Vermont Farm Tours Winter, when growing season seems far away, is the perfect time to learn about Vermont’s thriving artisanal food scene. There is no one better qualified to take you behind the scenes to experience the story and flavor of our unique culinary landscape than the charismatic owner of Vermont Farm Tours, Chris Howell.  His passion for local agriculture is immediately apparent.   Vermont Farm Tours, started this past summer, grew out of Howell’s experience on the Middlebury College Farm and through his travels in Europe, where he worked with the organization Slow Food. He considers founder Carlo Petrini a huge inspiration. Howell said, “Seeing Italy's thriving food- and farm-based tour industry while working with Slow Food inspired me to create a means to enable a similar connection between taste and place back home in Vermont. Until Vermont Farm Tours, there really wasn't a service out there to personally facilitate the connection.”

Howell offers seven tours for small or large groups, and will even customize a tour, if someone has a special interest.  Popular tours this winter include Vermont Artisan Cheeses, Vermont Vineyards, Vermont Maple and a Ski Tour of the Burlington Intervale.

Howell describes the Artisan Cheese Tour as emphasizing “the unique personalities, herds, and landscapes that produce an astonishing array of cheeses.” Each of the three stops on this tour— Champlain Valley Creamery, Shelburne Farms and Dancing Cow Farm— includes a discussion with the cheese maker and tasting. Day-long tours such as this one include a locally-sourced lunch (often made by Howell and eaten at one of the scenic stops), with the additional bonus of sample handouts from the various places visited. Howell, it turns out, had already come up with a special tour for cheese and wine aficionados. “A group I had inspired me to try out a new pairing,” he said. They sampled cheeses and then had lunch at Charlotte Village Winery. He could barely contain his enthusiasm when he suggested, “Charlotte Village Winery's semidry blueberry wine and Willow Hill's Vaquero Blue cheese – try it out!”

The Vermont Vineyards tour includes a visit to three idyllic vineyards on the shores of Lake Champlain, which showcases Vermont’s northern-hardy grape varietals specifically tailored to Vermont’s climate. Howell owns a vineyard in southern Vermont, which makes him a knowledgeable guide for oenophiles. Another tour close to his heart is the maple tour— his family has been sugaring for generations. “When the sap runs you can feel it,” he mused. The tour begins with a pancake breakfast and a lesson about the sugaring process and the chance to collect sap (season permitting), and ends with the gift of a bottle of syrup.

The winter ski tour of the Intervale grew from the popular summer walking tour called “The Incredible Edible Intervale.” Guests can rent skis or snowshoes through Vermont Farm Tours and learn about the farms and history of the Intervale while enjoying local hot chocolate and cookies.

By bringing guests directly to the source, Howell is striving to meet the desires of an increasingly food-curious tourism industry while also providing a valuable service to the farms that participate in his tours. A win-win situation for producer and visitor. “A lasting memory is created when my guests taste good food on the farm where it is grown, meet the people who make it, and become part of the story,” he explained.  MM

Vermont Farm Tours

www.vermontfarmtours.com

802.922.7346

Wolaver’s Alta Gracia Coffee Porter While quaffing a cold beer may be the ultimate summer refresher, enjoying a rich porter by the fireplace is one of the treats of winter. Especially if the brew is Wolaver’s Alta Gracia Coffee Porter. Made from roasted organic barley, chocolate malt and coffee beans, the brew is a collaboration of farmer, roaster and brewer—all with strong Vermont ties.

Wolaver’s, which owns Otter Creek Brewing in Middlebury, was one of the first organic breweries in the U.S. The company is committed to being both green and organic.  They are also keen on supporting local agriculture, which they do in many ways, including giving spent grain to farmers to use as feed and spent beer to use as fertilizer. They also have created a series of “farmer beers,” buying organic pumpkins from Shoreham farmer Will Stevens for their pumpkin ale and wheat from Bridport farmer Ben Gleason for their summer wheat ale.

Now comes the coffee porter. Porter is a heavy, dark brown, strongly flavored beer. It generally gets its flavor and color from deeply roasted malt and is usually slightly higher in alcohol and sweeter than standard ales and lagers. In this case the porter is blended with coffee brewed from fair-trade, shade-grown beans raised in the Dominican Republic farm Alta Gracia, founded and stewarded by Julia Alvarez and Bill Eichner of Weybridge. Wolaver’s brewmaster, Mike Gerhart, developed the brew in collaboration with Paul Ralston of Vermont Coffee Company, whose company roasts the beans grown at Alta Gracia.

Alta Gracia Coffee Porter is an exceptionally smooth and flavorfully complex beer that is surprisingly true to the porter style. A hint of vanilla brings out the sweetness of the dark-roasted Dominican coffee, although the brew is not particularly sweet. To taste the full flavor of this heady brew, you should serve it at 50° to 55°F (let it sit out of the refrigerator for about 20 minutes before serving). The chocolate, vanilla and coffee notes make it the perfect companion to dessert.

 But don’t stop there. Kate Corrigan of North Branch Farm in Ripton boiled her farm’s pork sausage links in the coffee porter and served them at the Middlebury Area Land Trust annual meeting. “This beer works great for making beer brats!” says Corrigan. “They were very flavorful and were the hit of the party. Not to mention Bill Eichner and Julia Alvarez were the speakers for the event, so it tied in perfectly.”  

The beer, which is available wherever Wolaver’s beers are sold, is a seasonal brew and will be available through the winter. Wolaver's and Vermont Coffee Company will donate $1 for each pound of coffee used to make this beer. The funds will be used in the Dominican Republic to support sustainable agriculture projects in the community around Alta Gracia. — AC

Wolaver’s Alta Gracia Coffee Porter
Otter Creek Brewing
793 Exchange Street
Middlebury, Vermont 05753
www.wolavers.com

Vermont Cookie Love
For the Love of a Cookie

If you have ever doubted   that a simple chocolate chip cookie could put a smile on your face, then you haven’t tried Vermont Cookie Love’s “First Love” cookie. Want to share something a bit more decadent with your sweetheart this Valentine’s Day?

Bake up a batch of “Forbidden Love” triple chocolate chip cookies, using the company’s frozen cookie dough.

When I met owners Suzanna Miller and Paul Seyler (who happen to be a married couple) over two years ago at the Shelburne Farmers’ market, they were just starting to spread their special brand of love: fresh-baked cookies and cookie dough containing top quality ingredients. To date there are nine varieties of cookies that have fun, love-themed names. The burrito-shaped frozen cookie dough product is a delicious marriage of Miller’s desire to sell cookies and Seyler’s urge to run a burrito business.  

The business has been a labor of love from day one. The choice to move to Ferrisburgh from New York City and start a cookie business was sparked by the couple’s mutual desire to spend as much time with each other and their young children as they could. For Miller, an avid baker since childhood, homemade chocolate chip cookies have always symbolized love and family togetherness. “I think our concept is the right fit for us because it’s about love and family on so many levels,” she says.

 Thanks to a little startup capital and a lot of ambition, the couple opened a retail store—the Love Shack—a year ago on Route 7 in North Ferrisburgh. Both cookies and cookie dough can be purchased at the shop, or through the company’s website. Colorful heart-shaped cookies will also be available around Valentine’s Day.

A typical day at the Love Shack, according to Miller, proves that love brings diverse groups of people together. Local professionals like to stop in for a cup of coffee and a homemade scone or cinnamon bun. Carloads of college kids come by and leave with a few cookies each, including the holiday seasonal variety, “It’s a Wonderful Love” (sugar cookies). A mother or grandmother might stop in for some “Puppy Love” (peanut butter chocolate chip) or “True Love” (oatmeal with dried cranberries) frozen cookie dough with the intention of baking up a fresh batch at home.

“What the world needs now, is love, Cookie Love,” according to the company’s t-shirts stacked up in the shop. Vermont Cookie Love customers seem to agree, and they aren’t alone. Vermont Cookie Love products are in more than thirty stores throughout Vermont and New Hampshire, and Miller and Seyler have plans to expand in the near future. Whole Foods has expressed interest in selling their products in some regional stores. “We’re just dancing as fast as we can,” says Miller. “The company is growing faster than we expected.”

The success of this small homegrown cookie business can only mean one thing: “Addicted to Love” isn’t merely an appealing cookie name (mocha chocolate chip), it is also a euphemism for an excellent business model.

Vermont Cookie Love
6915 Route 7
N. Ferrisburgh, VT 05473
802.425.8181

Check website for seasonal hours
www.vermontcookielove.com