For our 2011 season opening (May 14th and 15th) Mary Jane has decided to bring back both a favorite and something new. The favorite is for the those of you who’ve been asking for it – the prosciutto pizza. And a new asparagus pizza will be unveiled as well. Additional menu details (including desserts!) will be provided as we get closer to open weekend.

Until then, we wish you and yours a Happy Mother’s Day!

Rustic. Wood Fired. Local. Arguably The Best Pizza On The Cayuga Wine Trail and In The Finger Lakes Region.

Don’t forget to ROCK THE VOTE for this year’s Edible Finger Lakes 2011 Reader’s Choice – Local Hero Awards.

“Best Of” nominations in the following categories include:

- Farm/Farmer
- Chef/Restaurant
- Food Artisan
- Beverage Artisan
- Non-Profit Organization

CLICK HERE to cast your vote.

The (Mary Jane in) Dakar Pizza – The origin and spirit of this pizza comes from a special place and time. In 1998 and 1999, and then again in 2001 and 2002, Mary Jane lived and worked as a student and a teacher at West African College of the Atlantic in Dakar, the capital city of Senegal. Mary Jane’s (and her best friend Ruah’s) weekly ritual included a stop at Arc-en-ciel Restaurant for a few slices of their delicious La Reine pizza. (Note: Arc-en-ciel means Rainbow and La Reine means The Queen.) Alright, now for the ingredients of this royal wood fired pie: We start it with a base of white sauce, then layer it with slices of dry cured smoked NYS ham. Add to that a generous portion of local sauteed mushrooms and freshly grated emmenthal cheese. When you enjoy this pizza, may it conjure up images and memories of a time and place special to you. [$12.00]

Suggested Wine Pairing: Cayuga Ridge Estate Reserve Chardonnay

Straight From The Garden (with Cheese please) Pizza – We start this one with the same white sauce and emmenthal cheese as the Dakar and top it with pretty much everything we could pick fresh from the garden: grated yellow and green summer squash, quartered red and orange tomatoes, and chopped basil. [$11.00]

Suggested Wine Pairing: Cayuga Ridge Estate Non-Oak Chardonnay

Get Wine By The Glass

Have a glass of your favorite Red or White wine from Cayuga Ridge Estate Winery for $5.00. If you haven’t tried it yet, Check out the Cayuga Ridge Estate Riesling – the Winner of Best Riesling of the New World from Rhineland Pfalz’ Best in Riesling 2010 competition.

PS – As always, ask for a tasty wood fired s’more for dessert – they’re free for kids (mom’s permission required).

The capacity to farm the natural world with increasing efficiency is in no doubt due to the ingeniuity of farmers, inventors, entrepreneurs and creatives whose contributions – spanning millennia – have resulted in technological breakthroughs of all sorts.

As many have pointed out (especially in recent years), careless application of those breakthroughs (supported by industrial agriculture and government food policy) eventually led to the breakdown of the very communities they set out to support.

Yet, thanks to the persistence (and sensitivity) of a new generation of farmers, inventors, entrepreneurs and creatives, the infrastructure necessary to support a thriving local food community is being rebuilt.

Enter: Founder and creator of Farmshed, Neil Brody Miller.

During a Saturday afternoon lunch of wood fired pizza and wine, Neil shared with us his vision for Farmshed, a recently released iPhone app (the Droid app is in development) that offers users a comprehensive directory of Central New York’s local food community including organic and sustainable family farms, regional farmers markets, natural food stores, CSAs, and locavore restaurants. (Neil says expansion into additional food communities is in the works.)

Have we downloaded Farmshed to the iPod yet? You bet (see the screenshots below). Have you? If not, click here to get it.

Both sensible and easy to use, Farmshed is one of the first of its kind: a Slow Food Technology that, to quote Paul Hawken, “supports the re-creation of networks of traditional food producers with customers so that both may thrive.”

Congratulations Neil! We wish Farmshed great success (to quote Paul Hawken again) in “conserving the heritage of the exquisite variety of tastes humankind has created and ensuring that the people who are artisans of food are supported and can pass on their craft to future generations.”

We look forward to seeing you (and the locavores that Farmshed draws our way) soon.

Here are a few shots of Cayuga Ridge Estate’s vineyards and the family garden (from where we source many of our ingredients). Ah, what we have to look forward to in the glass and on our wood fired pizzas in the weeks to come!

MJ was in the garden this morning picking all kinds of fresh good stuff… Not sure yet how that’ll change the menu. Come by and see/eat. Yum!

PS – Best of luck to all of the triathletes participating in today’s Cayuga Lake Triathlon. Y’all rock!

Have you picked up the Summer 2010 Issue of Edible Finger Lakes yet? We just did and we were totally stoked to see the following article:

Thank you Edible Finger Lakes!

To read the Edible Finger Lakes Summer 2010 issue, click here.

If it’s not pouring rain, we will be open today… (Cross your fingers!)

100% Local (Veggie) Wood Fired Pizza – $10

Caramelized Onion (Remembrance Farm, Trumansburg, NY)
Herbs de Provence Chevre (Lively Run, Interlaken, NY)
Finished with a drizzle of Butternut Squash Seed Oil (Stony Brook WholeHeartedFoods, Geneva, NY)

What We Love About This Pizza: 100% of its ingredients are locally sourced (i.e., Remembrance Farm is 12.3 miles away, Lively Run Goat Dairy is 8 miles away, and Stony Brook WholeHeartedFoods is 26.5 miles away).

Suggested Wine Pairing: Cayuga Ridge Estate Gewürztraminer

Pepperoni (Piggeroni) Wood Fired Pizza – $10.50

Pepperoni (The Piggery, Trumansburg, NY)
Herbs de Provence Chevre (Lively Run, Interlaken, NY)
San Marzano Tomatoes (La Valle, Italy)

What We Love About This Pizza: In a word: The Piggery…

Suggested Wine Pairing: Cayuga Ridge Estate Cabernet Sauvignon

If you are celebrating Memorial Day on the Cayuga Wine Trail stop by for some (om nom nom) wood fired pizza and a glass of wine.

Got cheese from the Finger Lakes Cheese Trail? Bring it with you and we’ll put it on your pizza at a discount.

Seasonal Wood Fired Pizza #1

Caramelized Onion (Remembrance Farm, Trumansburg, NY)
Herbs de Provence Chevre (Lively Run, Interlaken, NY)
Finished with a drizzle of Butternut Squash Seed Oil (Stony Brook WholeHeartedFoods, Geneva, NY)

What We Love About This Pizza: 100% of its ingredients are locally sourced (i.e., Remembrance Farm is 12.3 miles away, Lively Run Goat Dairy is 8 miles away, and Stony Brook WholeHeartedFoods is 26.5 miles away).

Suggested Wine Pairing: Cayuga Ridge Estate Reserve Chardonnay

Seasonal Wood Fired Pizza #2

Pepperoni (The Piggery, Trumansburg, NY)
Herbs de Provence Chevre (Lively Run, Interlaken, NY)
San Marzano Tomatoes (La Valle, Italy)

What We Love About This Pizza: Anything with The Piggery’s products is, um, good.

Suggested Wine Pairing: Cayuga Ridge Estate Cabernet Sauvignon

So, this is my first official blog entry for The Copper Oven…strange and exciting. Sometime last year an idea started to ruminate in our minds. It happened innocently enough, when we created a list with the components of our ideal home and lifestyle. From there, the idea morphed and changed a little more, and before we knew it, The Copper Oven was born. We haven’t even opened our doors, but the show of support from my dear husband Seth, our friends and family – and also our loyal winery customers, has made the experience quite a meaningful one.

While batting around some ideas about what we wanted this enterprise to stand for, the themes of community, sustainability and food culture emerged very clearly. Upon examining our daily lives, we evaluated the importance of the community in which we live – as proud residents of the Finger Lakes, members of the Cayuga Wine Trail and as a family who lives in a rural setting with strong roots in agriculture. The desire to give back to the community in some meaningful way, grow our own produce, create relationships with local artisans and farmers and make decisions that uphold our beautiful environment emerged as necessities. With core values in place, we were then able to start building an entity with aspirations of how The Copper Oven lives and breathes.

This week will be quite busy, with the arrival of our oven, last minute business setup and catching our stride from an operational perspective. We are very much looking forward to the grand opening, on April 24th and can’t wait to see The Copper Oven in full swing!