The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

Related Content

• That Was The Year That Was: Gastronomic Highlights of 2008
• Wicked Pissah
• Pizza Via Text Message and U.S. Mail

About 50 years ago, the BBC broadcast an April Fools report about the annual spaghetti harvest in Switzerland, and got hundreds of inquiries from viewers who wanted to know where they could buy their own spaghetti trees.

Really.

So just to be clear on this - the pizzas at the Pizza Farm, (real name: A to Z Produce & Bakery) just outside Stockholm, Wisconsin, don't grow on trees. But once a week on Tuesdays, the owners crank up the two big wood-burning ovens, and make delicious pizzas to order ($23-$25), generously topped with a variety of fresh vegetables from the farm - everything from an Italian Garden pizza with roasted fennel, Swiss chard, bottle onions, sweet peppers, fresh tomatoes, basil and mozzarella-- to a pie topped with Italian sausage (from "happy pigs") tomato sauce, onion and mozzarella.

To get to the Pizza Farm, you drive through Stockholm, and then turn on one country road, and then another, go past about three cemeteries and a little country church, and then there you are, in the middle of nowhere. (For a map, click here.) But it's not exactly a well-kept secret. We arrived early to beat the crowds, and by the time we showed up - 5:15 or so - there were more than a dozen guests with tables and blankets spread out across the farm yard. By the time we left, the place was packed, and there was a long line of cars along the road leading to the farm.

It's a fun place for kids - out back behind the farm, there are a few cows, a couple of goats, and a few sheep, plus a coop with a mother hen and a brood of chicks, and a few cats that wander among the picnickers scrounging for scraps.

The pizza farm folks only sell pizza, and loaves of bread, so if you want anything else, like wine, beer, cups or glasses, you bring it yourself.

A to Z Produce & Bakery, N2956 Anker Lane, Stockholm, WI , 715-448-4802. Pizzas on Tuesdays only.