Larry Flax

Pizza isn't that complex. If I am buying a cookbook from CPK to make pizza, it's because I want something that resembles the CPK product I know and love.

By that measure, this is a pretty lame cookbook. The recipes depend heavily on pre-packaged products, which may vary significantly. Take the recipe for the BBQ Chicken Pizza. Obviously, it contains barbecue sauce! But instead of giving you the recipe for CPK's barbecue sauce, they tell you that any "sweet and spicy" style will do. Any show more barbecue aficionado knows that that's not true. I could buy ten different kinds of "sweet and spicy" sauce and still not have the pizza taste anything like CPK's. This theme continues throughout the book.

I do appreciate their inclusion of their crust recipes, and their Thai peanut sauce. But all the rest of the ingredients on a pizza I can see, and don't need a $22 cookbook to reveal. And if they don't want to reveal all their secrets, they shouldn't be publishing a cookbook. show less