EARTH AND STONE GREENE STREET
Earth and Stone Wood Fired Pizza's Greene Street. (Matt Wake | mwake@al.com)
HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- That seemed a lot shorter than 21 minutes.
Easy to lose track of time though when you're at the vibrant, outdoor Greene Street Market. Vendors selling everything from fresh vegetables to hand-crafted jewelry. Live acoustic music. And milling about amid fellow customers – a mix of stroller-pushing parents, tattooed bohemians and just plain folks – you're quite likely to run into several people you're quite glad to see.
Earth and Stone Wood Fired Pizza's The Latham. (Matt Wake | mwake@al.com)
So, yes, waiting 1,260 seconds for our order at Earth and Stone Wood Fired Pizza, which is tucked away in a South corner of Greene Street Market (held in the Church of Nativity, 304 Eustis Ave., parking lot Thursdays from 4 – 8 p.m.), was a snap.
Earth and Stone cooks their pizzas in a mobile brick oven that sits atop a trailer towed in from Albertville with a Chevrolet Suburban. Available toppings include the out-there (roasted asparagus, corn and sweet potatoes) and the been-there (pepperoni, Italian sausage, etc.).
They take your order at a portable table underneath a white canopy. A blackboard displays tonight's menu. A coffin-sized cooler holds the ingredients and proofed dough is kept in plastic containers, cardboard to-go boxes are stacked and ready to go, and a five-person crew keeps the pizzas flowing. They told us they'd already sold about 100 of their eight- to nine-inch personal-sized pies by the time we ordered at 6:30 p.m.
Earth and Stone Wood Fired Pizza's The Popeye. (Matt Wake | mwake@al.com)
I went with The Greene Street ($12), which features mushrooms, red onions, baby spinach, Kalamata olives, roasted peppers and mozzarella. Be prepared for your pies to be less than perfectly-shaped circles (and sometimes closer to a rhombus or triangle), but taste-wise the crusts, made from hand-stretched Caputo flour dough, were a highlight: super-fresh and cooked to a pleasing chewiness, without being dried-out and crumbly. The red sauce was tangy without stepping on the flavors of the Greene Streets yummy toppings, which were of high-quality.
And they better be for a $12 personal pizza.
We also ordered The Nanny ($12). And we were shocked by how seamlessly and tastefully the asparagus and corn fit into the more-common toppings – roasted peppers, red sauce and mozzarella. The Humble Heart Farms goat cheese really set the pie apart though. A little sweeter, a little less oily than the mozz, it made me wonder why pizza makers don't use goat cheese more often.
Earth and Stone Wood Fired Pizza's The Nanny. (Matt Wake | mwake@al.com)
The Latham ($12) was the most unusual pie we went with. And this was another case of an Earth and Stone offering that proved to be a winning dish and not a wacky, Guy Fieri-TV show spectacle. The sweet potato was sliced ultra thin, which helped. Goat cheese and white sauce gave The Latham a cool, comfort-food like texture, while the caramelized onion left each bite with a nifty sweet finish on your palate.
The Popeye ($10) comes topped with baby spinach, roasted peppers, white sauce and mozzarella. Those ingredients might be a little less flashy than our other orders, but they were in excellent harmony with that delicious Earth and Stone crust.
Looking for more typical pizza flavors? Try the Supreme ($10, for pepperoni, Italian Sausage and three veggies), the Cheese ($8) or the Margherita ( $9, red sauce, mozzarella, fresh basil). Drinks (Coke, Diet Coke, bottled water) are two bucks.
There's not really seating at the Greene Street Market. But personal pizzas are pretty manageable standing up, and downtown there are benches and courthouse steps within a quick walk if you want to park it. On Tuesdays from 3 – 7 p.m., Earth and Stone sets up at the farmers' market at Latham United Methodist Church (109 Weatherly Road S.E.).
OK, there were some facets of our Earth and Stone meal that could stand improvement. The crusts were a tad bubbly. The Popeye and Latham weren't exactly loaded down with toppings, and the $12 price point on the more expensive pies teeters on being too high.
Earth and Stone Wood Fired Pizza
256-572-9868
facebook.com/earthandstonewoodfiredpizza
Recommendations: The Nanny, The Greene Street.
Suggestions: Split a more adventurous pie as an app.
Alcohol: No.
Ambience: Farmers' market vendor.
Service: Cordial but very busy and not fast.
Vegetarian-friendly: Several all-veggie
options.
Price range: Most pizzas $8- $12.