Simon & Schuster to release Slice Harvester pizza memoir

In 2011, Colin Hagendorf accomplished a mission that took him about two and half years, he sampled every joint that sold pizza by the slice in Manhattan. As students in culinary school programs know, Manhattan is home to some of the nation's most renowned pizzerias, and navigating the borough for the perfect slice is no small challenge. Hagendorf chronicled his quest on the blog Slice Harvester, and now his exploits have garnered him a book deal with Simon and Schuster. Slated to be released Aug. 11, 2015, Hagendorf's memoir simply has the same name as his blog, and will dive deeper into his lengthy mission to find the perfect slice of cheese pizza.

Hagendorf's mission 
Finding the best pizza in NYC is a monumental task, and Hagendorf quickly realized his initial goal of sampling all the pizza in the city would simply be too time consuming. According to the Wall Street Journal, Hagendorf limited his search to Manhattan after realizing that the five boroughs hold more than 1,600 pizza joints. In Manhattan alone, Hagendorf had to dine at 362 pizzerias, and then rated and reviewed each one on his blog. 

Hagendorf further cut down his search by excluding any chains or eateries that didn't make their own pizza in house. He only ordered plain cheese pizza and began on Manhattan's north end, moving southward over the two and a half year span. To date, the only restaurant to receive a perfect score on his eight slice scale is Pizza Suprema. 

'Slice Harvester: A Memoir in Pizza' 
Hagendorf's reviews are renowned for being personal, unabashed and littered with profanity, so it's likely a similar style will present itself in his memoir. Many pizza aficionados around New York rue that Hagendorf was the first person to actually execute this idea. The pizza memoir will be the first of its kind and hopefully will provide insight into where to get the best slices in Manhattan. While other critics have certainly delved into the NYC pizza scene, Hagendorf's thoroughness can not be overstated. Yet, "Slice Harvester" goes beyond the search for pizza, it also tackles Hagendorf's complicated relationship with alcohol, women, American culture and culinary passion. 

As described on Amazon, "Over the course of two years, a twenty-something punk rocker eats a cheese slice from every pizzeria in New York City, gets sober, falls in love, and starts a blog that captures headlines around the world—he is the Slice Harvester, and this is his story."