Brattleboro Food Co-op, VT

This weekend DH and I went on a little field trip. As everyone keeps telling me, the best part of living in New England is the fall. Which--hey!--it is right now. So we drove up through New Hampshire and Vermont to see the leaves.


We were a bit early for prime leaf color, but the leaves were still changing and the colors were still pretty. We drove through the White Mountains of NH and near the Green Mountains of VT, and came within 70 miles of the Canadian border. The last time I drove through NH and VT (last summer's road trip), it was pouring, so I didn't get a good sense of the scenery. Yesterday I did. It was one of those perfect fall days--55 degrees, crisp, sunny, and not a cloud in the sky. Gorgeous, just gorgeous.

We stopped off at the Brattleboro Food Co-op, where I purchased fresh maple syrup on tap (as well as molasses and honey), several fresh local Vermont cheeses, and some beautiful organic locally grown root vegetables (parsnips, white turnips, celeriac, butternut squash, and rutabagas, as well as some kale and rainbow chard). I was dismayed to discover DH could not correctly identify any of the vegetables I bought. Then I realized that unfortunately, most adults would be hard-pressed to correctly identify a rutabaga. I comforted myself with local goat cheese, made on a fully organic, wind- and solar-powered farm.

(Not that the farm's energy source had any affect on the cheese's taste. But I felt so crunchy and liberal eating it!)

So I'll be featuring various root vegetables coming up, including what they look like and how to use them. Also--fresh maple syrup!