Portland Press Herald, Maine, Soup to Nuts column.(Column)

Byline: Meredith Goad

Sept. 07--Reesa Kashuk and three friends, all Colby College students, lounged in the grass waiting for their hand-tossed pizza topped with organic ingredients to finish baking in Bennett Collins' mobile wood-fired oven set up on Route 1B in Damariscotta. "We just saw it on the side of the road, and it looked like it was worth pulling over," Kashuk said. Collins, who lives in Bremen, is one of four artisan pizza makers whose mobile ovens have been appearing around Maine on roadsides and at farmers markets, public events and private parties. Here's a look at who these itinerant entrepreneurs are, and where you can find them: NAME: Bennett Collins, Harvest Moon Pizza WHERE HE'LL BE THIS FALL: --Rising Tide Community Market, 323 Main St., Damariscotta; 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sept. 9 and 16 --Common Ground Fair, Sept. 23-25, Unity Fairgrounds, Unity. Gates open at 9 a.m.

--Swine and Stein, Gardiner; 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Oct. 2 --Pumpkinfest, Damariscotta, Columbus Day weekend. TRY THIS PIE: Maple and sage sausage with peppers and caramelized onions HOW MUCH: Slices range from $5 to $7; whole 16-inch pies, $19 to $23 INFO: on.fb.me/mR8b55

The college students open the box containing their zucchini, caramelized onion and roasted garlic pizza, and the first reaction is "Oh, my god."

"I can't wait to eat it," Kashuk said. "And it's nice that it's organic," her friend Courtney Yeager added. On today's menu is a three-cheese pizza, a Margherita, a pesto pie and, of course a veggie pizza. Collins' crust, light yet dense and earthy, is made from a dough that's half King Arthur organic bread flour and half Maine whole wheat. The vegetables he tops his pizzas with -- peppers, onions, tomatoes, garlic, red onion and zucchini -- all come from his own half-acre garden. His pesto is made from basil that was harvested just yesterday. Collins seasons the pork for the sausage himself. His cheese pizza is a blend of organic mozzarella, Parmesan from Longfellow's Creamery in Avon, and asiago from Sonnental, an Amish dairy in Smyrna where cheese is aged in an ice house. The oven takes three or four hours to heat …