I hesitated at first to suggest Blossom Hill Orchard and Farm to the Pizza Farm Road Trip travelers. In my head, my priority was Pizza Farms and some of the other travelers were more focused on Breweries. And Iowa, especially Decorah, is well represented in the Craft Beer arena. I wanted to make sure that we all had a chance to do what we wanted in Iowa. But a Friday afternoon Facebook post and a quick cross reference on my Pizza Farm Map made me realize that Blossom Hill was serving pizza on Saturday, we had no set dinner plans, and it was only 45 minutes from our AirBNB. I pondered the idea in my head and thought 
about when would be a good time to make my proposal to the group. We had been pretty busy, hiking the bluffs of the Mississippi, battling severe weather, and working our way to Friday night’s dinner at Luna Valley Pizza Farm, so it hadn’t come up in conversation yet that evening. And then, without even trying, Maren, the Luna Valley Pizza Farmer, made the proposal for me. We were talking about other farms in the area and how the Pizza Farm community tends to show up for each other, when Maren’s eyes lit up and she suggested we go to Blossom Hill Orchard & Farm in Preston, MN for dinner tomorrow. We were on a Pizza Farm Road Trip after all! Thursday, Day 1, at Geyer’s Oven, Friday at Luna Valley, and now we had a stop lined up for Saturday! We also had three breweries we wanted to check out – Pulpit Rock, PIVO, and Toppling Goliath. But luckily my team was dedicated and ambitious enough to attempt it all!
So, Saturday morning started for Bobby at about 7:30AM as the first in line for the Pulpit Rock Cake Walk release. The rest of us joined at a more reasonable hour for our Saturday noon beers. Stop number two was the new Toppling Goliath Tap Room. In between beers, we managed to find a place that would serve the fabled Iowa tenderloin. We made a brief stop and shared the oversized breaded pork sandwich and the house specialty prime rib sandwich at Stone Hearth Inn. After that healthy little appetizer, we traveled north toward Blossom Hill Orchard for dinner, planning to finish the night at PIVO. Since we weren’t in a rush, we pulled over at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Burr Oak, Iowa. After poking around there for a bit and getting some historical facts and local gossip from the Museum staff, we made our way to Blossom Hill Orchard and Farm for more pizza.
Blossom Hill offered a small and large size pizza, which worked well for us to make our favorite order of one-of-each, please despite it being our second dinner of the evening and our third consecutive night of pizza. They served a cheese, a pepperoni, and two specialty seasonal selections, the Mad Farmer with coppa, arugula, and spicy sauce, and the Green Pizza with walnut pesto, feta, and basil. The wait was a bit long, but there was a small general store area with all kinds of local delights, a bakery case full of desserts, music, and lawn games up the hill to help pass the time. Blossom Hill is also BYOB so we unpacked some of our Iowa beers and settled in to wait for our pizza.
The lawn area of Blossom Hill is surrounded by apple trees, hills, and valleys making for a very scenic farm. I had a chance to talk a little with Dane and Hilary, the Blossom Hill Pizza Farmers. Dane was taking orders, running the register, and delivering the pizza and Hilary was behind the counter cooking the pies. One unique thing about Blossom Hill is that they weren’t using a wood-fire oven. I think this may have contributed to the slower cooking times, but the pizza still came out delicious. Blossom Hill has been doing a pizza night for three years now, but this year is the first year they have put some effort into advertising. They wanted to make sure they could handle the business before they really opened things up. Of course, I, as an avid Pizza Farm researcher had been following Blossom Hill Orchard on facebook for about a year, so I felt pretty proud of myself.
While the band took a break, we found ourselves drawn into conversation with some of the other Pizza Farm attendees that evening. The folks that we talked with seemed to be Blossom Hill regulars and they knew about lots of local attractions, including art, festivals, and other pizza nights. Some of them would be heading out the next day to Squash Blossom. sourdough wood fired pizza that is on my pizza farm wish list. They also mentioned some other farms that I took note of for future research and shared information about some of their own pizza endeavors, including a Harvest Party associated with Sue Pariseau pottery that serves pizza cooked in cob ovens, which became a new addition to my wish list. Tom Schramm and other members of the band came over and joined in. We even saw Tom and Maren from Luna Valley swing by for dinner. Because you can never have too much pizza, right?
We took a picture of our combined leftover pizza, but in truth, we left nothing behind. We finished off all of our pizza and headed out to PIVO to end the night with some board games and beers. We said goodbye to our new friends and I took some contact information and my notes about other Pizza Farms and ideas for future adventures with me.
