Cool Things: Southern Vermont Garlic & Herb Festival

Vermont is a fun state filled with amazing ski resorts, country stores, great diners, hippies, awesome breweries, and a garlic festival.

I couldn't go last year for some reason, so I was thrilled to get the opportunity to go this past labor day weekend. Really, it's hard to be prepared for how much garlic is present in one place and at one time. And there are a huge number of garlic aficionados, judging by the turnout.

Considering that I can't stomach raw garlic, and just got a shiny new pair of braces put on, I wasn't up to sampling much, but Jeff was up for the task. The number of varieties of garlic was mind boggling. Like apples, each variety has a different flavor, level of tartness, acidity and is best suited for different applications.

We ultimately came home with 5 pounds of German White for pickling and roasting, and a pound each of Music, Zemo, Hnat and Carpathian. Considering how quickly Jeff and I tore through the garlic stash my mom bought for me at last year's garlic fest, I'm sure these won't be around for long.

Another fun part of the festival was all of the food and drinks available for tasting. It was really sad for me, actually, because I can't eat pretzels, chips or nuts for the next two years, and those are the vessels most vendors provide for sampling their various dips, salsas and sauces. I let Jeff do the tasting, and I scoped out one or two vendors that offered bread to sample with, including some delicious balsamic from pastamoré, who apparently are not local to Vermont in any way.

There were also plenty of wineries offering samples, as well as one distillery that sold some sort of delicious and hugely expensive brandy. The wines we are sampling in the adjacent photo are from Honora Winery, which makes a delicious Merlot that we bought. They do grow their own grapes which I thought was interesting. Many Vermont wines focus on local fruits, not necessarily grapes. They just purchased a tasting room in Wilmington that used to belong to my family's old favorite North River Winery that we were sad to see go out of business recently. I'm glad that the location will not be going to waste!

But the best bang for our buck was a tasting set in the back of the festival where we were able to taste a flight of at least a dozen local wines for free. I really wish I had kept some notes about the wines, as some were absolutely divine. Some expensive nearly 100$ ice wines were part of the tasting. (By the way, I am not double-fisting in the photo above, nearly offering my mom's glass for a refill as she took the photo.)

Finally, no trip to Vermont is complete without a trip to the Blue Benn Diner. Tucked away just off of routes 7 and 9 in Bennington, located in a quaint train car, the Blue Benn is certainly a delight for local vegetarians and vegans. Nearly a half page of their menu is dedicated to meat free dining, and Jeff and I were both excited to eat the veggie-loaf with gravy. It was soft enough for me to get through with my new braces, and savory and delicious as well. I would definitely recommend this place to any veg*n who finds their way to southern Vermont.

(Photo credit: my mom took all the photos in this post. I brought my camera and took exactly 0 shots the whole time.)



Garlic

Cool Things - X's to O's Vegan Bakery

I wrote this review on Yelp a few months back, and feel it's worth repeating here on Vegtopia. I spent the first 20+ years of my life in the capital district area of NY, and went to college in Troy. I wasn't vegan until I moved to Boston, but now that I am I know that I can go home to a newly opened vegan bakery on 4th Street. How awesome is that? Become their fan on Facebook and check them out if you live in the area!

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A vegan bakery in Troy is basically my dream come true. Unfortunately I don't live in Troy anymore so I can only indulge in these delicious desserts when I travel home.

I was so excited to visit X's to O's last Thanksgiving break that I ordered 4 goodies - a cinnamon raisin cookie, maple walnut cupcake, cinnamon roll, and a gluten free pumpkin canoe ("twinkie"). The owner and woman working at the counter were both very friendly, and the owner remembered me from leaving comments on their Facebook page.

The inside of the bakery was very sparse but I am under the impression that they are working on expanding their bakery as they had previously just focused on wholesale orders. I'm excited to see how it evolves over time.

But the important part of my review - how were the pastries? Excellent! Even after sitting in my parent's fridge overnight, they were still amazing. My favorite was the cinnamon bun, it was sweet with just the right amount of cinnamon and the bun itself was a delicious offset to the sweetness. The cupcake was decadent, and if I had a more robust sweet tooth I probably would have loved it even more. Not to say that it wasn't wonderful, it was just on the sweet side. The cookie was amazing, I think the first cinnamon raisin I've eaten since going vegan, and cinnamon raisin is my favorite cookie. The pumpkin canoe was a bit weird, but I got it for my boyfriend as a novelty really. I'd be interested in trying their other canoe flavors in the future.

Will I be going to X's to O's again? YES! Every time I'm back home I will make sure to visit this wonderful bakery. I don't have to lament the fact that I can't enjoy delicious baked goods from Troy (Cookie Factory, previously Vanilla Bean) as X's to O's has stepped up to the plate to ensure that us vegans will never go without a satisfied sweet tooth again.

Peace 'o Pie, Allston, MA

Jeff and I just went to Peace 'o Pie, the new vegan pizza shop in Allston, MA. It replaces TJ Scallywaggle's House of Vegan Pizza, which Jeff and I would hit up every other week almost religiously for their 10$ all-you-can eat buffet. It's certainly nice to have a vegan pizza place open again. It was getting a bit depressing for a while here in the Allston/Brighton/Brookline area when TJ's closed up shop and My Thai closed their Brookline location in favor of Chinatown.

It's not that Jeff and I eat out often, these days we go out once a month at best, but it's still nice to know that there are vegan places out there for the rare occasions when we don't feel like cooking, and I'm glad they exist for people who, unlike us, prefer not to cook.

For simplicity's sake I'll re-post my Yelp review of Peace 'o Pie below if you are interested. I gave them 4 stars.

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I really enjoyed TJ's, so I came to Peace 'o Pie very skeptical of the idea of "gourmet" pizza. I like my pizzas plain and simple without fancy stuff overwhelming the flavor. I have to say that I was very impressed with their pizza. I got a large "Fresh" pizza, which was sauce, Vegan Gourmet cheese, pesto, broccoli and onions. The sauce was delicious, the pesto was great, and the other toppings were good as well.

I would give Peace 'o Pie 5 stars were it not for the price. A large pizza was 18$ and while filling, I feel that's pretty expensive for a pizza. The toppings were also sparse and the cheese didn't even cover the entire pizza.

As far as the ambiance goes I liked the feeling of TJ's more, but I like how Peace 'o Pie has more sitting room with tables instead of booths. I do agree with one commenter who mentioned the lack of animal rights literature. I liked that you could always find a pamphlet about something at TJ's, or the most recent anarchist newsletter. Peace 'o Pie definitely caters to the more yuppie-ish, upper middle class vegan set.

I asked the owner if he plans to do a buffet, and it's not in the works for now. I'll probably go back to Peace 'o Pie every now and again, and I'm sure if they do a biweekly buffet I'll be there rain or shine as I did at TJ's. Peace 'o Pie definitely has good service, they know how to make a good pizza, and I feel like they have a better business mindset that will avoid the financial problems that TJ's was so burdened with.

Finally, I liked how clean the place was. That was the only thing that bugged me about TJ's, was how the booths always seemed to be covered in a layer of grime. They keep the tables at Peace 'o Pie very clean, and I'm sure it'll keep looking nice as time goes on.