While a few books on the shelf have lost their spines over the years, one book has always been that way – Russell Norman’s Polpo: A Venetian Cookbook (of Sorts). Seeing it for the first time, when it was published in 2012, I remember thinking how daring it was to produce a book with a stripped-away spine, leaving its binding and pea-green stitching exposed. This choice was a practical one, however, because it allowed the book to open completely, meaning it lies (or leans) absolutely flat, which makes it feel like the most obliging book, with no threat whatsoever of it flipping closed at precisely the moment you need to check an instruction while your hands are covered with dough.
The page that didn’t flip closed last week was 62, Russell’s basic pizza or pizzette dough, which is a great and effective recipe that I have made on and off since 2012, and a recipe that not only survived the scrutiny of the cooking teacher Carla Tomasi, but was even endorsed by her. (Although she did apply her way of kneading the dough: working in the bowl with wet hands, rather than on a floured board, so as not to incorporate more flour, and using a series of folding pulls that create more elasticity.) Russell and Carla, stretching together.
