The Place(s) To Be

Sunday Geo, Mom and I headed up to Hardwick. We arrived in time for brunch at Claire’s. I had read about Claire’s in Eating Well magazine. Geo read glowing reviews about Claire’s in none other than the NY Times. Claire’s is a destination gourmet eatery that features local products, and it’s amazingly located on Main Street of a small rural Vermont town. Breakfast was superb!

Next we traveled to nearby Wolcott (that’s “Wool-kitt” for all us flatlanders) to High Mowing Seed Company’s late season festival, hosted by owner Tom Stearns and his staff. High Mowing grows about 800 varieties of plants and veggies to package the seeds. Being there for this event felt like a true Vermont experience. The weather was perfect – cloudy, rainy, sunny, typical. There were farm families, growers, neighbors and others who came from near and far. We toured the fields, sampled the veggies, and witnessed a demonstration of a new machine extracting seeds from melons. Sometime during the afternoon students showed up from NECI (New England Culinary Institute) to prepare dinner. They worked outside under tents. What a feast! Three kegs of Magic Hat were tapped, along with apple cider. Two young women with a banjo and a fiddle entertained. Of course, there were not enough chairs to go around, so people sat on row covers to enjoy the picnic. It was so neat to be part of this experience – this flatlander began to feel a bit like a real Vermonter. To top it off, the crew from Emeril Lagasse was on site taping for a future episode. We'll be watching for this to air.