think tank located in San Francisco, and is also a consulting product developer for The California Culinary Development Group (CCDG), in Tiburon, CA.

As a bread expert, he won the 1996 James Beard Foundation's National Bread Competition for his "Wild Yeast Country Bread," featured in Crust and Crumb. That book was also the recipient of the James Beard Award as the Best Baking and Desserts Book of 1998. He was also the bread chapter author and editor for The New Joy of Cooking, released in the fall of 1997.

Peter has also developed a line of frozen gourmet pizzas, calzones, toaster snacks, and bagels for Amy's Kitchen, the nation's largest producer of organic vegetarian frozen entrees. The pizzas were the overwhelming hit at the Natural Foods Product Show in Baltimore, MD, and entered the marketplace in December, 1996. Calzone and bagel production began in the spring of 1997. He recently developed a line of new pizza concepts for Amy's, including a wheat-free pizza, released in July 2003.

He will soon be launching his own line of products. Plans include sauces, salad dressings, healthy baked products, and nutritional soft drinks.