After a number of recommendations from friends and readers of this site I finally made the trek down to the Pizza Farm, home to A to Z Produce in Stockholm. Run by Robbi Bannen and Ted Fisher, A to Z Produce opens up the farm up for visitors to buy pizza on Tuesdays.
Max, Courtney, Lesely and I took the trek down for our first pizza on the farm. We chose to leave before rush hour and the trip from Saint Paul was only about an hour and fifteen minutes.
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.
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.
Being able to meet the animals and the people raising the ingredients that you eventually eat was a great experience and the pizza itself was one of the freshest pizzas I’ve ever tasted. On the way out I picked up some focaccia to enjoy later in the week.
It’s well with the trip.
Check out Courtney’s fantastic video of the pizza farm done in a “Sesame Street documentary” style as well as my photoset on Flickr. If you have a minute, I recommend watching the slideshow to see the farm as well as our bonus stop to Lake Pepin on the way home. I’ll be back soon.
A to Z Produce
N2956 Anker Lane
Stockholm, WI 54769
