Taste of Vermont

7-10-07
Today was Vermont Sampler Day. If Vermont makes it, we checked it out. Who needs to eat lunch when you can get free samples? Unfortunately most of Vermont has a sweet tooth. Here’s an outline of our adventures.

Cider – Cold Hollow Cider Mill – Scale of 1-10, it was a 4. Unfortunately there aren’t any apples to make into cider or other good things, so I tried some apple butter, perused the gift shop, and swung back and forth in a cool rocker thing that made me slightly queasy.



Ice cream – Ben and Jerry’s Factory tour. Now this was definitely the Main Event. We chucked over our $3 entry fee, waded through the short kids, and discovered the history of Ben and Jerry. They’re 29, and very eco and community friendly. Our free sample was Strawberry Cheesecake. It was pretty good. I’d definitely eat it again. We then waded through more kids and up the hill to visit the ice cream graveyard, where they have headstones and epitaphs for all of their retired flavors. Afterward, since it was about 90 degrees and humid, we thought we deserved some more cool flavors. I got Crème Brulee. Yum. Clare got the New York Super Fudge Chunk. “It was gorgeous,” she says.
Tea – Omouse the Flyer Lady, as Clare has begun to call me, picked up a flyer for Vermont Liberty Tea Company. It was only a mile or two from B and J’s so I thought we should take a look. We followed the little map on the flyer, and nearly missed the little road, cough, cough. If you can even call it a road. I’d say more like an alley. We had to turn around at a gas station… and little did we know that if we’d looked a little harder, we would have been able to see that the gas station and the alley were connected. Anyway. We get to the tea shop, and there’s this friendly guy (must have been fabulous) and he poured us a few samples of cold and hot tea. Then we went around opening tins and smelling things. Intoxicating! I bought three different teas; two lovely greens and one Cream Earl Grey. I can’t wait to get home and steep myself silly.
Maple – Our next trip took us further afield and we headed to Bragg Farms Maple and Sugarhouse… again, we were out of season, so we watched a video and sampled four different kinds of maple syrup. It’s a lot thinner than the usual, and amazingly yummy. I bought a sampler pack with the four main grades.
Coffee – Our next stop was the Green Mountain Coffee Welcome Center and Café – which wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, but interesting enough. It was sort of a combined visitor center (read flyer shelving) and coffee making museum. It was in an old train station that they’d revamped. Clare and I both bought a café latte (Yes. Jenny drank coffee), though the girl behind the counter seemed to think “Latte” in a British accent sounded like “Mudslide.” Huh.
Cheese – We made a quick stop to the Cabot Cheese Annex, which was also paired with Lake Champlain’s Chocolates, and the Vermont Teddy Bear store. We made our way around the cheese samples and decided that the garlic and herb cheddar was the best. Their reduced fat cheddar was also the best low fat cheese I’ve ever tasted. I googled it and found that they sell it at Trader Joe’s. Must go looking for it next time.
Glass – Ziemke Glass Blowing Studio, “Needless to say, we stopped blowing glass early today,” says the woman behind the counter as we look at all the beautiful, but very expensive glass. With no air conditioner, yeah, I understand. A large dog wandered up to me as well, and I pet her, and then she walked away and suddenly started to howl. The woman opened a door and told the dog to “Find Dad.” Odd.
Our last stop was a market where we continued our Vermont Theme and bought Maple Glazed Ham, Cabot Cheddar slices, bread and drinks to eat for dinner back at our hotel. Tonight we’re going to go to Pie Casso’s for my favorite thing – yup – Kareoke!