Snapshots of Vermont

The Dorset Farmer's Market, where you will likely find us every Sunday morning for the duration of our stay in VT. I am so pleasantly surprised by both the variety and quality of the products here, this market didn't even exist when I last lived here!

It has been a busy few weeks since arriving back in Vermont! I have been meaning to share pictures and stories for days and days and days now but things keep popping up that pull me away from my computer. I've hardly had the chance to write or work on any of my projects lately, but I think things are finally starting to mellow out now that the chaos of this big transition back to the east coast is wearing off. My grandfather come's home tomorrow after nearly six weeks at the hospital and recovery care center in Rutland from a tick-born virus called Anaplasmosis, a rare disease that has recently been introduced to Vermont thanks to global warming making the past few winters in Vermont too mild to kill the tic population with the vigorous force it once did. So when we found this natural bug spray at the farmer's market and were told that it also repels tics, we grabbed a few bottles to pass around to family members. With all the gardening and berry picking we are doing, I'm glad we have this stuff around.

One hour of strawberry picking at Dutton's meant a good boost of vitamin D and a whole lot of fresh fruit for us.

Anyway, visiting my grandfather, and driving my grandmother to visit him has been an every-other-day occurrence since I arrived and it has meant a LOT of time in the car, especially when combined with all the other adventures we've embarked on. It's been worth it, though, to see my grandfather's face light up when he gets visitors and I'd happily continue to make the trip for as long as needed. He has been quite anxious, however, to get home and join us for many a meal cooked by Dylan, in fact he's been talking about Dylan's cooking nearly every other time we've come up to visit, in fact, I think it's been a sort of light at the end of the tunnel for him considering how abysmal the food is where he is staying. It baffles me how something designed to be a "recovery care center" can serve the exact food that likely landed many of the patients in it's care. How they expect to help anyone recover when they rarely serve fresh fruits and veggies and most meals come from a can or is cooked in the microwave is beyond me. So we snuck in some of the strawberries we picked at Dutton's pick-your-own berry field in Newfane, VT on our last visit.

My sister searching for the perfect strawberries to bring home for shortcakes, jam, ice cream, snacking, and yogurt...yum!

So many sweet, summer strawberries...

Since last time I posted, Dylan has returned to me in VT (hooray!) after a very long week away, and immediately got himself two interviews and subsequent job offers. Today he start's his first day cooking at the Reluctant Panther Inn and Restaurant in Manchester. He is excited to get back in the kitchen, although I'm still hoping he gets some day shifts so he's around for dinner at our house sometimes. We have all been enjoying Dylan's cooking at my mom's house since he's been back and are sad not to have him around as much at night time, but I am excited to go visit him at the Panther once he gets settled in. I've never been there are he said the just opened a new raw bar out on the patio and I checked out the menu, the cocktails sound quite tasty.

While Dylan was waiting for call backs after submitting his resume, we spent a lot of time in the kitchen together making all sorts of goodies. It's so nice to have him back, and not just for the upgrade to our home-dining experience, a week was a long time to go without him! My grandmother has joined us for dinner a lot lately, so she doesn't have to eat alone, and so we made her favorite, lamb, which we found farm-fresh and local at the Sunday Farmer's Market in Dorset, which Dylan served with a straight-from-our garden mint compote he made, alongside a bed of rice and sauteed kale. It was so delicious that I completely forgot to take a picture before devouring it. Luckily, at Dylan's next meal, I remembered to grab my camera before digging in to this tasty treat of fresh asparagus from the Someday Farmstand down the road topped with duck egg hollandaise next to tri-colored quinoa (my new favorite) and chopped maple sausage sauteed with carrots and onions. We have all been eating like queens since Dylan's return.

As if chopping all those strawberries wasn't enough, on Friday night we also whipped up an amazing quiche with the egg whites left over from hollandaise (and about 6 more whole eggs) and the rest of our maple sausage, which Dylan de-cased and crumbled, sauteing it with a handful of fresh tarragon and thyme from the garden and steamed spinach, also from the garden. We topped it with West River Creamery's Farmhouse Jack cheese, courtesy of our favorite Sunday market. I'm sorry to say I also forgot to photograph the quiche, but take my word for it, this was the best quiche ever. We didn't stop with the quiche either, Dylan also boiled up some beets he found laying around in the fridge and we enjoyed them chopped and placed atop a bed of our own garden-fresh arugula with just a touch of salt and pepper and a good coating of olive oil. Once we were done with that, we moved on to jam making. Dylan had chopped and sugared a bunch of rhubarb from the garden earlier in the week so we decided to finally put it to use and combine it with strawberries for a batch of jam. We ended up with 12 jars of deliciously sweet strawberry rhubarb jam which I have since put on everything, including the strawberry oat pancakes my mom made all weekend.

I love when the moon shines bright in the late afternoon sun.

In addition to all the food related activities, we also managed to get out and explore the Stratton snow-making pond, a favorite swimming spot from my late adolescent years which my sister has also been frequenting. Dylan had never been so after our first failed attempt at strawberry picking (our (no-longer) usual spot was closed), we headed out for a swim. The sky was beautiful, the air was warm, and the water was cold. I didn't swim but Anna and Dylan went in for a dip while I took lots of pictures so I could share this beautiful swimming spot with all of you out there wherever you are. We walked around the path circling the pond three or four times, breathing in the mountain air, listening and watching for the bull frogs near the lily fronds and filling our hearts with Southern Vermont. It was a lovely way to greet the evening and we followed it with a quick stop at our favorite local take-out spot, Cilantro's, for delicious and quality burritos which we devoured ravenously the moment we got home.

Summer in Vermont

We’re back on the east coast now, Dylan is in CT visiting his parents while I am in Dorset, VT in the attic room of my mother’s house. This is where Dylan and I will be calling home for the next few months before we head off to Portland, ME, our final destination. Things could not be more different from the last time I last posted from our cabin in Hawaii where my friend baby gecko nipped at the mosquitoes buzzing around my computer. It has been a strange two weeks, to say the least. We left Hawaii with only one day left in May and headed for Seattle where we visited as many friends and bars as we possibly could, walked all over Fremont-Ballard and tried desperately to hang onto our Hawaiian calm as we faced big city life for the first time in a long time. It was great to see everyone and we had a wonderful time, but being back around so many cars, buildings, people, and the daily stress and grime of city life left us feeling grateful that we decided to get away from it all. City living just isn’t for us, and I am OK with that.

We walked into a pretty nice set up, my mom has a knack for blending function and art, her gardens are always so pretty.

While Dylan is taking a week to spend time with his family and work on some yard projects for his mom, I am here trying to unpack, settle in, and make our space at my mom’s house feel like home for a little while. Although we landed in VT on Thursday, I am only now (Monday) getting to work after taking a few days to catch up with family, watch my sister graduate high school (wahoo Anna!), and visit with my brother Willy and his awesome girlfriend Tessa who were also in town from California. We haven’t done much cooking since we’ve been here but within an hour of our arrival a few days ago, Dylan was out in the garden planting the tomato seedlings my mom raised while we were away. We are here in Vermont for the summer to continue our hiatus from traditional employment to practice eating off the land, working on our self-selected projects, and developing a healthier (simpler) lifestyle together.

Check out all the spinach and radishes to the left of the tomato bed, yum!

Leaving Seattle was the first step, we freed ourselves from many material constraints and got out of the city to reconnect with our friends and family back east. In Hawaii we learned the importance of a deeper connection to nature and the outdoors while we developed farming/homesteading skills. Now here we are in Vermont to continue to make progress on our goals and prepare for our future in Maine. Who knows exactly what we’ll learn and how our time here will shape us, but we are excited and ready to find out. Although we’ve been here less than a week, I think we are off to a great start, especially where food is concerned. I know I said we haven’t done much cooking yet, but we have begun our summer challenge of feeding ourselves without the assistance of a traditional grocery store, hence all the tomatoes we planted.

We made it home just in time to see the irises and peonies

My mom has always been an avid hobby gardener and I remember working with her in the garden when I was a kid, planting the carrots, shelling fresh peas for dinner, and spraying down the plants with the hose on hot summer days. This year, we all decided to see if we could make the garden more than just a hobby and use it as our primary source of nourishment, with only the local farmers markets and natural food stores to supplement what we grow. This means not only eating in a more self-sufficient manner, but we’ll need to be making all those other items that are typically bought at the supermarket, such as cleaning supplies, body care products, etc which we’ll attempt to make ourselves as well as try out different natural versions when we can find them. Luckily, my mom, my sister and I are pretty crafty and have a strong interest in DIY because otherwise this challenge would feel more overwhelming than exciting. Dylan and I have been interested in cultivating a more self-sufficient lifestyle basically since we moved in together five years ago and have slowly been building up our skills and developing our habits in this area but we are using this year to fully walk the walk we’ve been talking about all this time.

My sister is heading off to Sterling College in Craftsbury Common, VT, a small alternative school focused on agriculture, ecology, outdoor education, and sustainability, so she’s psyched to have our support in developing the habits that will help her find success and happiness in her future. So to kick off the summer together, the three of us Berger women went to the farmers market to load up on goodies for the week while Dylan was away. I was quite pleasantly surprised by the bounty we found at this rapidly growing market that included Filthy Farmgirl soap, all natural bug spray, delicious fresh bread, dirt cheap free-range chicken eggs (a dozen jumbo eggs for only $3!), kale, potatoes, herb starts, high quality local and sustainably raised pork and beef products, granola, and so much more. We walked away with a great collection of goodies to complement the massive amounts of spinach, mixed lettuces, and radishes that we harvested earlier from the garden. 

I can't wait to experiment with homemade apple cider from the apple trees in our backyard!

Before heading up to visit family we set out a fantastic lunch platter with all of our bounty, toasting with fresh apple cider to a summer of family, fresh food, and fun. After a week of traveling and eating who knows what at who remembers where, this plate of entirely VT-made food was exactly what the doctor ordered. I can’t wait to see what else we come up with as the growing season progresses and I promise to document our culinary (and other) adventures with lots of pictures. I’d show you the delicious chocolate rhubarb cake my mom made to welcome everyone home but like yesterday’s lunch platter, by the time I remembered there were only crumbs left to pose... stay tuned for stories of soap-making, beer brewing, bread baking, homemade crackers and pop-tarts, and Dylan’s transformation of my mother’s kitchen!