Posts Tagged ‘Hunger Mountain Co-op’

• Say “Cremont”!

  Date: 05.14.2010 | Category: Producer Beat | Response: 0

  Have you heard? There’s a new cheese on the block. If you haven’t yet met Cremont, you’re going to want to get to know this American original. But you’ll have to wait a few days–the cheese is sold out until next week.

  Cremont is the latest release from Vermont Butter & Cheese Creamery in Websterville. A mix of fresh cow’s and goat’s milk with a hint of fresh cream, the newcomer has been described by one fan as tasting as if Vermont Creamery’s Bonne Bouche and ricotta had had a baby. This is a perfect cheese for cheese novices—the goat flavor is elegant, not aggressive, and the texture is creamy and light, almost like a mousse.

  Don Hooper, husband of VT Creamery cheesemaker and co-founder Allison Hooper, came up with the name, which says both “cream” and “Vermont” at first bite. The Creamery’s general manager Adeline Druart explained that the cheese had been in development for more than a year. “It took us eight months of playing with the ratios to arrive at the right blend of cow’s milk, goat’s milk and crème fraîche.” The cheese’s butter-colored, wrinkly rind comes from geotricum yeast and two weeks in the Creamery’s aging room.

  With a butterfat content of 66 percent, Cremont is considered a double-cream cheese. It’s an ideal dessert cheese. Druart suggests serving it with biscotti or a fresh strawberry compote. She recently paired Cremont with a Vidal Blanc Ice Wine from Shelburne Vineyard with great success.

  Cremont (as well as other fine Vermont Butter & Cheese Creamery cheeses and butter) is available at their online store. You can also find the new cheese at these establishments in Vermont and New Hampshire.

  Butters Fine Food and Wine (Concord, New Hampshire)

  Lebanon Co-op (Lebanon, New Hampshire)

  Hunger Mountain Co-op (Montpelier, Vermont)

  Healthy Living Natural Foods Market (South Burlington, Vermont)

  J.K. Adams  Co. (Dorset, Vermont)

  Sweet Clover Market (Essex, Vermont)

  Vermont Butter & Cheese Creamery • 40 Pitman Road, Websterville, VT 05678 • 800.884.6287 • info@vermontcreamery.com

  See more great images of Vermont Creamery on our flickr page!
  

  Tweet this Share on Facebook

• A Better Loaf

  Date: 01.07.2010 | Category: Coming Up | Response: 0

  In Vermont, the per capita ratio of artisan bread bakers is perhaps greater than anywhere else in the country–which means the bar is set dauntingly high for the typical homemade loaf. Fortunately there’s hope for the home bread baker, and it’s just off Route 5 in Norwich.

  The Baking Education Center at King Arthur Flour is offering the four-day class “Bread: Principles & Practice” this coming week. Lectures, given by several of the BEC’s world-class instructors, will cover every aspect of bread baking for the home baker, including the function of ingredients, pre-ferments and how to facilitate maximum rise. There will be hands-on work in yeast breads, from basic bread through whole grains, sweetened breads, sourdough and starter-based breads.

  For home bakers with a sweet tooth and just a few hours to spare, there’s a class on sticky cinnamon buns on Saturday taught by Bonny Hooper.

  Enrollment in either class comes with a 10% discount at The Baker’s Store for two weeks beginning the day of your class. Classes fill up quickly—to enroll or check out more classes throughout the year, call 800.652.3334.

  More Regional Events

  (All events take place in Vermont unless otherwise noted)

  Friday, January 8
  Pownal marks its 250th anniversary beginning at 6 pm tomorrow with a celebratory reading of the town charter plus bagpipes and more traditional music, as well as a cardboard cake complete with 250 cardboard candles created by Pownal grade-schoolers. (A real cake will be served too.) All are welcome. The celebration takes place at the elementary school at 94 Schoolhouse Road.
  

  Read the rest of this entry »

  Tweet this Share on Facebook

• The Connoisseur’s Cup of Coffee

  Date: 12.11.2009 | Category: Producer Beat | Response: 0

  How did little Waterbury, Vermont, population 4,915, become a world-class repository of coffee knowledge and home to some of the finest fresh-roasted coffee beans in the world when the nearest coffee plantation is 2,800 miles away?

  Mané Alves, that’s how.

  Nearly two decades ago, the Lisbon native and viticulturalist relocated to Vermont where he switched from tasting wines to tasting coffees. In 1995, Alves established Coffee Lab International, an independent coffee and beverage laboratory and training facility that supports the coffee industry through product development, quality control and sensory analysis. Two years later he opened Vermont Artisan Coffee & Tea Co., a coffee roasting, distribution and sales company.

  The company’s head roaster, Anji Heath, is a true connoisseur. She’ a graduate of Coffee Lab’s internship program and takes roasting to an art form, working to the standards of the old roast masters, extracting all the complex full flavor of the bean itself. All beans at Vermont Artisan are roasted to order to ensure freshness. There’s no warehousing of roasted beans—once they’re roasted, they’re shipped out the door. “Fresh roasting is key to good flavor, and it’s the core of Artisan’s business ideal,” Alves says.

  Read the rest of this entry »

  Tweet this Share on Facebook

• Thanksgiving All Weekend Long

  Date: 11.26.2009 | Category: Coming Up | Response: 0

  Back before green bean casserole and jellied cranberry sauce from a can were standard Thanksgiving fare, America’s cooks toiled for days to get ready for our national celebration. To experience how things used to be – and used to taste – visit the Billings Farm & Museum in Woodstock, VT, this weekend.

  Bring the family and watch interpreters in period dress prepare a harvest feast in the 1890s farmhouse. Sample homemade treats and go for a horse-drawn wagon ride too.

  The Thanksgiving Weekend program takes place on Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 10 am to 4 pm. Admission ranges from $3 to $12, depending on age.

  More Regional Events

  Friday, November 27

  The annual Vermont Farmer’s Market Christmas Fair takes place at Poultney High School from 9 am to 4 pm on Friday and Saturday. The fair offers crafts, folk art, gourmet foods and more.

  Read the rest of this entry »

  Tweet this Share on Facebook

• Vermont’s Own (and Only) Cranberries

  Date: 11.20.2009 | Category: Farmer Beat | Response: 1

  “A sound berry bounces,” explains Bob Lesnikoski, Vermont’s only commercial cranberry farmer. “A rotten berry won’t.”

  When you buy a box of fat, round garnet-colored cranberries from Vermont Cranberry Company you can bet they’ll all be bouncers.

  Lesnikoski excavated and planted his first cranberry bog 13 years ago on a small farm in northwest Vermont. He began selling fresh cranberries two years later. “It’s not the easiest crop to grow here,” he says, “but it does work. We produce a premium berry. Our size sorting and color sorting is quite a bit more rigorous than just about any other fresh berry out there.”

  Each October Lesnikoski can expect to harvest and bounce-test about 30,000 pounds of berries from his three-acre farm in East Fairfield. Of that yield, about 60 percent is sold fresh to area markets and restaurants. The rest become dried cranberries, frozen cranberries, cranberry juice, cranberry wine or specialty cranberry preserves. Some of these products will bear the Vermont Cranberry Company label. Some berries turn up in other fine local products including Champlain Orchard’s Cranberry Apple Cider and in Boyden Valley Winery’s Cranberry Wine (which, BTW, makes the most refreshing pre-dinner spritzer imaginable).

  Read the rest of this entry »

  Tweet this Share on Facebook