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Friday, October 28, 2016

Dining on a Dime: Barrio Bakery

Posted By on Fri, Oct 28, 2016 at 3:04 PM

Fontina-and-apple panini with white-bean-and-ham soup - SUZANNE PODHAIZER
  • Suzanne Podhaizer
  • Fontina-and-apple panini with white-bean-and-ham soup
Drizzly gray days can really amp up a restaurant diner's coziness requirement. On this late October morning, Barrio Bakery — on North Winooski Avenue in Burlington's Old North End — called to me.

I'd only visited once, and just for coffee, but I'd heard that Barrio's owners, Jessica and Ryan Bunce, are opening a breakfast and lunch café, dubbed One Radish, in the Richmond space formerly occupied by Parkside Kitchen (and before that, On the Rise Bakery).  It was time for a taste of the coming attractions.

Waiting in line to order, I noted the spot's friendly, neighborhood vibe. Nearly every person who walked through the door had a warm greeting for somebody who was already ensconced there. At one table, midwives talked about work. At several others, folks typed away on their laptops. One coffee drinker was reading a book by Haruki Murakami.

The pastry case was full of good-looking treats, including a savory tart, perfect-looking scones and croissants. Signs advertised additional offerings such as panini, a recent addition to the Barrio menu. I wanted the one stuffed with fontina and apples, but I also wanted the white-bean-and-ham soup, so I ordered a combo ($7.50).

The sandwich was toasty and melty, with slices of apple falling out the side. The soup was satisfying and rustic — white beans, ham chunks and pieces of onion sat in the golden broth, and little globules of melted fat floated on top. I love fat, so I mean that in the best possible way.

There was enough cash left over for a nicely made soy cappuccino with a little bit of maple ($3.88), which served as dessert.

When One Radish opens, count me in.

Dining on a Dime is a weekly series featuring well-made, filling bites (something substantial enough to qualify as a small meal or better) for $12 or less. Know of a tasty dish we should feature? Drop us a line: food@sevendaysvt.com.

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Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Drink Up: The Trinidad Sour and Soirée Noir

Posted By on Tue, Oct 25, 2016 at 3:57 PM

The Trinidad Sour at Waterworks Food + Drink - JULIA CLANCY
  • Julia Clancy
  • The Trinidad Sour at Waterworks Food + Drink
Nine times out of 10, I’m ordering gin or whiskey — especially if there are Angostura bitters somewhere in the mix. Angostura bitters have been nestled behind bar tops since the 19th century; a Berlin-born army doctor named Johann Gottlieb Benjamin Siegert developed the herby, botanical bitter in 1824 while based in the Venezuelan town currently called Ciudad Bolívar, formerly known as Angostura.

Angostura bitters take a temperate hand; the stuff is strong and easily overdone. But the cocktail dubbed the Trinidad Sour at Waterworks Food + Drink is a case of pristine balance: Old Overholt rye, housemade almond orgeat, fresh lemon and an aromatic backdrop of Angostura (both the “sour” and the “Trinidad” component of the drink; the noted House of Angostura is located on a 20-acre complex in Trinidad and Tobago).

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Farmers Market Kitchen: Lamb Merguez Tacos, Warm Salsa Succotash

Posted By on Tue, Oct 25, 2016 at 3:42 PM

Taco time: lamb merguez sausage, salsa succotash - HANNAH PALMER EGAN
  • Hannah Palmer Egan
  • Taco time: lamb merguez sausage, salsa succotash
In my house, meals default to tacos. They're cheap and easy and always tasty, provided you start with good ingredients.

And with All Souls Tortilleria and Vermont Tortilla both producing local corn tortillas, it's relatively easy to compose a taco made with 100 percent native ingredients, with a little forethought. 

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Saturday, October 22, 2016

Baker Meghan Brickner Turns Travel Into Pastry

Posted By on Sat, Oct 22, 2016 at 10:00 AM

Apple cinnamon piroshki and Anjou-Amaretto polenta cake - JULIA CLANCY
  • Julia Clancy
  • Apple cinnamon piroshki and Anjou-Amaretto polenta cake
I usually say that I don't have a sweet tooth, but last Saturday, sitting on the ledge of the fountain at Burlington City Hall Park, I ate an apple-cinnamon piroshki from the Nomadic Oven stand. With the farmers market buzzing around me, I even closed my eyes, savoring the unfurling pastry curl by curl.

 The insides of the Russian-style sticky bun were bloated with apples. Its hard-baked edges were laced with coffee cream. When I got to the core, I ate it in one slow bite — a ceremonious process akin to uncovering an artichoke heart.

I returned to the Nomadic Oven to chat with its baker-owner, Meghan Brickner. When I left her, it was with another piroshki and a slice of Amaretto-polenta cake dressed with Anjou pears.

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Dining on a Dime: Lucky Next Door

Posted By on Sat, Oct 22, 2016 at 9:00 AM

Cucumber salad with fish sauce - SUZANNE PODHAIZER
  • Suzanne Podhaizer
  • Cucumber salad with fish sauce
I've eaten at Penny Cluse Café, the wildly popular early morning eatery on Burlington's Cherry Street, countless times. I'm in good company — yesterday morning, Vice President Joe Biden stopped by to try the blueberry pancakes. But until this week, I'd never had a chance to visit sister business Lucky Next Door

When I did, there were so many things I wanted to sample that it was hard to narrow it down. Since tacos ($4) are a specialty, and the spelt tortillas are homemade, I got one filled with caramelized onions, peppers and crumbly, Mexican-style chorizo. A side of avocado salsa ($2), plus splashes of  (free) housemade tomatillo sauce, made for a hearty and flavorful main course.  

After trying some of the snack-sized, just-a-few-buck tacos at other spots around the state, I was surprised by this one's heft. Solo, it could have counted as a light meal.

But I still had a few dollars left in my Dining on a Dime budget. So, I ordered a cucumber salad ($5), which came with cilantro, red onion, chile and, most importantly, fish sauce. The refreshing cucumbers, a topping of crunchy peanuts and the saline funk of the sauce were a perfect finish after the taco.

I can't ever get enough fish sauce, so I was happy that the condiment bar had a bottle for customers to use. I dashed a little more over the top of the cucumbers. And when I finished scooping them up with my chopsticks, I have to confess, I drank the liquid left in the bottom of the bowl. 

I'm a firm believer in licking my fingers when the mood strikes, but, in retrospect, I feel lucky that no important politicians were there to see me with fish sauce dripping down my chin. Not that it would have stopped me.

Dining on a Dime is a weekly series featuring well-made, filling bites (something substantial enough to qualify as a small meal or better) for $12 or less. Know of a tasty dish we should feature? Drop us a line: food@sevendaysvt.com

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Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Drink Up: Raw Honey Kombucha From Golden Well Farm and Apiaries

Posted By on Tue, Oct 18, 2016 at 4:01 PM

Raw honey kombucha, aka Jun, from APIS Honey Kombucha - APIS HONEY KOMBUCHA
  • APIS Honey Kombucha
  • Raw honey kombucha, aka Jun, from APIS Honey Kombucha
At the season's last Farm to Pizza night at Golden Well Farm & Apiaries in New Haven, farm cofounders Ryan Miller and Nicole Burke turned a couple of pizzas in the belly of a domed clay oven. A pie emerged from the wood-fired furnace, the charred edges peeking out behind layers of heirloom tomato sauce, leeks, apples, butternut squash and spiced merguez from Shakeyground Farm.

Miller was pulling drafts from two chilled kegs by the pizza oven, but the taps weren’t filled with Vermont craft beer. Instead, they brimmed with a fermented drink known as “Jun,” made and sold by the Golden Well farmers under the name APIS Honey Kombucha.

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Monday, October 17, 2016

Reinhart Foodservice to Purchase Black River Produce

Posted By on Mon, Oct 17, 2016 at 1:30 PM

Black River Produce founders Steve Birge and Mark Curran with President Sean Buchanan - COURTESY OF OLIVER PARINI
  • Courtesy of Oliver Parini
  • Black River Produce founders Steve Birge and Mark Curran with President Sean Buchanan
 In the words of company president Sean Buchanan, Springfield's Black River Produce "started with a handful of cash and a dream." The food distributor was founded  38 years ago by Steve Birge and Mark Curran, who described themselves as "ski bums." 

Since then, BRP has operated as an independent entity — until now. On October 24, the company will be purchased by Illinois- and Wisconsin-based Reinhart Foodservice, the fourth largest food-service distributor in the country. Staff was informed of the change on Friday. 

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Friday, October 14, 2016

Dining on a Dime: Sandwiches and Cider Floats at the Warren Store

Posted By on Fri, Oct 14, 2016 at 8:00 AM

Sandwiches on the patio at the Warren Store - JULIA CLANCY
  • Julia Clancy
  • Sandwiches on the patio at the Warren Store
In October, the Lincoln Gap is lit with fuchsias and oranges and all those shades of yellow that make Vermont a destination for leaf-peeping. Sedans and pick-ups crowd the entrance to Mount Abraham, a hiking destination sitting smack in the middle of the gap’s serpentine pathway from Bristol to Lincoln to Warren. Visitors and locals alike pull off to the intermittent roadside rest stops to snap photos of the changing foliage.

Over the mountain, the gap drops you off near the Warren Store, a building that housed a stagecoach inn and boarding house when it set up shop in 1839. After stints as a post office, a hardware store and a library, the space expanded its role as a jack-of-all-trades and became the town’s general store and deli. It’s a good idea to arrive ravenous.

 Since the mid-20th century, the Warren Store has been the focal point of a community that ranges from multigenerational locals to out-of-staters visiting Sugarbush Resort and the Mad River Valley.  It accommodates a wide scope of needs, from toilet paper to bug spray to pricey wool slippers to local milk.

More to the point for a hungry leaf-peeper, the store's personnel includes an experienced pastry team and kitchen staff that turns out made-from-scratch fare. It's hefty enough to fuel a trip to the mountains, and affordable enough to meet the Dining on a Dime goal: a full meal for less than $12. It only sweetens the deal that virtually everything at the Warren Store is made in-house and from mostly Vermont products — from sandwich bread to mayonnaise to molasses cookies the size of dinner plates.

For breakfast, the most expensive item on the menu is a $7.50 bagel sandwich smeared with cream cheese and piled with smoked salmon, onions, tomatoes and capers. A burrito stuffed with local eggs, Green Mountain Smokehouse bacon, Cabot cheddar and housemade salsa will run you $5.75, leaving extra cash for a large coffee and a pumpkin whoopie pie or seven-layer bar for later. The Reutzler, known locally as “the breakfast bomb,” is $3.75 for an English muffin with local ham, eggs, cheddar, tomato and a swath of that homemade mayo.

Arrive at lunchtime and you’ll find yourself at the deli counter, probably debating between the enormous sandwiches or a couple of sides to-go. Beside two antique, wood-paneled coolers stocked with craft beer and cider, a glass-domed display case is filled with hot and cold dishes made that morning. It might be broccoli salad, Misty Knoll Farms chicken wings sticky with honey sauce, herbed tabbouleh, or figs stuffed with local chevre and blue cheese.

Homemade sandwich bread is supplemented with loaves of brown rice millet and honey oatmeal from Vermont Gluten Free Bakery. Everything is less than $8.75, so you might as well save room for dessert.
Cider float and a molasses cookie - JULIA CLANCY
  • Julia Clancy
  • Cider float and a molasses cookie
On one warm October afternoon, I took my lunch outside to the Warren Store’s patio, a sunny side deck lofted above a creek dotted with rock-skippers. There was even a man with a fishing rod. I started on my behemoth of a sandwich — roasted turkey, lettuce, tomato, cheddar and cranberry mayo on whole wheat — as my friend tackled her BLT with avocado on white. Each sandwich was $7.50 — well below our $12 budget — so we each got a Sap! Maple soda, a molasses cookie and a cider float to split.

What’s a cider float, you ask? It consists of dark local cider topped with pumpkin-spice ice cream from Kingdom Creamery of Vermont. If you think apple cider is too watery for a scoop of ice cream, then, like me, you guessed wrong. A Warren Store cider float is the exception. 

With our $20 lunch for two, we sat on that patio and feasted.

Dining on a Dime is a weekly series featuring well-made, filling bites (something substantial enough to qualify as a small meal or better) for $12 or less. Know of a tasty dish we should feature? Drop us a line: food@sevendaysvt.com.

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Thursday, October 13, 2016

Shacksbury Cider Pops Up a Tasting Room

Posted By on Thu, Oct 13, 2016 at 10:00 AM

Draft of cider and herbed popcorn at Shacksbury Cider's tasting room - JULIA CLANCY
  • Julia Clancy
  • Draft of cider and herbed popcorn at Shacksbury Cider's tasting room
Last Friday, the duo behind Shacksbury Cider, Colin Davis and David Dolginow, opened the doors to their new Vergennes tasting room in the Kennedy Brothers building at 11 Main Street.

Well, kind of. Although the full tasting room is still under construction, the cider guys began hosting a pop-up version dubbed the Loading Dock Lounge. On Fridays and Saturdays from 2 to 6 p.m., the bar is open for specialty drafts, flights and cans of Shacksbury Dry and Semi-Dry. Bowls of salty, herbed popcorn are available for snacking at the wide hardwood bar top.

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Breakfast Club: A Sugarhouse Offers One of Vermont's Best Morning Meals

Posted By on Thu, Oct 13, 2016 at 8:30 AM

Limlaw sugarhouse - HANNAH PALMER EGAN
  • Hannah Palmer Egan
  • Limlaw sugarhouse
Few Sunday pleasures are more sublime than a great breakfast buffet. But what, exactly, defines great

In West Topsham, Limlaw Family Maple Farm opens its sunny post-and-beam sugarhouse for a Sunday breakfast series twice a year. In the spring, when the sap is flowing, and again in October, when Vermont's sugarbushes shift from green to splashy yellow, orange and red. 

This year's fall breakfast series began last weekend and runs each Sunday through October 30. Priced at $13.99 ($6.50 for kids under 6), it's cheaper than your average hangover brunch — and it's busy, so make reservations.

Which returns us to the question: What defines a great breakfast buffet?

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