Taste of the Valley

Our trip to Vermont's Mad River Valley happened to coincide with the regional Taste of the Valley event, during which over fifty local culinary businesses set up stands at the Inn at the Round the Barn. The sheer number of establishments in this relatively rural valley that are doing remarkably interesting things with food is almost enough to restore one's faith in future of American food. There were locally made cheeses, micro brewed soft drinks, artisan bakers, fine patisserie's, Ben & Jerry's (from right up the road), and of course -- our personal favorite -- the American Flatbread "festival oven" set up. Every time I go up there I am surprised to learn that some local culinary establishment makes a product I recognize from shelves of Elwood Thompson, our local natural foods store hundreds of miles away. The product that got me this time was Liz Lovely's Vegan Cookies.

Anyway, back to the pizza ... this festival oven is, I think, a semi-permanent fixture at the Round Barn because American Flatbread caters so many weddings and other events at the Inn. But George and his crew can also set one of these ovens up in an afternoon. They arrive with rough hewn wooden logs to build a sort of lincoln-log platform on top of which, as I recall, they create something like a big sandbox. They lay fire bricks in the sand for a floor and then they stack bricks in diminishing concentric circles, which they plaster with cob (mud and straw). Typically, they use the festival ovens just to finish par-baked pizzas on site. It may sound like cheating, but keep in mind that the pizza is par-baked in an earth and stone Quebec style oven. Trust me, the product is good. I recall a pizza topped with a basil and sunflower seed pesto. It was good enough that I made a mental note to experiment with it, though I haven't yet. There was also a very memorable Vermont sausage pizza.

It was a nice event, though the limitations of my stomach capacity were frustrating. There was plenty more good eating to be had that night...