Margherita Pizza, originally uploaded by Aaron Landry.
After a number of recommendations from friends and readers of this site I finally made the trek to the Pizza Farm. Run by Robbi Bannen and Ted Fisher, it’s known by word-of-mouth to locals and one of the best hidden pizza ovens in the rural midwest. They open up their farm up for visitors to buy pizza on Tuesdays.
Max, Courtney, Lesely and I took the trek together and it’s about two hours from Minneapolis. People were showing up when we arrived around 5 P.M. to both order pizza for take out as well as set up tables and chairs to dine on the farm with friends and relatives. I talked with Ted Fisher briefly while he was making pizzas and he explained that they try to grow and raise everything in the pizza on the premises. Everything from the wheat in the dough to the animals that produced the cheese to the fresh peppers are all within a short reach of the outdoor wood-fired brick oven they built themselves. They had a surprising amount of pizza options written on a chalk board such as “stinging nettles with shallots cooked in cream, parmesan, mozzarella” and “italian sausage (happy pigs), kalamata olives, red onion, fresh mozzarella.” All the pizzas are large, about sixteen inches in diameter, and are priced in the lower twenties, tax included. We ordered their Margherita with basil, garlic, roasted tomato and mozzarella. The process was fast: Ted takes your order and goes into the kitchen to lay out the dough and put on the ingredients. Through a window you can see other family members helping out. The uncooked pizza then parades through people waiting to the other side to the oven where Robbi takes over. It’s only in the oven a few minutes and it’s pulled out a couple times to rotate. She puts it directly in a box (it’s common for regulars to re-use their pizza box) and you pay in cash on the spot. We were lucky enough to score one of the few picnic tables. We brought our own wine, cups, napkins, plates and it’s expected that everything you take in you take out with you. Our pizza was nothing short of beautiful. All the ingredients tasted incredibly fresh. The crust fluffed up perfectly and the edges were almost artfully uneven and were a little crispy on the edges. The cheese was tasty and satisfying. We all were impressed with the pizza to the point where afterwards we couldn’t resist to get another, even if it meant we’d take most of it home with us. Our next pizza had artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, roasted tomato, garlic and fresh mozzarella. Just as great as the first pizza. As expected, we couldn’t finish it and took most of it to go.
Pizza on the Farm, originally uploaded by Aaron Landry.
As we were leaving, more people started arriving. The crowd was quite mixed from older families laughing and drinking oversized bottles of white wine to a large group of college students to parents with young kids to a man in an old Camaro delivering a bottle of Argentinean wine and picking up his pizza to go and few people speaking only in Swedish.
Aaron Landry 