Vermont Craft and Cuisine - Day 1
Originally published at BlackTabi Blog. You can comment here or there.
For vacation this year, Matt and I decided to latch on to a tour being organized by one of my acquaintances through a local fiber guild. She runs a small-scale tour business called Tactile Travel, which specializes in tours geared toward textile hobbyists and food enthusiasts. When we heard that she was planning an excursion to Vermont to sample local cuisine and explore the history and fiber offerings of the area we said (quite literally), “Sign us up!”
Our tour embarked Monday morning from South Station. We got ourselves and our luggage to Davis Square (deserted because we were leaving early on July 5, a holiday) and hopped a train to South Station, where we grabbed a quick breakfast and encountered another of my knitting friends through my fiber guild, there with her husband for the same trip. Heading out to the appointed meeting place, we found our cheerful tour operator, Alanna, and one last tour-goer. A party of six, we set off on our week of food and excitement, deterred only a bit by the heat wave sweeping the North East.
The Cabot Cheese Bar
Our first stop was Quechee Gorge Village, where we were able to sample more kinds of Cabot Cheddar Cheese than we knew existed, as well as many other fine local flavors. Matt was taken with the habanero infused maple syrups (I preferred the flavor that had a whole vanilla bean in the bottle), and we tasted cheese, fruit wines (including rhubarb!), dips and sauces to our hearts’ content.
Matt samples habanero maple syrup
Stepping outside after our delicious stop, we were confronted by tragedy. A driver had mis-estimated while turning into the parking lot and plowed hood-first into the kiddie train tootling its way around the parking lot, causing it to jump the tracks. The news seemed grave - technicians weren’t sure the train would operate again this season, and children were forced to walk across the parking lot back to the shop rather than completing the train circuit.
Train Wreck!
Next, we made a jaunt over to Simon Pearce glassworks for lunch and an exploration of the glassworks. Having heard that the waits could be long, we made reservations at the restaurant in the glassworks before making a trip down to the glass blowing area to watch the glassblowers while waiting for our table to be ready.
Heating a wine glass
Shaping the Top
The Making of a Round Wine Glass
After using the bathroom, Matt successfully convinced me that he’d found glass blown toilets in the mens’ room. Apparently I’m about as gullible as they come because I not only stepped into the ladies room to check this phenomenon out for myself, I was momentarily disappointed to note that the ladies room had only ceramic toilets and wonder why the men got fancier treatment…
Glass Blowing Molds
Once seated for lunch, we learned from our menu that the Simon Pearce restaurant was very community oriented. The restaurant features local produce, powers the glass furnaces and electricity for the restaurant from a hydroelectric generator associated with the dam right outside, recycles as much as possible (the chef’s Sesame Sedan is powered with used cooking oil), and even the food scraps are donated to a local farm as chicken feed.
As this was to be a culinary vacation, we made sure to choose lunch carefully. I had a local cheddar soup with a side salad, while Matt enjoyed a meal-sized salad of strawberries and greens. We both chose the drink special of the day, raspberry-lime-seltzer drinks to take the bite of the unseasonably hot weather.
Matt with our Raspberry Lime Spritzers
Finally, we both opted to leave some food for the chickens in honor of viewing the dessert menu. We decided to split a walnut meringue for dessert to both indulge in the tasty sounding sweet while saving some room for dinner. It was as good as it looks.
Walnut Meringues - aka, little crunchy bites of heaven
Having a few minutes after lunch before we were due back at the van, we stepped outside for a better look at the dam and covered bridge we’d been able to see from the restaurant.
Covered bridge and unofficial cliff divers
View from the covered bridge. The white and black extension on the building was where we ate lunch.
After reuniting with the rest of the tour group, we hopped back in our chariot and traveled the rest of the way to Essex, VT where we were staying at The Essex Culinary Resort. Waiting for us in the lobby, we found the resort owner with our room keys (no waiting in line to check in!) and a box full of fresh truffles for each guest. While he gave us a verbal tour of the amenities, who should walk by in his white coat, but the head chef? He gave us a preview of the night’s dinner specials while Matt and I elbowed each other and pointed out his checked pants. Yes, we knew that outfit!
While this discussion had been going on, our bags had been whisked away to our rooms. We stepped into our almost ridiculously large room to a welcome blast of air conditioning, large fluffy beds and a pair of soft armchairs with reading lamps.
Room at The Essex
We spent a few hours of down time in our appointed rooms before cleaning up to meet our group in the bar to taste the local Switchback Ale - available only in kegs at select locations, so not a beer we’d get to order just any day! We sipped our ale, recounted the day’s adventures, and got better acquainted with our touring crew. Eventually, the dinner hour rolled around and we moved into the upscale dining room at the Essex.
Delicious food was once again had all around. Matt and I both chose the chickpea veggie burgers with roasted peppers and pesto sauce, and split a truly enormous basket of sweet potato fries (we’d almost ordered two, since they were listed as side dishes!). For dessert, I thoroughly enjoyed a peanut butter cup mousse (if you ever get the chance, be sure to sample a bite of mousse with one of the honey roasted peanuts decorating the plate - the combination of creamy sweet mousse with the crunchy salty peanuts is divine!) while Matt was less impressed to find that the plate of assorted petit fours turned out to be “just” a plate of the same truffles we’d had earlier in the afternoon. We never did find out why the menu had advertised them as petit fours!
After dinner, we all rolled outside for a walk around the resort grounds, where we found the evening bonfire. We were sadly all much too full to even consider making and eating s’mores, or even a lowly toasted marshmallow, but enjoyed watching the flames flicker as the sun set in the distance. Eventually we made our we back to our rooms to turn in for the evening and prepare for the next day.
