Save the date for a sweet weekend
Plan to visit the 15th Annual Whitingham Maple Festival on Saturday and Sunday, March 23 and 24 to learn about the life and lore of making maple syrup — sugaring, as it’s known — and its historical importance in this small town (the birthplace of Mormon church icon Brigham Young). The town also hosts a craft fair and pancake breakfasts/luncheons on both days, and a sugar-on-snow supper on Saturday evening. That’s just one of the...
LOCAL FLAVOR: Adding value: Can you improve on the simple goodness of maple syrup? Entrepreneurs and farmers in Southern Vermont are using the sweet stuff in ways that might surprise you.
Maple syrup. It’s never been just for pancakes. The Algonquins wouldn’t have been surprised at the current entrepreneurial nature of the “sugaring” industry. It’s well-known that Native Americans were tapping northern maples for centuries before the first settlers came, and the legend has it that the delicious sweet sap was discovered when a woman — naturally, it was a woman — used some of it to boil up the evening venison. So put...
WINE OBSERVED: Weighing the options: Planning a wedding or celebration? Here’s how you can find a wine that will please a number of different palates and complement a wide variety of foods
Here is something to think about as you plan your wedding (or other gathering, for that matter): What wine will you serve at your reception? If you are having the reception at an inn or managed property, you might be limited to buying your wine directly through them or paying a per-bottle corkage fee for what you supply yourself. Even if you are paying a $20 per bottle corkage fee, you can often do better supplying your own wine....
SIDEBAR: Syrup for 10,000: One Vermonter takes his family trade into the 21st century
Peter Cooper-Ellis, who owns and operates Hidden Springs Maple online and retail in Putney, and his family have been making maple syrup for more than 50 years, selling under the Cooper-Ellis Sugar Makers label during the 1950s and ’60s. Yet Cooper-Ellis, who holds an engineering degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, lives in San Francisco, where he works at a software company in Palo Alto. He commutes east about once a...
It’s a tough job, but somebody had to do it: What does aging maple syrup in a bourbon barrel do to flavor that’s already Grade A? Quite a bit, actually.
Our publisher had emailed me a photo of a bottle of Baker Farm Bourbon Barrel Aged Pure Maple Syrup. “Already on it,” I said. She was reassured until she saw the text of the story, which showed that we most certainly were not on it. Turns out, I had thought the image that she sent me was illustrating the product of Saxtons River Distillery, which produces maple liqueur. The photo of a big flask-o-booze sitting in my email? It’s a...
Farmers’ Markets
Farmers Markets Bennington: Walloomsac Winter Farmers’ Market, Feb. 16, March 15, April 19, 10a-1p, at First Baptist Church, walloomsac.org, 802-688-7210. Brattleboro: Brattleboro Winter Farmers’ Market, Saturdays through March, 10a-3p, at the River Garden, downtown Brattleboro, postoilsolutions.org, 802-869-2141. Dorset: Dorset Winter Farmers’ Market, Sundays through Feb. 19, 10a-2p, at J.K. Adams Kitchen Store on Rte 30,...
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