Every year, my college friends and I go away for a weekend, and this year, we decided to visit Vermont. Besides some great hiking, fabulous fall foliage and wonderful time together, we found some truly amazing food.
Farm to table restaurants...fall festivals...a distillery...cooking classes...who knew that second least-populated state in the US was such a tasty place?
Our first restaurant meal was at the Worthy Kitchen in Woodstock, VT. The food and drink is fresh, local, creative and worth the trip. My "caprese" salad above was definitely a re-interpretation (the orange pieces are butternut squash), but what flavor! The poutine, with chunks of crispy pork and shreds of Vermont cheddar, was hoovered down by our group. I've love to give you a recipe from the Worthy Kitchen, but a big part of what they do is create dishes based on locally available ingredients, so even if I did have recipes, I don't think they would taste the same. For those travelling near Woodstock, the Worthy Kitchen website is here.
Farm to table restaurants...fall festivals...a distillery...cooking classes...who knew that second least-populated state in the US was such a tasty place?
Our first restaurant meal was at the Worthy Kitchen in Woodstock, VT. The food and drink is fresh, local, creative and worth the trip. My "caprese" salad above was definitely a re-interpretation (the orange pieces are butternut squash), but what flavor! The poutine, with chunks of crispy pork and shreds of Vermont cheddar, was hoovered down by our group. I've love to give you a recipe from the Worthy Kitchen, but a big part of what they do is create dishes based on locally available ingredients, so even if I did have recipes, I don't think they would taste the same. For those travelling near Woodstock, the Worthy Kitchen website is here.
Girls' weekends always require a little alcohol, so we stopped at the Vermont Spirits Distillery for some taste-testing. They offer a number of vodkas, although I've never understood how a grain neutral spirit like vodka can vary much in taste, these certainly do. My favorites however were the fruit liqueurs, blueberry and strawberry. Both smelled like a bowl of crushed ripe fruit in the summer sunshine, and made great cosmopolitans. For the Vermont Spirits Distillery website, click here, and for my cosmopolitan recipe, click here.
At the Woodstock Artisan Fair, there were several stalls with amazing food offerings. The Chubby Chicks had an array of jams and jellies which they make from produce that they often pick themselves. I tasted a few jams including blueberry and raspberry chocolate and bought a jar of strawberry-jalapeno called Blood Sweat and Tears. If you can get your hands on some good pepper jam (Chubby Chicks website here), you can make a simple throwback appetizer with it (recipe here) that your friends will love.
I also met Tom, who spent a year perfecting his tomatillo salsa. The brilliant thing about Tom's salsa is that the flavors hit you in waves as you eat it - sweet, smokey, spicy and then the afterburn. There are three heat levels including a truly mild "mild" and a semi-blistering "hot". Instead of opening a jar of Tostitos salsa for a party, why not an upgrade? Tom's website is here, and he has a couple of good-looking recipes as well. If you grill some fresh swordfish, a bit of salsa verde on the side is fabulous.
At my last stop, I ran into a laconic grandpa selling pure maple butter. He offered popsicle sticks for generous tastes, and after clearing my stick of every sugary drop, I asked him what you could do with it besides eating it from the jar. His five word reply conveyed that you could put it on ice cream, but really why dilute the experience? Grandpa doesn't have a website, but it you've like to beg him to sell you some maple butter, his phone number is 802-457-2762.
I also met Tom, who spent a year perfecting his tomatillo salsa. The brilliant thing about Tom's salsa is that the flavors hit you in waves as you eat it - sweet, smokey, spicy and then the afterburn. There are three heat levels including a truly mild "mild" and a semi-blistering "hot". Instead of opening a jar of Tostitos salsa for a party, why not an upgrade? Tom's website is here, and he has a couple of good-looking recipes as well. If you grill some fresh swordfish, a bit of salsa verde on the side is fabulous.
At my last stop, I ran into a laconic grandpa selling pure maple butter. He offered popsicle sticks for generous tastes, and after clearing my stick of every sugary drop, I asked him what you could do with it besides eating it from the jar. His five word reply conveyed that you could put it on ice cream, but really why dilute the experience? Grandpa doesn't have a website, but it you've like to beg him to sell you some maple butter, his phone number is 802-457-2762.
For our final day, we headed to the King Arthur Flour Cooking school in Norwich, Vermont to take a empanada class. I've been making pie crust AND eating empanadas for years, and never noticed that empanadas are basically tiny little pies. The King Arthur Flour campus is a destination, with cooking classes, a cafe and a really good kitchen store. For their piecrust recipe, click here (fyi, you don't need the buttermilk powder). I'm going to play around with empanada fillings and will do a future post - the possibilities are literally endless. If you want to take a cooking class, they do fill up so plan ahead; the class list is here.
I intended this to be a post about appetizers, but I'm still in a bit of a foodie daze. That said, can I encourage anyone who reads this to call up a couple of close friends and plan a road trip? It can be very hard to get away, but with a bit of flexibility balanced by planning, a long weekend with your besties is a wonderful time. After all, (to mis-quote the Ashley Madison website), "Life is short, spend it with good friends".
Enjoy your weekend!
Enjoy your weekend!
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