Offbeat Eats

A few weekends ago we decided to spend a longer weekend in Vermont’s Mad River Valley, take in some of the sights, enjoy a few of the local breweries, and maybe get in some skiing. Well, despite leaving a house with almost two feet of accumulation back in NH, most of Vermont didn’t get the same heavy Nor’easter storms we did, so we mostly found ourselves staring at… dormant grass (and Mad River Glen only had two runs open!). Despite the unseasonable weather, however, the rest of the trip went pretty smoothly, we just spent a bit more time exploring, checking out breweries, and having a few nice dinners. One of our spots was a new one to me: The Bistro at Ten Acres in Stowe.

First of all, I’ll admit, I’m a pizza snob. There are only a handful of pizza places in existence that I consider great (and most of these are in or around New Haven, CT), a few more that I consider good (American Flatbread, for one example in these parts), and the other 99.9% are just plain mediocre. Northern New England, in particular, is mostly filled with mediocre “Village Pizzas” and “Houses of Pizza” serving bland pizza with questionable cheese on soggy crusts, or places with elaborate brick ovens that, despite having good equipment, manage to turn perfectly good raw ingredients into leathery pucks. Pie-casso in Stowe, VT, however, is one of the notable exceptions to this rule….