Our Number One Favorite did it again. Looking back on my Tuesday evening at the Pizza Farm, I get the satisfied feeling of knowing that those few hours on the farm were spent extremely well.
We loaded up one full car of people and headed out of town on a sunny and mild Tuesday afternoon. We called 
Stockholm Pie Company en route and confirmed they were operating on summer hours for this week and ordered a few slices of our favorite pies. We noted along the way how fun it is to travel this route throughout pizza farm season and see the changes of the seasons. At the end of a rainy August, the bluffs along Lake Pepin were covered in the lush green of summer.
When we arrived at the A to Z, I was delightfully surprised at the way the farm had transformed over the past two months since our last visit in June. Sunflowers reached over our heads along our usual picnic spot. A new calf born two weeks ago was among the cows and the bulls. The piglets had grown into adult pigs! Look at the them in April and look at them in August!
And the produce in the fields made a beautiful sight. All the fields that were not much more than muddy rows back in April, May, and June, were full of tomatoes, corn, cabbage, brussels sprouts, eggplant and all the vegetables that would make the best pizza toppings for the A to Z masterpieces.
I knew as soon as I saw the menu that I would be ordering the Italian Garden. I 
personally would get it for the zucchini alone and it is just icing on the cake that most of my other favorite vegetables are thrown on as well. We also couldn’t pass up the Beet and Gorgonzola combination that A to Z does so well. And to even it out we did a half Green Veggie to take more advantage of the late summer harvest and half a Happy Pig Sausage that our two year old guest was most likely to enjoy. Lauren, taking pizza orders, told us that it was a more mellow evening than the past two weeks and our wait would be less than half an hour. We ordered some drinks to go along with our dinner and used our wait time to explore the farm.
My two year old guest, Archer, and I set off on our own. We followed along the path the 
cows had taken and continued on to a vegetable plot with a farm cart. Archer made use of the beach toys he had been carrying to make music on various parts of the cart. When we finished with that, we moved on around the tall rows of corn to see the pigs and the sheep and passed back by the rows of ripe red tomatoes . After a while, the rest of our crew joined up with Archer and I. Four out of the five of us, even three month old, Zadie, were A to Z regulars and our exploring was more about noticing what had changed over the months and seasons. For our other friend, this was the first time and she had a perfect evening to see A to Z in all its summer glory.
Dinner tasted like exactly what it was – the bounty of August put on a pizza crust. Our 
friend pointed out that she ate the best tomato she had had all summer. One of my co-workers told me that one of the onions on her Italian Garden tasted like candy it was so sweet. When I think about the fact that people are talking about that one tomato, that one onion, and that one amazing bite of pizza that they had last night, my understanding that Robbi and Ted have really created something special at A to Z Produce and Bakery is reaffirmed. And it isn’t just about the pizza either. Kristin, our first time visitor on Tuesday, was in town from Baltimore where she is very involved in the small farm and food justice community of that area. She very much appreciated the Pizza Farm concept and how it can change the way we think about the food we eat and where it comes from. A to Z is a beautiful farm and they make a delicious pizza and even beyond that, they are doing the important work of growing nutritious food for their community. All of these special things also reaffirm why part of my personal mission is to continue bringing new people to the Pizza Farm. When we love something, we want to share it.
Cousin, have you located any Pizza Farms in the west coast? Great blog keep it up!! Our daughter Megan is blogging too. Ask Mary for the link.