4 Carmichael St., Essex, 288-9494

I have two older brothers. One is a chef, who, my mother loves to recount, asked for a wheel of fontina for his third birthday cake. The other is rather pickier than we are. Since birth he's refused to eat meat — and most vegetables. My mom calls him a "pizzatarian." That's why, when he declares a favorite pizzeria, I take note.

At the moment, my brother's official pizza of choice is the one at Mimmo's in Essex. I hadn't had one for years, and I needed to see if he was as right-on as usual.

At times, the pizzeria is so packed with locals that there are lines out the door. Luckily, last night was a slow one. We were seated immediately on the carpeted dining room side by the bar.

When I visit Asian food markets, I usually pick up big bags of dumplings as surefire backups for nights when I don't feel like cooking. They're cheap, easy to cook and always filling, and can do in any kind of pinch.

They also happen to be an auspicious food for celebrating Chinese New Year — they symbolize wealth. So when I found out about locally made Yum Dragon Dumplings during the same week that Year of the Dragon arrived, I tracked down a bag to mark the occasion.

These plump little pockets are the creation of Linda Furiya, an accomplished food writer and author who lives in Shelburne. Though Furiya grew up in Indiana eating mostly Japanese fare, she's travelled and lived in China, too, and for years penned a food column for the San Francisco Chronicle on Japanese and Chinese cooking.

Lincoln Peak Village, Warren, 583-6311

I recently traded lift tickets I won at Top Hat's Trivia Mania for a restaurant gift certificate. That should tell you everything you need to know about my nonexistent interest in skiing. Sure, I have balance issues, but I'm also lazy.

What occasionally interests me is a good après-ski menu. It was the bill of fare at Castlerock Pub that inspired me to make the trek to Sugarbush on Sunday.

I was glad to have relatively mobile feet, unbound by ski boots, as I made my way through Lincoln Peak Village. Just past the parking lot, a new tasting room devoted to East Shore Vineyards wines boded well for a gustatory experience.

Old habits die hard. It's around this time every year when the most ambitious post-holiday food resolutions begin to fade, and fat, sugar or other offenders begin to creep back into our diet. After all, it's freezing out, and the body wants to pack on calories as much as the mind wants to keep them at bay.

Sole meunière is one of those dishes that gracefully treads the line between abstinence and indulgence — it's clean and light on the one hand (fish, herbs, lemon), and kind of naughty on the other (butter, wine). Most appealing, though, is its simplicity: The sauce is ridiculously simple but flavorful, composed of just three ingredients. Famously, it was the first dish Julia Child ever tasted in Paris, and she called it "a morsel of perfection" and "the most exciting meal of my life."

1238 MacKay Street, Montréal, Québec

It's not really a garage, more of a basement, though one with a big window letting in plenty of light. Beirut, though, is entirely accurate to describe this cozy restaurant, decorated with historic photos of the Lebanese capital.

When most of us think Lebanese food and Montréal, fast-food names such as Basha and Amir come to mind. Garage Beirut, located near Montréal's "Concordia ghetto" may have a similar menu, but the handcrafted food has little in common with such chains. Canning jars stuffed with house-pickled turnips fill one corner shelf to declare the difference, too.

For a broad overview, we ordered the $22 mixed grill, which the menu said included five brochettes and grilled vegetables. We asked for a $5 order of hummus, but were told it was already included with the dish.

The puréed chickpea dip was nutty and fabulously creamy. Decorated with sprinkles of paprika and filled with viscous olive oil, the flavor leaned more toward the umami than the earthy-but-tangy hummus I prefer. Nonetheless, the cumin-scented dip was a delight that I couldn't stop eating off the fresh, chewy pita that came with it.

I don't kick back with hard cider too often, but Unified Press will probably change that.

This libation landed on my radar earlier this week, when someone "liked" Citizen Cider on Facebook and my pulse quickened — a new local ciderhouse? Yup. Turns out that over the last few years, three friends — a farmer, a chemist and a wine expert— have been quietly piecing together a cider operation inside an old railroad depot in Essex Junction.

Two years ago, the trio purchased a 1950s cider press, which they reconstructed and used to press local apples and experiment with blends. "We wanted to make something to appeal to the beer crowd and the Champagne crowd, and also for people who are into wine," says Kris Nelson, who also works at Vermont Wine Merchants. 

Nelson, Justin Heilenbach and Bryan Holmes finessed those test batches into something sublime. They like prosecco and vinho verde, and it shows: Their signature cider, Unified Press, is zesty and slightly off-dry, with pear and citrus notes alongside the obvious apple flavors. At 6 percent alcohol, it's a touch more bracing than the average hard cider, and entirely made from local varieties such as Mac and Northern Spy, among others. 

4 Jericho East Drive, Jericho, 802-899-5466

It's a comfort food world, we're just living in it. And if you're going to sup on food like Grandma used to make, why not really go old school and eat something that's been lovingly handcrafted, too?

At The Hungry Lion in Jericho, you can do just that. Though it's named for a restaurant that its owners, Roberta and Paul Gillespie, favor in Jamaica, you won't find jerk chicken or saltfish and ackee at the Vermont Hungry Lion. Instead, the Gillespies have upgraded the home cooking that typified their now-defunct Underhill bakery, the Flour Shop.

Appropriately, every meal starts with freshly baked bread, which our caring and knowledgeable server, Holly, excitedly announced as she presented it on Saturday evening. Even a party of two gets nearly a full loaf.

The inside was ideally hot and doughy, the outside lightly crisped, but not crusty. Unfortunately, the whole thing lacked salt, leaving the otherwise nice bread bland. Melty Cabot butter helped, but not quite enough.

86 St Paul St., Burlington, 802-540-1786

Since the Bluebird Tavern reopened in downtown Burlington, the most frequent question I've been getting from readers is, How's the quality of their new lunch and brunch?

I finally made it in for brunch on New Year's Eve day. As the meal progressed, a couple of big parties of First Nighters streamed in. But when I arrived, just before one, the only other group was a couple and their young child munching on the $75 "Grand Plateau" of cold seafood. Quite the way to ring in the New Year.

Slightly less ambitious, I ordered a mango, orange blossom and cardamom shake while I perused the menu.

The yogurt-based concoction was so thick that there was a learning curve involved in sucking it through the straw. Once I got the hang of it, it was easy to taste each of the individual elements. Slightly sour mango, aromatic orange blossom and cardamom, with a light perfume of earth.

Over all, I wish that there had just been a touch more honey or agave nectar added to sweeten the whole thing, which I found slightly tart. A toothpick skewering a piece of cantaloupe, a strawberry and a chunk of pineapple helped. Even so, I could never have hoped to finish the whole enormous drink on my own. This shake is clearly made for sharing.