Pizza on the Farm

For years I'd heard the murmurs. Rumors abounded regarding this mythical Mecca, this secret garden of brick oven pleasure. No one could tell me they'd actually been there.  They only knew someone who knew of someone who might have known somebody who discovered the fabled gravel road along which Pizza on the Farm rose from a random corn field or cabbage patch in the depths of rural Wisconsin.

This summer I was determined to either find this pizza paradise, or debunk the buzz.  I read a dozen articles online and in my daily locals. The Pizza Farm is open Tuesday nights only, seasonally.  The ingredients for each pie are grown on the farm.  Guests bring their own chairs, tables, plates, drinks, etc. Over the years, Pizza Farm has become so popular that they regularly turn away latecomers when they run out of food. As I read blogger reviews I got a little nervous.  There were some troublesome reports that the proprietors were channeling the Soup Nazi, and I worried I'd look like a Pizza Farm virgin if I ordered wrong. Worse, perhaps I'd mess up my place in line and would hear "NO PIZZA FOR YOU" before even a taste.

We spent the afternoon teetering around Stockholm and Pepin, with a charming late lunch at the Bogus Creek Cafe and Bakery, and a mandatory visit to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum and Little House in the Big Woods reproduction.  Around 4 PM, we unfolded the map and pointed the KIA NE, deep into the heart of, as T calls it, God's Country.  OK OK truth be told, the farmland isn't that far from State Highway 35 which winds around the St. Croix and Mississippi Rivers. But I am a city girl, so any adventure that takes me away from sidewalks and leashed pets gets me a little excited.

"Are you sure this is the right direction?" I asked T repeatedly.

He calmly replied, "Yes, we are almost there."

We saw the street sign for Anker Lane, and turned on to the gravel road. Until then we'd been alone on the road, but the closer we got to our destination the more cars, trucks, minvans, and motorcycles we saw. They began to form a line to park inside the borders of what looked to be a neat little farm.  We got there as the farm opened, about 4:30.  Already there were at least fifty vehicles parked, and we searched for a spot to lay down our picnic cloth among the tables, chairs, and picnickers mingling in the shade.

I followed a couple who looked like they'd been there before.  They walked toward a big red structure, and inside hundreds of pizza boxes were stacked alongside a gorgeous brick oven.  Two women worked side by side, sliding topped pies into the flames and calling out customer names as pizzas came out of the oven. We walked past the oven into a little garden terrace.  "This must be where we order," I thought smugly, until I found myself following the woman into a bathroom.  "Is this where we order?" I asked.

I wove my way back to the front of the red building and joined a line that formed outside in front of a big chalkboard menu. At least thirty pizza options greeted me, and I quickly scanned for ingredients both T and I like.  I settled on a half pesto-half Happy Pig sausage, and was told to return to the ovens in about 5 minutes.

Back at our picnic site, T sat amused as he watched groups setting up tables complete with vased flowers and Tubberware filled with appetizers and desserts.  Above the babbling of happy voices and kids laughing, I heard wine corks popping. I reached for an individual bottle from the 4-pack of (a very highbrow vintage, trust me) chardonnay and asked T if he could unscrew the cap.
 
When our pizza was ready, I plopped down $26 cash and received an enormous pizza box. (And by the way, service was amazing.  There wasn't a Pizza Nazi to be seen. From the guy who took our order, to the woman who handed me the box, to the guests who dined next to us, to the woman I accidentally followed into the bathroom, everyone was friendly and welcoming.) Inside the box was a pretty decent pie, a little burned underneath the pesto and not the best pizza I've ever tasted.  But considering the ingredients were grown from the fields that surrounded us, it was worth every cent. Eating at the farm is a perfect way to support farmers, and a fantastic experience at just about any price.

We left before 6 PM and already vehicles were parked along pastures for nearly half a mile. As we pulled back on to Highway 35 still they came, hundreds of pizza lovers spilled out onto the gravel road. Single file they marched toward the farm; dads carried folding tables and chairs, moms carried picnic baskets, grandmas and grandpas carried wine bottles, couples held coolers from either side of the handles, and kids ran gleefully toward the sounds and smells coming from the farm.