One of the many benefits of launching a product that combines outdoors, pizza, and fresh ingredients is the setting in which you find yourself cooking. Last weekend we had the opportunity to cook pizza on the Pizza-Porta in the most beautiful spot in Georgia. North Georgia has terrain suitable for growing grapes. And, when you can grow grapes, you might as well make wine! We were at the Crane Creek Vineyard to celebrate a different plant that bestows us with wonderful tastes, the tomato. This annual event featured live music, wine tasting, and lots of food that highlighted the tomato. We were there of course to promote its use as a sauce and as a fresh, juicy topping. I am not going to prattle on too much about the day and let the photography do the talking. These are actual photos from the day, not internet images of northern Italy.

And after all it was a celebration of the tomato - the winery had harvested hundreds of tomatoes, so this is what we saw everywhere!

Enough distractions from the beautiful scenery. The crack cooking team had to forgo adirondack chairs, wine tasting, and caprese salads. We were here to cook! We unloaded the Big Green Egg, placed the Pizza-Porta, and started making pizza.

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Of course we featured fresh ingredients and interesting tomatoes.

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Margherita was the most popular pizza of the day. We tried to riff on the Margherita for the festival. The pizza below features roasted tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and is topped with organic arugula and balsamic glaze. All topped with a little parmesan.

We were close enough to enjoy Cornbread Ted and the Butterbeans throughout the day.

The festival was a blast. We met some great folks from Florida, Ohio, Georgia and North Carolina. Blaine and Kate shared great stories about cooking on their Pizza-Porta. Boy do they cook pizzas! There were some who were not familiar with the capabilities of a Big Green Egg, and others who never imagined cooking pizzas at 600F all day long. We did some demonstrations on how to make and stretch out pizza dough showing the virtues of homemade and pizzeria dough. We ended up cooking until the 44 doughs we brought were all cooked. It was a great day at the vineyard, and we look forward to doing more events in exotic locations like this. Thanks for everyone who came out and enjoyed pizza with us. Special thanks to Crane Creek Vineyards for hosting such a fantastic event!

Cortlandt

Look for us at Eggs on the Beach near Destin in September and Eggtoberfest at Stone Mountain Park in October.

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Thank you to Tim for his outstanding photography.

The Pizza-Porta team cooks at the Tomato Festival