Restaurant: Stone Hearth Pizza, Belmont, MA

It's not often that I get the opportunity to write one post for two blogs, but Stone Hearth Pizza in Belmont, MA fits the bill. We've dined at the Stone Hearth Pizza in Cambridge near Porter Sq., but the restaurant there is small, cramped, and suffers from slow service. We'd heard that the Belmont restaurant was larger and had better kid amenities, so we decided to check it out.

The Belmont restaurant is indeed about three times the size of the Cambridge location and rather more plush, but it had no kid amenities at all. And where the Cambridge location has one wall covered with placemats colored in by their underage patrons, the Belmont location has no such kid-friendly atmosphere.

The food, as always, is quite good. Stone Hearth Pizza uses local, mostly organic ingredients. Their menu and their pizza boxes feature a map of New England showing exactly where their ingredients come from (see a complete list here). Their pizzas are inventive and tasty. Our favorites are the Sausage and Carmelized Onion pizza and Bacon and Blue pizza.

This time out, we tried the Farm Fresh pizza, which sounded great on paper: "Garlic oil, cherry tomatoes, charred red/yellow peppers, Yukon gold potatoes, artichoke hearts, green/black olives, fresh mozzarella, topped with salad of arugula/red onion/prosciutto." Unfortunately, the olives completely overwhelmed the flavors of the other vegetables. When we picked the olives off (to our omnivorous two-year-old's delight), we discovered that the pizza without them had hardly any flavor at all.

The girls had better luck with their pizzas. Our five-year-old practically inhaled her cheese pizza, and our two-year-old had to compete with her daddy to finish her cheeseburger pizza. We knew from past experience to stay away from the mac 'n' cheese, which was oddly too spicy for the kids to eat. I like it that way, but the kids won't touch it.

The kid's meals included drinks (lemonade and chocolate milk, respectively) and desserts, a choice of cookies or gelato. Both girls chose the gelato, vanilla and chocolate respectively, and my husband also ordered the hazelnut. The vanilla gelato's vanilla flavor was overpowering, and my five-year-old gratefully traded her sister for the chocolate when she was done with it. My husband's hazelnut gelato was chunky with bits of hazelnut but also somehow over-flavored. The chocolate, however, was quite good.

Regardless of how good the meals were and the quality of the ingredients, we got some mild sticker shock from the price: $8.50 for a kid's meal is a bit much, especially when we paid only $12.50 for our own pizza. Then again, when you do the math, an 8" cheese pizza is $5.60, a drink is $2, and gelato is $4 (two cookies are $1), for a total of $11.60, which means the kid's meal is actually a bargain. I do wish, however, that just one of the kid's meals had included vegetables.

Overall, while I applaud Stone Hearth Pizza's commitment to local, organic foods, I'm not all that impressed by either their pizzas or their prices. Zing! Pizza in Porter Sq. also uses local, organic ingredients, has more interesting and inventive pizzas, is less expensive, and they deliver. Their restaurant is seriously tiny, though, so if you want to eat out, Stone Hearth pizza is a better bet. If you're eating in Cambridge, I recommend that you call ahead and order in advance to compensate for the slow wait staff. For the record, the service at the Belmont location was fine.

Poll: Lexington Community Farm

This week's Lexington Minuteman online poll asks whether Community Farming is a good idea for Lexington. Please take the poll and let Lexington know that you support local, community farming.

Fundraiser - Urban Barn Dance for Farmers' Markets

Received this today from the Mass. Farmers' Markets newsletter:

The Second Annual Urban Barn Dance

A lively celebration of the 2009 growing season featuring
Chef Bob Sargent of flora restaurant.

Friday, October 16
(just a month away!)
6:30 -- 9:30 pm
Kendall Square, Cambridge
Dante Alighieri Italian Cultural Center
41 Hampshire Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

Proceeds from the event will benefit the work of the Federation of
Mass Farmers Markets

NOW'S THE TIME TO GET YOUR TICKETS!
$50 each

To purchase your tickets,
call Mass Farmers Markets
at 781-893-8222
or e-mail Martha.

Event Details:

Guests will toast the hard work of their favorite farmers with a hearty locally grown supper, and then continue the celebration with live music and dancing. Music will be provided again this year by Sean Smith, with musical accomplices Janine Sirignano and Peter Buchak. Contra caller David Titus returns to lead us in dances that new and experienced dancers will enjoy.

Dinner will feature several different preparations of locally raised pork from Austin Brothers Valley Farm, vendors at the Central Square Farmers Market in Cambridge.

Chef Bob Sargent of flora restaurant is once again generously donating his time to create mouth-watering pork dishes as well as hearty sides to accompany them. There should be plenty of food for hungry vegetarians as well!

Guests will also enjoy a silent auction with prizes donated by local businesses.

Libations will be available at the Dante Alighieri Center's cash bar.

Please consider being a sponsor for this event at one of the following levels:

• Golden Watermelon ~ $400 (includes admission for two)
• Silver Queen Corn ~ $250 (includes admission for two)
• Bronze Fennel ~ $100 (includes admission for one)

Urban Agriculture Fair in Harvard Square

This came in Henrietta Davis's mailing list:

Please come to Cambridge's 1st URBAN AG FAIR in Harvard Square, Sunday, Sept. 20th 11 am - 4 pm.

Celebrating Local Gardens, Growers & Foods!
Sample recipes, get tips on composting, community gardening, rain barrels, and bee-keeping! Cooking demos from local chefs, and "Cambridge School student-growers" will be held throughout the day. Enter your own items in a judged competition of home-grown fruits, veggies, home-made baked goods, honey, flowers, preserves, pickles and eggs! All Events are free, open to the public and family-friendly.

Visit www.harvardsquare.com http://www.harvardsquare.com/ for entry form and more info.

Resource: Green City Growers

I spotted a flyer in a cafe across from my daughter's elementary school for Green City Growers.These folks will come to your house, build raised beds, and plant organic vegetables for you. They also make rooftop beds and work with schools, hospitals, and nursing homes. There was no word on their web site on whether they offer a maintenance plan (i.e., someone comes and weeds the bed for you), so I'll send them email for clarification.

This comes as a great relief to me. I was starting to think I would have to start up this business myself. Nothing is more local and sustainable than growing food in your own backyard, and nothing's as nutritious and tasty as food picked and eaten immediately. If you have any interest at all in growing your own vegetables, but you have no idea how, I encourage you to contact these folks.

If there's enough interest from do-it-yourselfers, I can also write up a series of posts on how to create your own backyard garden with a minimum of work and fuss.

Pete & Jen's Pig Roast at Verrill Farm, Concord, MA

Speaking of local meat, Pete & Jen are providing the pork at an event on Sunday, September 13th:

On Sunday 9/13 from noon - 4 pm, at Verrill Farm, you can enjoy our very own Pete and Jen's Pastured Pork at the Pig Roast and BBQ! Yes, it will be our very own delicious Tamworth pig on the spit. Music and hayrides will be sure to entertain.

Meat Share Round Up

A friend recently asked me about meat shares, and I promised to put together a list of local meat shares for her (a week ago). Here they are - sorry about the delay, Laura!

• Chestnut Farms, Hardwick, MA - my own meat CSA, and we LOVE them! I pick up in Arlington Center on the first Tuesday of every month or the following Wednesday at the Arlington Farmers' Market, but you can also pick up in Natick, Waltham, or at their farm in Hardwick, MA. Cost of the meat depends on how much you buy: $80 for 10lb, $115 for 15lb., $150 for 20lb., $175 for 25lb. Shares include chicken, beef, pork, and lamb, with a promise of goat in the future. You can opt out of pork or lamb, if you wish. You can also order turkeys, and they frequently have eggs for sale at their pickup locations. Last I heard, they had a 6-month waiting list.
  
• Stillman's Farm, Lunenburg and New Braintree, MA - pickup locations in Jamaica Plain, Brookline, Cambridge, Quincy, and Lunenburg. They also offer chicken, beef, pork, lamb, and seasonal turkeys. Their pricing model gets cheaper the more you pay in advance and is otherwise comparable to Chestnut Farm. They do offer a 5lb quarter share for smaller households, and they give their shareholders a 20% discount when they buy additional meat at farmers' markets.
• Austin Brothers Valley Farm, Belchertown, MA - This relatively new meat CSA just got started in August, so they may actually have shares available. They've sold meat in the parking lot by Harvest Coop in Cambridge for years, and I've found the meat quality to be quite good. Pickup locations in Cambridge, Amherst, Belchertown, and Worcester. 5lb/month for $9/lb, 10/month for $8.25/lb, and 20lb/month for $7.75/lb. They offer only beef and pork.

Remember that there's also a fish share now available, too. Pick up in Harvard Square, Cambridge.

In researching this, I came across this (slightly out of date) list of local CSAs: http://fitfool.livejournal.com/143862.html.

Hmm, so few meat CSAs. Is this an opportunity for aspiring farmers?

Eat Local to Reduce Health Care Spending

Michael Pollan makes a well-reasoned argument that eating more local, healthy foods will help reduce the cost of health care in his NY Times article today, with references to his sources for fact verification. I love the Internet and the ease with which writers can connect their articles to their sources of information.

Time to Order Winter Shares

A friend recently asked me for recommendations for winter shares. This interests me, too, because our CSA, Brookfield Farm, will not deliver its winter shares from Amherst. Here's what I came up with. Be aware that I'm biased towards CSAs that deliver to the Arlington/Cambridge/Somerville area.

1. Drumlin Farm - requires that you spend 10 hours working on the farm, which is kind of cool. No word on pickup location, but Lincoln isn't very far from Cambridge.
2. Enterprise Farm - has an autumn share that just started yesterday and a year-round share - pickup at Kick*ss Cupcakes in Davis Sq. Wed. 2-7. They also offer home delivery.
3. The Food Project - pickup in Lincoln for Nov. and Dec. only.
4. Heaven's Harvest Farm - Another fall share until just before Thanksgiving, pick up at Cambridge Harvest Coop.
5. Red Fire Farm - has a winter share and delivers to Cambridge and Somerville for a small fee. May be sold out.
6. Stone Soup Farm - has a Nov-Dec winter share, pickup at Democracy Center in Cambridge.