elephantwalktalk

Collaborate, cooperate, celebrate...

Food sanity in Mad River Valley - Part 3

Too rich to go into in this post, and far too interesting for you NOT to explore further on your own, The Cellars at Jasper Hill is a twenty-two thousand square foot underground cooperative cheese aging facility and an organization with a powerful cooperative marketing arm, storing and selling some damn fine cheeses! Most of the restaurants we'd visited featured Vermont cheeses very prominently, which we definitely appreciated, and when I started writing this post and pulling together the web addresses for you it became apparent that The Cellars at Jasper Hill was one of their principal providers. Like the Vermont Fresh Network, they are another strong connector of producers, preparers, and consumers, bringing together and bringing to market - and thereby sustaining - healthful and delicious, high quality food products and businesses. 

At breakfast on our last morning at The Inn at Round Barn Farm, we were talking with innkeeper Tim Piper about all the great food and food culture in the area. After hearing us out a bit on cheese, he told us that they were hosting a three-day cheesemaking class in late to be taught by the highly accomplished and decorated artisanal cheesemakers at Three Shepherds' Cheese Company located just down the road in Warren. - And wouldn't you know, it also turns out that the Vermont Fresh Network annual meeting was just hosted at Round Barn Farm as well. Integrating, churning, connecting, learning. Impressive.

I can't help but feel that the food community in Vermont is showing us all the way to organize and operate a sustainable, high-quality, healthful food chain. What they're doing in the Mad River Valley, at least, creates and preserves jobs, respects the environment, celebrates the full spectrum of food arts, and - as far as we could tell - really enhances the quality of life for visitors and year-rounders alike. It was a little jarring to return to the big city from a getaway in the country and realize that suddenly my perspective had reversed: Notwithstanding the number of great, progressive restaurants we do have in the Greater Boston area, I realize now how far AHEAD of us city-folk they can be in the country when it comes to collectively embracing and integrating the local, the seasonal, the natural - and the people, both local and "flatlanders."

It's good to be served a slice of humble pie every once in a while - especially when it's delicious!

They get it in Vermont...

Food Sanity in the Mad River Valley, Part 2...

They get it in Vermont: Organic. Local. Seasonal. Hand-crafted. Small, artisanal producers, celebrating, supporting, feeding each other. It's impressive and profoundly satisfying to plunge into their world for a while. I don't feel like I have yet completely figured out why the commitment to quality and purity felt so pervasive, but I do think that the Vermont Fresh Network has a lot to do with it. Self-described as "dedicated to connecting farmers, food producers, and chefs to support Vermont agriculture and bring fresh, flavorful, high-quality food to all Vermonters and [their] guests," nearly every place we visited happened to be a member of the Network.

Yes, there is an evident, active commitment among so many of the local chefs to using high-quality local, seasonal, and organic ingredients. But just as satisfying was discovering that they take risks with their recipes as well, with wild boar, squab, even rabbit confit could be found at Hen of the Wood in Waterbury, The Black Door in Montpelier, The Pitcher Inn in Warren, and The Green Cup back in Waitsfield. Even our favorite place to stay in the area, The Inn at The Round Barn Farm, with an organic garden of their own, is very well aware of and closely connected with the burgeoning high-quality local food world around them. One morning they found a way to use local yak sausage as part of a delicious breakfast. - But, perhaps the most pleasant surprise was a brand-new vegetarian restaurant that grew out of a tea shop we remembered from our last visit to the area last March: Mint, in the heart of downtown Waitsfield, where I found their "Tempeh Bowl" to be one of the best lunch dishes I've ever had. 

One of the most refreshing aspects of this visit was realizing how selflessly they promote one-another. All our servers and proprietors seemed eager to share with us their local favorites, actively referring us to other good places in the area. Otherwise we may not have discovered Mint, nor The Black Door. However, it was the chef at our inn, Charlie Menard, who connected us in a new way with perhaps Vermont's best known culinary commodity: cheese. We were looking for a mid-afternoon snack and so he pointed us toward the East Warren Community Market - a new local cooperative market - where he said we'd find a great selection of local, artisanal food products, including cheese. He was right. 

Although the Market had sold out of fresh bread by the time we got there, we left with two great cheeses: Von Trapp [yes, those Von Trapps] Farmstead "Oma" and "Cabot Clothbound," an aged English-style cheddar that is nothing like your typical sharp Vermont or Wisconsin aged cheddar, nor anything like the more mainstream Cabot cheeses we commonly find in our local supermarkets. What most surprised me was the fact that, although the two cheeses were from altogether different producers, they shared nearly identical labels, prompting us to take a closer look. In so doing, we discovered yet another inspiring, community-building concept: The Cellars at Jasper Hill.

Next: Collaboration

Getting an education... on Education!

Like many of you, I recently finished reading the 2006 bestseller Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin - an astonishing and ongoing story of a man [Mortenson] who, climbing down K2 after a failed summitting attempt, stumbled into a Pakistani village and a new life building schools where there aren't any in northern Pakistan and now Afghanistan.

Working similar magic, but from a somewhat different perspective is John Wood, founder of the remarkable foundation Room to Read, which builds libraries, schools and computer labs in Southeast and Central Asia, and now Africa. I also just finished Mr. Wood's book, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, a no less inspiring story of an overworked corporate executive who stumbled upon a cavernous need for better education in the developing world and dropped everything to commit to help build libraries and schools for people who don't have them. - The Boston Chapter of Room to Read held a sold out findraiser at The Elephant Walk in Cambridge last November in pursuit of their goal of building 10 libraries in Cambodia.

It was Heather Faris, Cambridge resident and mother of two students who educated all of us at The Elephant Walk as to what American journalist Bernie Krisher is doing with his non-profit organization, American Assistance for Cambodia [AAfC}- you guessed it: building schools in Cambodia [more than 400 so far] and more. Ms. Faris brought us up to speed early last year on the Cambridge School for Cambodia [CambCamb] project, a grass roots Cambridge organization she was helping run that included many students and was raising money to fund a school through the AAfC. [We hosted a fundraiser in support of their effort at our Cambridge restaurant last April that raised over $5,000. - We're also hosting a follow-up buffet luncheon this coming May 9 - spearheaded by Cambridge high school student Lucy Flamm - to help further the CambCamb mission - (Tickets are still available!)]

Frankly, until recently, I had no idea how many people are making extraordinary commitments of time and money, sometimes even risking their lives let alone their life savings to help bring the opportunity of education to people whose governments and community resources cannot provide it. Their efforts and achievements are amazing and inspiring.