Docsconz- The Blog

The Connecticut River July 2010

Bonne Bouche

Another gem from The Vermont Butter & Cheese Company, this ash-ripened aged goat's milk cheese was creamy and ever so slightly piquant. These hand batched cheeses aren't ubiquitous, but well worth buying when found. I have yet to try any of their products that I haven't enjoyed. This was purchased at The Upper Valley Food Co-op in West Lebanon, N.H.

 

Taste of the Week - February 14th-20th: Cereal

Yes, cereal. Not just any cereal, though. Frankly, I don't care for most cereals on the market. They are generally too high in carbs and simple sugars for my taste and either lack good texture or good taste. However, this cereal, Heritage Heirloom Whole Grains High Fiber from Nature's Path really stands out.

First of all, it is delicious with or without milk and with or without fruit. I like it best with non-homogenized whole milk from the nearby Battenville Creamery. It stays crisp in milk and has great flavor without being too sweet. While it has 24g of total carbohydrates per 30g serving, only 4g are sugars with 6g dietary fiber. The cereal also contains 4g per serving of protein. All in all, not bad for a breakfast cereal. While I believe the term "certified organic" has lost a lot of its meaning, all in all, I still prefer to eat "organic" than not. This is certified organic. The grains this is made from include wheat, spelt, oats, barley, millet and quinoa.

It seems fitting that with the Winter Olympics ongoing in Vancouver BC, my taste of the week would come from Canada. We purchased it, though, in New Hampshire at the Upper Valley Food Co-op while visiting our son for Dartmouth's Winter Carnival Weekend. While we can get other, less satisfying Nature's path cereals locally, for some reason this one isn't carried near us. As a result, we took advantage of the generally excellent Upper Valley Food Co-op and bought 5 bags of the cereal, unsure when we would return. Of course, the cereal was not the only item we purchased there. Their cheese department has a wonderful selection of Vermont and New Hampshire cheeses, many of which are hard to come by elsewhere and they carry a wide selection of my favorite beers - those from Unibroue, especially Fin du Monde. I was both surprised and taken aback at their seafood counter though. They have beautiful product and go so far as to employ a labeling system for their different seafood products as to whether they are considered sustainable, threatened or unsustainable, which I applaud. I was shocked, however, to discover that they actually sell fish that they have labeled as "unsustainable" such as Chilean Sea Bass and others.  I queried the saleswoman about it. her response was that as a member organization, all they could do is educate, thus the labeling system. If members want specific product, they have to sell it! I asked her if they would sell Panda meat if members requested it? She didn't answer. I don't understand why an organization generally devoted " to supporting social and environmental responsibility" as they say on their website doesn't act even more responsibly when it comes to selling fish at risk of extinction or fished by processes destroying ocean ecosystems? What concerns me the most is what kind of chance do these fish or ecosystems have if even the "good guys", the people who are supposed to be doing things responsibly, don't act responsible?

A Cheesy Valentine

Vermont Heart - Aged Goat Cheese with Bay Leaf from Vermont Butter and Cheese Creamery

Native Foods

I follow a number of outstanding blogs, but none are better than playing with fire and water. If you haven't already, check out Linda's latest series of posts on working with native American ingredients. In addition to her usual outstanding creativity and beautiful photography, she has provided a treatise on native ingredients - simply stunning!

On the Farm: Consider Bardwell

Consider Bardwell Farm located in West Pawlet, Vermont just over the border from Washington County, N.Y. has generated a reputation for making world class cheeses from both goat and cow milks. I recently had the chance to visit the farm and at the same time observe both the making of cheese and the making of a quality video as Michael Crupain of The Dairy Show was there to film the process.

The picturesque and bucolic farm is owned by Angela Miller, Russell Glover and Chris Gray. The engaging Peter Dixon, formerly cheese maker at The Vermont Butter and Cheese Company is the head cheese maker at Consider Bardwell.

The cheese are made from milk the farm's own Oberhasli goats and from the nearby Jersey Girls Farm. Dixon makes a a number of different cheeses, but his favorites are the firmer, aged cheeses, like the cow's milk Rupert he was making in the photos above. To make these harder cheeses, it is important to cut the curds into extremely small pieces to get out as much liquid whey as possible. Softer cheeses are made from larger curds. Dixon is fastidious in his cheese making, making sure that all the little details are right and that his cheeses are consistent from batch to batch, or at least as consistent as an essentially natural product can be. His attention to details like the pH of the whey/curd combination shows through in the fine quality of the finished product as does the quality of the base milks.

Stay tuned to The Dairy Show for more on the process and the farm including what is sure to be another outstanding video.

Homecoming 2009

 

Dartmouth Night Bonfire

Homecoming Weekend

October 23rd, 2009

Dining Around Dartmouth

When I went to college at Dartmouth in the late 70's and early 80's, the dining options suited my limited palate well enough. My palate has changed since then, however, and when my son was accepted last year, I was elated but had some mixed feelings about the food options. The College  is a fabulous place in so many ways, affording tremendous opportunities to the lucky students who get to matriculate there. My one negative thought was  the lack of any "destination" restaurants in the upper Connecticut River Valley. I wasn't even sure that they had any worthwhile restaurants or food producers. On a relatively recent visit, one of my old standbys was no longer so satisfying, yet it still drew long lines. That did not bode well.

Things started looking up, however, this fall, when I "discovered" The King Arthur Flour baking store in nearby Norwich, Vt. and additional faith was restored this winter when we had a dinner at another old favorite from my college days, Jesse's. The food, though basic and nothing spectacular, was solid and well prepared. It actually lived up to my memories from my college days. while no longer a restaurant I would go out of my way to dine at, I could still rely on a respectable meal there.

This past weekend was Freshman Parents' Weekend at Dartmouth, so I figured that we would need to plan in advance. My son made a reservation for Friday night at what his become his favorite local restaurant, The Jewel of India, a small, family run restaurant in Hanover specializing in the cuisine of northern India. Though the evening didn't start out so well when they failed to acknowledge his reservation, they quickly set it straight and put together a table for us. As we have a tendency to do, we ordered too much food. Fortunately it was all quite good. Every thing was fresh and well prepared, though if there was a flaw, it was that they were a tad too light on the hot spices despite our replying "spicy" when asked "how spicy." Dishes included samosas, vegetable and chicken pakoras, a vegetable soup, chicken biryani, lamb vindaloo, chicken tikka masala, chicken tikka, various breads and my personal favorite, a fragrant and tasty saag with shrimp. Washed down with Unibroue Fin du Monde, the meal was quite satisfying and one of the best Indian restaurant meals that I have had since I returned from India over a year ago, certainly not something I would have predicted. I will happily return as would everyone else in my family.

Additional enthusiasm for the area was built the next day with a visit to the New Hampshire State Liquor Store in West Lebanon and its neighboring Food Co-op store. The State liquor Store offered a nice selection of spirits at reasonable prices, while the Food Co-op is one of the better food stores I have shopped at in a while. They have a great selection and knowledgeable staff, especially in the cheese department, where I picked up a selection of Vermont cheeses.

For Saturday night, I made a reservation at Carpenter & Main, restaurant with a good reputation for local and seasonal ingredients in Norwich, Vt. Though not groundbreaking, the restaurant was a treat. The main dining room was lovely and comfortable. The menu was limited, but with enough variety to offer true choice. My wife and I started with a cocktail, a competently made Sazerac for me and a Hendricks Cup for her. Both were delightful. The amuse featured house cured salmon with dill and creme fraiche on a cucumber slice. I had a duet of oysters (3 roasted with creamed leeks and black pepper and 3 raw with a mignonette) followed by butter braised Maine lobster with glazed parsnips and crab leek napoleon, all competently prepared and satisfying, especially the perfectly cooked lobster. For dessert, I availed myself of a trio of Vermont cheeses. The rest of the family enjoyed their meals as well.

The service at Carpenter & Main was very good, something unfortunately not typical for the area. Our waiter offered a suggestion for Sunday brunch, The Bunten Farm, a small farm in nearby Orford. N.H. that primarily serves their food directly from their farm. I made a reservation for 11AM, so we dragged our sons out of bed to head north for brunch. We arrived at a small, quaint restaurant literally set amidst the farm with views outside the windows of the chickens that laid the eggs that we would eat and the cows who provided the milk for the cheeses, ice creams and drinks. An amuse of pan-baked cakes and raw Devon milk got us off to a good start. The eggs in my eggs benedict were the real deal, with bright, bright orange yolks. The Hollandaise could have been a bit more brightly flavored and the English muffin was perhaps a little dense for my preference, but the food was wholesome and satisfying. A walk around the farm after our meal, spying on some breeding heritage Devon cattle, provided additional entertainment and country air.

 

Despite the great produce from Vermont and New Hampshire, the Dartmouth area will not likely ever be a great culinary destination on the order of some other college towns like New Orleans, where my second oldest son will be attending Tulane University. Fortunately, it doesn't have to be. It remains a great college town, with enough good and satisfying food to keep me happy when we visit my son and my alma mater. 

King Arthur Flour Co. - Norwich, Vt.

Unexpected treats come in many guises and are always amongst the most appreciated. That is how I felt yesterday when I brought my son back to Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. after the Thanksgiving break. We were looking to find a bite to eat, when I remembered that the King Arthur Flour Co. had their headquarters in nearby Norwich, Vt. with a bakery attached to it. We quickly found its location on the iPhone and beelined it upon our early afternoon arrival in Hanover.

I expected a quaint little cafe, but instead found a full fledged Baker's Store with what seemed to be anything and everything (except ovens) a baker might want or need  plus a few frills. In addition to the store selling all sorts of ingredients such as an amazing variety of flours and tools for baking, they did, in fact, also have a little bakery selling lovely scones, macaroons, croissants, sandwiches, an array of fresh baked breads and some delicious, bad for my body but good for my soul pumpkin "Whoopie Pies" that were essentially single serving pumpkin rolls (always a decadent old favorite). In addition to some of the baked items, I also picked up some hard to find 83% unsalted butter from Cabot and a few unusual baking ingredients such as egg white, egg yolk and coconut milk powders, each of which is supposed to reconstitute with some water. All the baked goods we tried were excellent. Their daily baking schedule can be found here. The store is a must when in the area and is a worthwhile excursion for the ardent baker. They also have an online catalogue.