Pizza, pizza!

Last Saturday I was living the dream: pizza for breakfast, pizza for dinner. I love so many foods, but pizza is by far my favorite. I can eat it anytime, topped with anything (yes, even anchovies), and in large quantities.

It's always a good time for pizza..My dad and I enjoy slices in San Gimignano, Italy earlier this month. We finished the slices as we walked into a "Slow Food" restaurant for a three-course lunch.

My breakfast of pizza actually featured "breakfast pizza." That's what the artisan pizzaioli behind Cabot, Vt.'s "Woodbelly Pizza" call it when they top their pies with eggs, breakfast sausage or bacon, cheese, and other ingredients that would be right at home inside an omelet. They make pies sauced with marinara and/or pesto too.

Though their slices never cease to sate, you can't be sure you'll get the same toppings each week when you queue up in front of the portable wood-fired oven that they tuck into the back corner of Montpelier's farmer's market each summer Saturday. That's because Woodbelly's pie-making predilections run toward spontaneity and seasonality. They often concoct combinations based on what's fresh that fits their fancy as they arrange topping trades with the other meat, cheese, and veggie vendors at the market (they get toppings and give back whole pies). On Friday nights, I go to sleep wondering what festival of flavors Woodbelly will feature the following morning and it's not unusual for my dad to call on Saturday afternoon to find out what I had on my slices that morning.

Until last Saturday, I would have told you that Woodbelly made the best pizza in Vermont (in fact it is some of the best pizza I have ever eaten anywhere). But then dinnertime found us passing by White Rock Pizza and Pub, just a stone's throw from the shores of Woodbury Lake. After we ordered, we sat on the deck admiring the lake view and the beautiful hydrangea bushes that flank the restaurant's comfortably-appointed outdoor deck. When the sourdough-crusted sensation pictured above arrived a few short minutes later, however, I only had eyes for the pie.

They call it "Garlic Love": Velvety garlic cream sauce coats a crust crowded with fresh-sliced tomatoes, fresh garlic, shredded basil, and ricotta cheese. Once you pick up one of these seductive slices, it is hard to put it back on the plate; as soon as one bite when down the gullet my palette started pleading for more.

"Fresh" is an adjective that most menus misuse to describe an ingredient that has not been pre-cooked even though it may be many shrink-wrapped miles and months removed from the garden where it was grown. At White Rock, when they say fresh, they mean FRESH. Pizzaiola Maggie Zuccardy tops her affordable pizze with ingredients that are cut from the garden out back only after you order your pie. Even the red pepper flakes are made from dried chiles grown in their garden (thank god, too--I am sick of the weak, dead Sysco flakes on offer at most slice shops).

A 16" pie was no match for the award-winning eater and his bride. We took it down in a sitting after scarfing a tasty salad dressed with a house-made tequila lime dressing

We had the good fortune to meet Maggie while eating Kismet's Sunday brunch at an adjacent patio table. She intrigued us with tales of her restaurant, including the story of her crust--a sourdough she makes from her own yeast grown according to a recipe and technique from the old country where Maggie has deep roots. The crust is truly unique in taste and texture. It is the source of my only complaint about White Rock pizza. Usually, I can count on eating the unwanted crusts from Joslyn's plate after I finish my own slices. Alas, at White Rock Pizza, there is no such thing as an unwanted crust.