Vermont's Best Organic Pizza Update: The Hippopotamus is Alive

Just a quick update on Pizza Hippo dream.  It's going to happen!

As of April 3rd, our little project on Kickstarter.com has been funded to 90% of our minimum goal of $5000.  Yes, we probably need more than $5K in all honesty, and yes, we may end up raising more than that, but either way, we'll have the baseline capital to at least get this project off the ground.  Exciting!

It's nice that 51 people so far believe I'm smart enough to make this dream into a reality, and have, on average, invested $87 per person.  Hopefully more folks, specifically more local folks, will get in on the action, pre-buy some Vermont Organic Pizza and help us crush our minimum goal.  Perhaps our upcoming press piece in The Commons will push us over the edge...stay tuned Vermont.

Hey Brattleboro!  It's official!!!  Pizza Hippo has been accepted by a jury of our peers to sling organic goodness at the Brattleboro Farmer's Market this summer.  We'll be there on Wednesdays starting in May.  It was an awesome feeling to hear Martha, membership director, complement our pizza so warmly and welcome Pizza Hippo to Brattleboro.  Hopefully we'll hear more of the same from the other market's we're still waiting to hear from...come on y'all, the Pizza Hippo Pizza Wagon is nearly complete and ready to roll!

We also wanted to mention a strategic partnership in the works with Jamaica Cottage Shop.  Still working on the terms, but it feels like we should end up with a great structure for the Kindle Farm Stand location.  Hope we can work this deal out and keep it classy, Vermont.

That's all for now...sweet dreams.

Love,
Mr. Hippopotamus

Pizza Hippo and the Brattleboro Farmer's Market Jury Day

Today is the Brattleboro Farmer's Market Jury Day.

"What is this?" you ask. It's the day where everyone who wants to take part in the market shows up with product to be judged by a very, how do I say, tightly... knit group of folks who run the show.

Its a little nerve wracking as these things have a reputation for being political and similar to Greek Rush week. As you may or may not know, I never rushed. Draw your own conclusions as to why ;) Hopefully, these are just rumors, everyone will be pleasant, and we'll get accepted without being hazed.

Regardless, Amber and I will be there today with bells and smiles on. Below is the document we're attaching to our food, which by rule cannot speak for itself today. Check it out.

Pizza Hippo - Vermont's Best Organic Pizza

Pizza Hippo's Fire Grilled Pizza is Vermont's Best Organic, Farm-To-Table Pizza.

Pizza Hippo is a local, sustainable business at the forefront of the organic food movement. World Headquarters: Windham, Vermont.

Our mission: Transform communities through the power of organic food.

Made to order and grilled to perfection over real, non-chemical treated charcoal and hard woods, our gourmet pizzas feature homemade Organic Sourdough crust, Local, Organic Vegetables, Local Meats, hand-crafted sauces, Artistanal Vermont Cheeses, and a wide variety of combinations, textures, and flavors.

Some of our food sources include, but are not limited to:

Kindle Farm Organic Vegetable Stand, Wild Sheppard Farm, Pizza Hippo’s home garden, Grafton Village Cheese Company, Taylor Farm, West River Creamery, Cabot, Wild Carrot Farm, River Bend Market Butchers, Snow Farm, and Guerilla Grown Produce. We also source the most local products available from Hillcrest Foods and Dole & Bailey.

All pizzas are single portion (feed one person) and will be served on compostable paper plates (on order) with unbleached, recycled paper napkins. To-go boxes will be available on demand, but will not be encouraged.

Today’s Menu:

Veggie Freestyle Pizza on Classic Marinara featuring Vermont Cheddar Cheese. Organic onions, bell peppers, broccoli, garlic scape pesto and tomatoes.

Yeah You Right BBQ Pizza featuring Vermont Cheddar Cheese. River Bend Market’s own Italian sausage, organic onions, and baby portabella mushrooms over Pizza Hippo’s award winning New Orleans Yeah You Right barbecue sauce.

Creole Sweet Potatopotamus and Sopressata Pizza. Creole spiced sweet potato topping with organic onions caramelized in balsamic vinegar and thinly sliced sopressata featuring Vermont Cheddar Cheese.

Other specialty pizzas include, but are not limited to:

· Peaceful Hippo Thai Basil

· Hippo Bandito Ole Mole

· Hippo Hawaiian Pineapple & Ham

· Blancopotamus Alfredo

· Swingin’ Hippo Crawfish Etouffee

· Spicy Hippo Eggplant Creole

· The Classic Hippo (sausage, onion and mushroom on marinara)

· Margaritapotamus

· Creole Muffalettapotamus

Pizza menu changes weekly. Contingent on what’s fresh and chef’s whimsy.

Wish us luck, and have a great weekend. With any luck, we'll see y'all on Wednesdays this season at the market!

Thoughts?

Vermont's Best Organic Pizza Dreams, Nickels, and GMO Labeling H.722

I don't own the clothes I'm wearing
And the road goes on forever
And I've got one more silver dollar - Gregg Allman

Yesterday I broke a promise to myself I've kept since 2006. I broke into my change jar, although this desperation was painted in joy and promise, a fresco illuminated by the first vestiges of morning sun creeping through the stained glass. After all was counted and rolled, my table looked like it was covered in strange, colorful sausages. Pizza Hippo banked nearly $400 in total. And a quart of pennies left over! Counting to 100 to get $1 just takes too long.

This week we've made substantial progress. Svetlana, our 1988 Volvo wagon whose odometer kindly stopped working at 257K and change over a year ago, is in the shop being fitted with a trailer hitch for the soon to be operational Pizza Hippo wagon. She's also getting a new muffler which should be enough to pass inspection for another year.

With the nickel sausages in the bank we have enough loot to apply for our commercial catering license, register our business name, and cover a fair chunk of what's needed for liability insurance. It's incredible how far we've come since last season operating illegally from our front yard.

As my fingers were transformed to arthritic talons counting and rolling coin, I recalled several conversations with entrepreneurs I've had through the years. So many of them, when questioned about getting started, said they had every nickel they had invested in their business. Man, I never knew they were being so honest! I truly have EVERY nickel I have invested in Pizza Hippo. (At least I still have a quart of pennies if times get tough!)

The interesting thing is the more and more I put into the business, the more I know we're on a world changing mission. Pizza Hippo is going to be the first fast food chain that solves the problem of being national and sourcing locally. When this model proves viable and profitable, look for Bob Langert and McDonald's to come a knocking. (I know, I'm obsessed with changing McDonald's. A worthy mission, no?) When McDonald's buys in, the world is a different place. I keep repeating it because its true and because the things you visualize become to be. Let's make it happen!

On another front, H.722 (GMO Labeling in Vermont) sees to be destined to die in committee. Rep. Catherine Partridge tells me they are reviewing it for constitutionality, and that "its not being put to bed yet", but I am extremely skeptical.

I hate to sound revolutionary, but when we're using a 235 year old document to study an issue so steeped in modern technology, one thinks about burning the Constitution and tearing down the fabric of our money stained political process.

To me, bringing affordable, organic food to the masses is best way for me to fight GMO. People, keep voting with your wallets.

Buy local, buy organic, grow your own! Planting season is upon us in Vermont, you know.

Shooting down McDonald's is not the solution

Just read an interesting article about McDonald's and the London Olympics.

Gist of it London Olympics is attempting to source all of the food needed to feed the event locally. What a giant challenge!

McDonald's, of course, is not being held to the local guidelines and is sourcing 90% of its chicken from Brasil. People are upset. Like the London Assembly.

Organizers site huge amounts of (we're talking tons) of chickens required to meet demand as well as the amount of chicken McD's buys annually from UK farmers ($475 million!) when explaining the McXimption.

However this might make us feel, being upset at McDonald's isn't going to change anything.

Here are two things that actually can make a difference.

1. Stop buying things from McDonald's. Anything at all. Not so they'll go out business, though.

Then why? Check out Jamie Peck's blog on Rush Limbaugh and free market speech.

Dollars are the only thing multinational corporations care about. We all know this to be true.

In fact, Bob Langert, McDonald's VP of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability, has stated the reason many sustainability measures have taken root within the corporation is because they "save millions and millions" of dollars, ie using napkins made from recycled materials.

If we as a state, country and world stop buying from the McDonald's of the world, they will listen. Guaranteed.

IMHO, the keys to the organic movement in America and beyond is McDonald's and Wal-Mart. The day these two companies say, "We're only selling organic produce and humanely raised meats, and will not sell any food products made with GMO ingredients past this date" is the day the world will change.

Farmers big and small would be forced to change production. We would, as a country, be eating better, healthier food in a matter of years.

So instead of bashing the McDonald's and the Wal-Marts of the world, let's embrace them. Embrace them with open hearts, open minds, and empty wallets. (Southern Vermonters, until they fall in line, save your cash for the likes of Vermont's Best Organic Pizza and Seitanic Kitchens.)

2. Bombard Bob Langert with INTELLIGENT emails. Let him know we can't buy his food products now, but look forward to eating a quarter pounder with cheese the way it was meant to be sometime in the near future. You can reach Bob at Bob.Langert@us.mcd.com.

Wal-Mart doesn't have such as easily accessed person as far as I can tell, but you can reach them via Twitter @Walmart or through their green blog.

Be active and be well.

Pizza Dreams, Social Fundraising, and Getting Out of the Way

"You got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em, know when to walk away, and know when to run" - Kenny Rogers

"Everyday, it's a-gettin' closer, Goin' faster than a roller coaster" - Buddy Holly

Yesterday I received a call for which I'd been waiting for some time. As soon as I picked up the phone, I knew my bid for a kitchen and land lease for Pizza Hippo's first legitimate pizza stand was going to be rejected. Nothing can kick the knees out from under a great plan like a meeting with a lawyer well versed in imagining liability scenarios. (They really out to use their creativity creating something fun like Hippo Joke Jeopardy for once!)

We must have been into the conversation about three minutes before I realized what was said in the first two seconds. Pizza Hippo was approved! They decided to go against council and at take a chance on my dream. Yeaaah, cabbage patch time, baby!

Then it hit me. Everything I've been working so hard to accomplish was happening. Whether I was ready or not. Despite the fact that a few weeks ago I lost the backing so critical to getting this operation up and running. Despite the fact I might not know exactly what I'm getting myself into, or that "I might get rich or I might get busted" (Steve Miller). As they say, the day does always go on whether you get out of bed or not.

Of course I deferred my decision to strengthen my negotiating position, but knowing all along this opportunity is something that cannot be passed up. No excuses.

Al Copeland of Popeye's Fried Chicken fame started with one fried chicken stand in Arabi, LA. If you've ever been to Arabi (or St. Bernard Parish), lovingly known as "The Parish", you'd say starting a national brand from the front of your house on Windham Hill Road doesn't sound so, um, I don't know, outlandish?!

Sometimes the best strategy is to stay out of your head and out of your own way. Why worry about what isn't possible?

"But hey!", says the internal critic, "What about the $5G's (that's $5000) you need to secure the lease, buy a few mandated pieces of equipment, and pay for the licensing? You're only working a few days a week in a seasonal kitchen that's about to close for two months!"

Like I said, stay out of your own way. So far, a positive relationship with the universe and my command of long division have gone a long way. Want something? Draw a picture of it and look at it every day. Visualize it in your possession. Then divide the big amount you need into manageable chunks. Where am I going to get $5000? Who knows? Where I can get 10 bunches of $500? Um... How about 100 bunches of $50? Yeah, that sounds more like it!

It reminds me of stacking wood when I was a kid. "Two chords! TWO CHORDS!!! I'll NEVER finish this job..." A few hours later, a few pieces at a time, the wood had magically transported itself (on my now scratched up arms) to its new home. Every long journey starts with a single step or, in case you don't like that one, insert your own cliche by clicking here.

Enter KickStarter.com This social site for entrepreneurs gives people like me a safe, legitimate way to raise capital. In the coming days (post final terms negotiation with KFS) I'll be creating a kickstater.com account and sending it out on the social network superhighway to see if I can get my cheddar.

Don't worry. Our community, your community, the entire country and world needs for this to happen. Great tasting, affordable, organic fast food. It's not just my dream. It's a right. So off to work I go.

Hippo Joke Jeopardy - How Well Can You Think Like a Hippo?

What do you call an extremely witty hippopotamus? Hippojokesalotamus!

Hippo Jokes are taking the country by storm! These simple, creative witicisms are more than silly, more than just plain fun...they're the most addictive word game you'd never think you'd love, but you do!

You can play anywhere, anytime, with anyone, or you can play alone.

To see more jokes and to find out how well you can "Think Like a Hippo", click the link below.

Play Hippo Joke Jeopardy Now!

Hippo Jokes: Not just for hippopotamus anymore!

Come up with tons of your own Hippo Jokes? Post them on our Pizza Hippo Facebook Page