Secrets

The other day my neighbor stopped me in the street as I was peeling out, already late for work. But Michelle had a tip and wanted to share it. Having Michelle for a neighbor is like having a concierge for your street. She knows what is happening, where it's happening, and who should be there. But it's not about hipness or a cool factor or something like that- her tips are for good clean family fun. And this one was one she promised I would love. It was about an organic farm that makes pizzas out of ingredients grown on the property. But only on Tuesday nights. And only pizzas. You have to bring your own chairs, blankets, cups, drinks, snacks- everything but the pizzas. And you have to carry out your trash. Oh, plus it's 1.5 hours away. I admit, the pizza did sound delicious. But it also sounded like a lot of work. She was making the pilgrimage the next day and I agreed to round up my troops and join her. But then we got rained out and I put it on the back burner, thinking that it sounded great, but too much trouble.

But the very next week we went. And I can't tell you where it is because then I would have to kill you. It's such a fabulous experience that I want to share it, but I don't want it to get to be any more discovered than it is. This last Tuesday was just one of those fabulous summer days that demands that you eat outside. So we gave a last minute call to some friends who seemed the most likely to agree to a last minute car trip to an unknown destination. And they were in. The drive was lovely- raptors soaring, corn fields waving, deer prancing- hopefully that is not enough detail to give away the whereabouts. Then we turned off the highway and onto little backroads. After a few miles with NO sign of any pizza parlor in sight- we were clearly headed away from any sign of civilization (the last town we passed through was population 82) and into the cornfields to meet an unspecified doom. But then we turned one more corner and suddenly there were parked cars along both sides of a dirt road. And people getting out with picnic supplies. We followed suit, a little uncertainly. We trekked down the road a bit, and then all of the sudden you hear this hubbub. A true hubbub. Murmurs, laughter, glasses tinkling, and you come around this tree and in this grassy shady yard are hundreds of people all decked out in various levels of picnic-ness. The setups ran the gamut from the basic blanket to tables with tablecloths, cloth napkins in napkin rings, goblets, candelabras...everything! And every last person was smiling. Even those still waiting for pizzas. And the wait is considerable, but it passed in the blink of an eye. We wandered the grounds, fed the goats, watched people play lawn games, and took notes for what we were going to bring next time. We knew there would be a next time even before we tasted the stone oven fired pizzas. That definitely sealed the deal. Jon did point out that after waiting two hours for ours to be delivered, we might have exclaimed over cooked cardboard, but these lovely pies were the real deal. I tell you that I had a silly smile plastered to my face the whole time we were there, it was all just so fabulous. It was like there was this invisible dome over these acres out in the middle of nowhere that encased this perfectly happy bubble of loveliness. Which is why I really probably have to tell you where it is- this kind of treat needs to be shared, and even if you do decide to go and make my next wait for a pizza longer, I think I'm ok with that- because I have taken notes and I now know to bring snacks and lots of them. Plus a few bottles of wine. And I do think there might be no nicer place to kick back and wait for dinner. So I'll tell you this--it's....it's....it's somewhere in Wisconsin. Enjoy.