Today I'd like to introduce the first in a series of great pizza books that should be required reading for anyone who's serious about the cheesy, saucy, crusty stuff we all love.

American Pie is an account of baking instructor and cookbook author Peter Reinhart's search for the perfect pizza. His journey takes him to the motherland, Italy, to get at the dish's roots, before leading him back to the United States to look for the best pie on these shores.

Reinhart paints a picture of the passionate pizzaioli all over the this land—from New York City to New Haven, Connecticut, from Phoenix to Philly. Close to Slice HQ here in Brooklyn, he dines at one of our favorites, Di Fara. Farther west, he raves about Phoenix's Pizzeria Bianco and, much to the chagrin of New Yorkers and New Havenites alike (they both declare the pies in their respective cities to be the finest), declares that it just might be the best in the country.

A notable idea in the book is the difference between what Reinhart refers to as "contextually perfect" and "technically perfect" pizza, a concept we at Slice had never really given much thought to. A contextually perfect pie may not be the best technically, but for some reason, at that time, it is the perfect pie. We'd go into detail about this concept, but you should probably just read the book.

It's also crammed with recipes for all sorts of pizza styles, from Neapolitan to neo-Neapolitan to New York–Neapolitan to Chicago deep dish, many of which we'll be experimenting with at Slice HQ.