For us, the best part of traveling is checking out local restaurants. On a recent work trip to Portland, OR, which Luke tagged along on for fun, we found some great restaurants and ate some really good food!

Let’s start with breakfast. Obviously, there is Voodoo Doughnuts. Of the 20 or so different crazy flavors, we tried several: Bubble Gum (REALLY tasted like bubble gum!), Bacon (with maple glaze…tasted like pancakes with syrup and bacon), Capt’n Crunch (ultra sugary), and Old Fashion with maple glaze. It was quite an experience! On the less sugary side, Pazzo Bakery made a delicious brioche roll. Order two because one won’t be enough!

Of course you will need something to wash down that doughnut. One block from Voodoo is Stumptown Coffee Roasters. It is great place to grab a seat and a cup and watch a mix of office workers, tourists and Portland-ites stream through. Most importantly they make a great cup of coffee.

Saint Honore Boulangerie has delicious food for breakfast, lunch or snack. We stopped in for lunch and had a prosciutto sandwich. I wish there had been time to try all their breads and pastries…they looked amazing! One afternoon we went to Southpark for lunch. They had a great lunch deal of 1/2 sandwich, soup or salad, and a cookie for under $10! Won’t find that in DC! I tried the smoked pork loin sandwich and it was delicious!

We were fortunate to have two amazing dinners at two of Portland’s top restaurants, both of which specialized in local, organic food and were beautiful settings. The first, Veritable Quandry Restaurant was right on the water and close to City Hall. Apparently it’s one of Portland’s “power” restaurants. The roasted wild mushroom and baby spinach salad was amazing, as was the NY strip steak with grilled Abalone mushrooms and black truffle butter. Definitely one of my favorite meals of 2009.

The last night we dined at Urban Farmer in the “pickle room,” surrounded by jars of pickled everything. It was pretty cool. Again, the food was amazing. I have never had oysters as good as they were here. Main course was Sweet Briar Farms pig with blue cheese, arugula and figs. Another favorite meal!

Portland has tons of food carts! We didn’t have time to do any sampling, but there are tons of options. In DC carts mostly sell either hot dogs or…hot dogs. In Portland they seem to have every cuisine available.

With all this food we needed to do something to exercise. Luckily Luke found Ground Kontrol, an arcade filled with vintage arcade games and pinball machines. After 5 pm they even serve beer. Best workout ever!

“Ga-wow, this is the most amazing dinner ever!” – Luke, pretending to be Jose Andres

I was in LA for work this weekend and I got to check out Jose Andres’s newest restaurant, The Bazaar, which is in a brand new hotel called SLS. It was truly an amazing and entertaining experience. I wasn’t the only one having fun, everyone there seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Dinning these days seems to be an exercise in formality, a show that goes through the motions without anyone enjoying it. Amuse bouches are no longer fun surprises, but are expected if you go someplace “new and innovative.” Dining is not normally a shared experience, one that transcends the divide of tables. Each table ends up being an island of isolation.

None of this is the case at The Bazaar. Eating there ends up being an experience shared by all diners. I sat at the tapas bar for dinner, and the people sitting next to me started telling me how much amazed they were with the whole experience. Carolyn and I first got to experience something similar when we ate the Jose’s MiniBar, which is a six-seat bar with a fixed menu and all the food prepared right before you. Everyone at the bar eats the same food at the same time–some of it interesting and unusual and all of it delicious. The whole group of strangers are all trying something new for the first time, together. The Bazaar manages to capture this experience and expand it to the whole restaurant.

The food is complemented by a whimsical interior design that looks trendy without being at all pretentious. I ate in the bar area of Rojo, which has dark wood, chalkboards with Picasso-like drawings, and low hanging lights. I had dessert in the Patisserie area, which resembles something out of Marie Antoinette or a scene from Alice in Wonderland. Everything seems enthusiastic and over sized, much like Jose’s hand gestures and way of speaking. It all works, and none of it seems out of place.

The tapas served in the Rojo y Blanco section pull from Jose Andres other restaurants. A large number of the traditional tapas come from the menu at Jaleo. A tzatziki and flatbread tapa would fit right in at Zatinya and a number of ceviche and latin dishes seem to be influenced by Cafe Alantico and Oyamel.

Ok, enough rambling…on to the food!

• The Best Gin and Tonic – Mine was made with Hendrick’s gin and Fever Tree Tonic. What made this fun is that they added aromatics, some sort of blossom, juniper berries and a cool round, extra large ice cube. “Best” is a strong statement, but this was a strong drink and I think it stands up to the claim.
• Olives Two Ways – This was a two part dish. The first part was a traditional serving of olives, each stuffed with roasted pepper, a fillet of anchovy and topped with orange zest and micro basil. All of this is drizzled with olive oil. The combination is sweet, salty and savory, all at the same time.
  The second part are bubbles of olively goodness, with a liquid center. The center is some sort of olive and olive oil puree. It is surprising at first, but yummy. They are served out of a glass “olive” jar on to a spoon.
• “Miso” Linguini – This is a fun dish. Miso soup has some sort of gelatin added to it, then it is ladled out into a thin layer to harden. The “soup” is then cut into thin noodles and topped with fish eggs. The flavor doesn’t pop, but it is a lot of fun.

• Philly Cheese steak – This was a very fun dish. It is pretty much an inside out cheese steak. The first layer is very thinly sliced and very rare wagyu beef. The beef is wrapped around “air bread” which seems to be a hollow cracker, bread-like thing. The air bread is filled with a warm and gooey cheese that puts cheese wiz to shame. This dish walks the fine line between meathead and art house sophistic, and does it amazing well.
• Tortilla Reinvented – This was one of my favorite dishes, it is simply amazing. It is a traditional tortilla, reimagined. The base is a soft boiled quail egg yolk. It is topped with a foam made from potatoes, all of which is topped with little potato crunchies. It may sound a little weird, but it all worked together so well. This dish is both savory and delicate at the same time. It was also only $3, I wish I could get one every morning instead of a cup of coffee.
• Tuna Roll – Ceviched tuna, wrapped with thinly sliced avocado. This may not have been my favorite dish, but it still was very good.
• Caprese Salad – This is another great dish and so much more fun than a traditional Caprese salad. It has all the makings of a regular one, but all the flavors are amped. The tomatoes are blanched and peeled and are either very flavorful or juiced with some tomato puree. They are extra tomatoey. Instead of balls of mozzarella, there were bubbles of mozzarella, little globules filled with liquid mozzarella. There were basil leaves, but they were micro basil leaves and there was pesto to really bring home the basil flavor. All of this was topped with small air bread croutons.

Some how after all of that, I was still hungry. For my final dish I ordered the Sausage with White Beans. This is one of my favorite dishes at Jaleo. At Jaleo, the dish is small sausages served on a bed of white beans. At The Bazaar it is one large, homemade white sausage served over roasted white beans. I am not sure what they do to those beans, but they are amazing. I am guessing they are cooked cassoulet style, with lots of fat, and some mushrooms thrown in for good effect. The sausage was perfectly cooked, browned on the outside, but still moist in the center.

My journey at The Bazaar was not over yet. I was escorted to the Patisserie section which looks like some weird fantasy land, but has a very cool vibe. For dessert I had the Chocolate Stick, which is chocolate mousse on top of a bed of crunchies, dipped in chocolate or something fun like that. I accompanied this with a North Coast Imperial Stout, which worked perfectly with the chocolate and the bubbles helped break up the heaviness of the desert.

In Washington, DC there are a bunch of places to find products from Big Tree Farms. There is only one place in Bali, however, where you can get their products. A little challenge makes everything more fun though! I had a free afternoon so I got a car and headed 45 minutes north to the Bali Spirit Kafe in Ubud. Ubud takes pride in their arts scene and is sort of Earthy crunchy and funky…and so is the Kafe. The Kafe also seems to be a bit of an ex-pat hang out, catering to travelers looking for a little inner renewal and other zen improvements.

Bali is a very tropical place and the heat coupled with the humidity can be a little draining. Once I made it to Ubud, I got a seat outside on the porch at the Kafe and ordered a Vanilla Lime Soda, which is vanilla bean syrup & Bali lime with soda. The soda hit the spot and helped refresh.

After being on travel for a week, I was looking for a bit of comfort food; food which didn’t make you think. The Kafe has lots of healthy, whole grain salads and organic foods, but sometimes you just need a burger. Luckily the Kafe came through in a big way. Their burger is made from local free range beef and I got mine topped with sauteed mushrooms and onions. I don’t know if it was my craving for a burger, but this is one of the best burgers I have had.

Of course I needed to order some desert, so I got a banana spice smoothie which is a banana smoothie topped with nutmeg and hazelnut. In order to make sure I left totally full, I also ordered Bubur Injin, a traditional Balinese dish of black rice topped with sweet coconut milk.

The truth is that I wasn’t there for eating food, no matter how good it was, I was there to buy some Big Tree Farm products and some Jam which they served at my hotel. The Kafe has a small shop which sells local products and donates the profits to local charities. Luckily they had everything I was looking for and more. I had a great meal and left with some great souvenirs!

The Kafe’s website has directions, in case you are in the neighborhood, and menus.

When we travel we always try to find interesting food items. Our Vermont cheese tour is an extreme example of that and my recent trip to Bali was no exception. My best “find” was Big Tree Farms–and the funny thing is that I had already discovered their products at my local Whole Foods.

Big Tree Farms was founded by an American couple and started out as a tiny organic farm on borrowed land. The founders were interested in encouraging organic farming and sustainable practices in Bali. The farm became very successful, but in order to keep up with demand they would have had to turn it into a much larger operation. Instead, they decided to look at how they could help sustain traditionally produced Balinese food items. The traditional methods for producing salt and palm sugar are in danger because of competition from mass produced commodities.

You can find many different Big Tree Farm products in stores across the U.S. and online. I am going to do a write up on the different products I brought back. Ironically, there is only one place to buy Big Tree Farm products in Bali and I will do a little write-up on the cafe where they are available.

There is a short Food & Wine article on Big Tree Farms, which does a much better job describing them than I did.

They also have a great website that not only has there products for sale, but also describes the process used to make them:

Sometimes you have to make the best of a bad situation…and a 9 hour layover is a bad situation. I was in Indonesia for work and on the way back I had a layover in Japan. After an overnight flight into Narita, Japan, I got off the plane and saw that it was drizzling outside…perfect weather for soup. Since I had so much time, I headed into the town of Narita. It is a popular place to visit if you are stuck with a layover, so it is pretty easy to get around. One great comfort food is Miso Ramen, which is ramen in a strong miso broth. Miso ramen is definitely not your typical wimpy miso soup. This stuff sticks to your ribs.

I stopped by Ramen Bayashi which is pretty popular with international flight crews. When I was there it was almost all foreigners…then again I was there at 11:30 am which is probably a little early for a local to be having lunch. Not too surprisingly, they mostly had ramen on the menu.

There are tons of different styles of ramen soups, and you can top each with different fixings. I searched around for a recipe that gets close to the bowl I had in Japan. For the noodles, you want to try to find something close to a yakisoba or chow mein type of noodle.

I used a brown miso because that is all I had on hand, but I have seen recipes that call for using both brown and white miso. It sounds like a good idea and will probably add a bit more depth. Using homemade broth will add more flavor, but I am lazy so I never have it around.

We just got back from a week in San Francisco and Napa Valley and ate such amazing food and drank delicious wine that our trip deserves a recap!

First stop in San Francisco was Zuni Cafe for appetizers of sliced heirloom tomatoes and marinated olives. We continued our walk to Nopa for a dinner of little fried fish, pork chop (Carolyn), duck confit (Luke) and pumkin sage souffle. Completely delicious!

The next day we visited Liguria Bakery for some fresh foccacia (amazing!) and then on to Mama’s for an omelette with pancetta, mushrooms, fresh basil, tomato, and garlic jack cheese (Carolyn) and chocolate and cinnamon french toast with fresh berries and bananas (Luke). YUM!

For lunch we hit up the Ferry Building and shared a salami sandwich from the Acme Bread Company. Walking around in the afternoon we stumbled upon the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory. Dinner was at Kokkari, a Greek restaurant. We shared appetizers of favosalata and tirosalata (different feta dips) with homemade grilled pita bread. We got the special of the day which was lamb from a rotisserie. It was good, but I bet the braised lamb shank would have been better.

On day three we drove to Napa and visited some vineyards with friends – Gundlach Bundschu, Ravenswood and Viansa. Dinner was at Ad Hoc, a Thomas Keller restaurant in Yountville. It’s a set menu, different each day, served family style. The menu consisted of frisee & watercress salad, Snake River Farms pork loin, Rouge et Noir camembert, and citrus pound cake. The food completely blew us away! Amazing!

Day four started with a visit to Domaine Chandon for some champagne tasting. Afterward we visited a couple of wineries – Goosecross Cellars, PlumpJack, and Regusci – and had some wine, cheese, salami and bread for lunch. Dinner was more casual that night – we went to Taylor’s Automatic Refresher for some

great burgers. Breakfast most mornings and afternoon snacks usually consisted of some fresh bread and/or pasteries from Buchon Bakery (another Thomas Keller creation). Day five we went hiking, then stopped at the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena for a looksy, then lunch at Model Bakery, which had really yummy panini sandwiches. After, we stopped by Peju for a wine tasting.

Our last day in Napa Valley/San Francisco we visited Copia, a small institution to educate, promote and celebrate American excellence and achievements in the culinary, winemaking and visual arts arenas. We walked around the garden, which had almost every kind of fruit and vegetable growing and ate lunch at Julia’s Kitchen, named after Julia Child. After a visit to Muir Woods and some hiking, we ate dinner at Sushi Ran in Sausalito, which was delicious.

Overall Food Rating: A++

Overall Wine Rating: A

J.K. Adams

1430 Route 30,
Dorset, VT

Part of: Vermont 08 – Cheese & Tasty Things Tour

After reading all of the recent posts it may seem like all that Vermont has is cheese. This is completely untrue. They actually have two things–the other is maple syrup. To make lots of maple syrup you need lots of maple trees, which incidentally also make really nice cutting boards.

J.K. Adams is a kick ass cutting board manufacturer located in Dorset, Vermont. Dorset is a bit in the middle of no where but it is worth the drive because these guys are the real deal. You can buy their cutting boards in Williams Sonoma and Crate & Barrel. They also have a great kitchen store at their factory. We…ok, really me…went a little nuts there. I ended up buying two end grain butcher blocks and a great laser etched serving tray.

The story behind the J.K Adams logo is an interesting one. Back in Colonial times, foresters marked the best trees with an arrow, and those trees were used to make ships for the British royal fleet. J.K. Adams uses the arrow logo to symbolize that they, too, use the best wood for their products.

End grain cutting boards are the best kind you can get and will last forever. In normal wooden cutting boards the grain of the wood is perpendicular to the blade of the knife. As you cut things, you also make cuts in the wood. With end grain boards, the wood grain runs parralel to the blade of the knife. Instead of cutting the wood, the knife blade pushes the wood fibers aside. This helps the board last longer. Instead of just having a board of wood lying flat, shorts piece of wood are stacked on end and glued together to form a cutting board. I think I have done a horrible job of explaining this, hopefully the pictures help. The take away is that end grain cutting boards are big honking boards that makes cutting things up fun…and J.K. Adams makes a damn fine board.

The “smaller” board is maple. They stopped making the grain board using maple and have switched to cherry. The cherry wood gives the block more variety in tone, which gives the boards an interesting pattern. The larger board is cherry. We got a great price on the maple one though since it was the last of the old stock.

So besides the 30 lbs of butcher block we bought, we also got a really cool laser etched serving board. They have a number of different designs, all of which look pretty awesome.

One of the cool things about their Kitchen Store is an observation deck where you can watching them making all of the different products. Unfortunately when we visited the production lines weren’t running.

Grafton Village Cheese Shop
33 Townshend Road
Grafton, VT 05146
800-472-3866

Daniel’s House Café
92 Main St
Grafton, VT 05146
800-843-1801

Part of: Vermont 08 – Cheese & Tasty Things Tour

Our visit a couple of years ago to Grafton Village Cheese Company is what really planted the seed in our minds for our ’08 Cheese Tour. Grafton Cheddar defines what good cheddar should taste like. One of the best parts of visiting is that you can try all of the different flavors and ages of cheese that they make. One of the other benefits of visiting is that they sell blocks of cheese that they have miss cut at a discount. These blocks are either a little over or under weight. We picked up about a pound of 4 year old cheddar for $5!

There is a window where you can look in on the cheese making area…unfortunately we showed up when nothing was going on. Maybe next time!

Just as we were leaving, I came across this quite little newt wandering through the parking lot. I thought the right thing to do would be to move it closer to the neighboring stream. I left it on a tree stump, but the newt promptly walked off the edge and free fell down the bank. Newts are real. I looked them up on the Internet later and it looks like the newt may have been slightly poisonous. It is only really dangerous if you touch the newt and then lick your fingers…like you might do while eating a sample of delicious cheese you just purchased. Luckily there were no fatalities on this tour.

There is also a nice little cafe in Grafton that we always visit called Daniel’s House Cafe. They have great sandwiches, some featuring Grafton Cheddar. Grafton is also a beautiful place to visit, so make sure you poke around.

I also have to share one recipe from their website. I haven’t tried it yet, but combining two bottles of beer and a lot of cheese can only result in something pretty damn tasty.

Long Trail Brewery

Junction of Route 100a and 4
Bridgewater Corners, VT 05035

Part of: Vermont 08 – Cheese & Tasty Things Tour

You know there is something special about a place when the employees stick around after hours. It does help if that place is a brewery…but it is still a good sign. We stopped by Long Trail right at the end of the day, just when everyone who works there was getting off work and heading to the restaurant/beer garden out back.

In order to be bold and adventurous, we ordered the sampler. This let us try the 6 different beers they have on tap. All of the beers were good, not amazing, blow your mind great, but definitely tasty. My favorite was the Double Bag, which is a Double Bock style beer that is real smooth but will give you a kick in the pants. They definitely make good, solid beer. Nothing too flashy or showy, but more chill and laid back. One of the best parts of the visit was the outdoor beer garden (back deck) they have that over looks a neighboring stream.

I would sum up Long Trail by saying it is a beer you can respect and a company you can love. The unfortunate thing is that they do not distribute down here in DC.

We had a little bit of trouble finding them. There address is listed at the juncture of 100a and Route 4. The thing is that there are two different junctures for these roads. They are located at the juncture that is further east.

Just to be clear, those are small glasses in the sampler, not pint glasses. Hi Mom and Dad!

Frog City Cheese
106 Messer Hill Road
Plymouth Notch, VT 05056
802-672-3650

Part of: Vermont 08 – Cheese & Tasty Things Tour

The are too many good cheese places to visit in Vermont. We tried to make it to as many as possible and unfortunately some of the ones we made it to closed before we got there. OK, so really there was only one we got to after it had closed and the only reason we swung by was because it was on the way.

Frog City Cheese is located in the Plymouth Cheese Factory which in the President Calvin Coolidge Historic Site in Plymouth Notch, Vermont. This is where Calvin Coolidge grew up and the Plymouth Cheese Factory is where Coolidge made cheese. I grew up Northampton, MA, where Coolidge spent some time after going to Amherst College, so I have a special affinity for this place.

Unfortunately we didn’t get to try any cheese since we got there after they closed. Nevertheless, it sounds like they make a unique and tasty bit of cheese. The style they make is called a granular curd cheese. Here is how they describe it:

“ Granular curd cheese, or stirred curd as it is also known, is made from raw cow’s milk. This cheese was typically hand-made in New England farmhouses during the colonial period and is rarely made today. This cheese has been described as tangy, rich, open bodied, old fashioned and uncomplicated.

The present day process still includes many of the precise hand processing techniques, which make the cheese what it is. After cultures and rennet are added the milk is precisely heated before the curds are cut and then stirred mechanically in the cheese vat. After the mixture “cooks,” the whey is drained and the curds are moved to a draining table with buckets. The curds are stirred by hand and salt is hand mixed into the recipe. Finally, the curds are hand packed into dressed molds and place into a mechanical press where the rest of the whey will be squeezed out.

The next day the cheeses are removed from the molds and placed on racks in the drying room. They remain there for 5-7 days and are placed in coolers for aging. At 2 months the cheese is considered ‘Young’ and ready to eat. It will become tangier as it ages and labeled ‘Mature’ between 8 – 12 months.

Dear Frog City Cheese,

I am sorry we didn’t get to taste your yummy, yummy cheese. Next time we are up there, we will stop by.

Sincerely,

Luke & Carolyn

Part of: Vermont 08 – Cheese & Tasty Things Tour

There are so many cute inns in Vermont, it was hard to choose! After the drive through Massachusetts and New Hampshire, we stopped at the Norwich Inn in Norwich for lunch. We were lured by the fact that they have their own brewery. We ate outside in the courtyard – tuna fish sandwich for Carolyn and turkey club for Luke. Both were really good! (And the beer, too!)

After visiting a cheese farm, a brewery and the King Arthur Flour store (more on all those in separate posts), we arrived at the Weathersfield Inn in Perkinsville. It was fabulous!

The chef at the Inn, Jason Tostrup, was awarded the Sante Culinary Arts Award for ‘Sustainable Cuisine – New England.’ He’s been a leader in the “Farm to Table” movement in Vermont.

We sat outside on the deck and sipped a pre-dinner cocktail. Dinner started with chilled asparagus soup. Then we had buckwheat and herb gnocchi with Summer vegetables and lemon ricotta cheese and a plate of local cheeses and meats for appetizers. For entrees Luke had ‘Happy Hog Farm’s’ pork and Maine scallops with cauliflower mash and braised greens with Long Wind Farms tomato; Carolyn had a special of the day – braised veal carnitas. For dessert we split a strawberry rhubarb and lemon yogurt pie. So delicious!!

After sitting by the fire pit for a while, we retired to a really comfortable bed! We woke up in the morning and the Innkeepers prepared breakfast for us…French toast. With real maple syrup, of course. We highly recommend this inn the next time you are in Vermont!

King Arthur Flour Store

135 Route 5 South
Norwich, Vermont 05055
phone: 802.649.3361

Part of: Vermont 08 – Cheese & Tasty Things Tour

Once you get into baking you come across King Arthur Flour and give it a try. Depending on where you buy it, it is only a little bit more expensive than regular flour and always delivers great results. King Arthur tries to foster a baking culture; they have a baking tour that travels the country teaching people about baking. They also have an amazing blog that not only has great recipes, but is also a great read. They are also not new to this–they have been making flour since 1790 and is America’s oldest flour company. All of this makes the King Arthur HQ and Store a bit like nirvana for a baker.

Their store has a ridiculous number of cooking implements and ingredients. Also, for those with more time and/or money, they also offer classes and full blown professional courses. All and all, a very impressive place that is well worth the visit. I walked away without doing too much damage to our finances. We only got a silicon mat for rolling out dough and baking mixes for our parents. I did pick up a catalog though so their could be some future damage.

Of course, being the goof that I am, I had to take a photo on the King Arthur throne.

Also, I made a mistake when I originally wrote down the address. I typed it into the GPS and this is where we ended up. Don’t worry, the correct address is posted above.

Update!!
————————————————–

PJ’s comment just reminded me that I forgot to include one of the best things about King Arthur, and probably one of the most import things for everyone not making it up to Vermont anytime soon… They have a baking blog and tons of recipes online! The name of their blog is Bakers’ Banter and they try out recipes and report back on the results… all with a healthy dose of character and wit. I have subscribed to it for a bit and found tons of recipes I keep meaning to try. Here are the top 3 that I starred in Google Reader, and really will get around to trying.

• (Garlic) KNOT for the faint of heart…
• Yeast bread in a hurry: it doesn’t HAVE to take forever. Honest.
• Sandwich Central: Rustic Olive Rolls

A bonus read is a baking tests with the easy bake oven. Check out their blog. Seriously, you will leave hungry, but energized to try making something.

Bufala di Vermont

2749 Church Hill Road
S. Woodstock, VT 05071
802-457-4540

Part of: Vermont 08 – Cheese & Tasty Things Tour

Mozzarella is a soft cheese that is best fresh. I got water buffalo mozzarella before from Vace that was flown in from Italy. It was very tasty and creamy but it lacked the “freshness” of really fresh mozzarella. When it is fresh, mozzarella should also be a little squeaky like cheese curds. With this in mind, we made it a mission to try and get some fresh water buffalo mozzarella from one of the few places you can in U.S. This stuff should be the schiznit, did it live up to expectations?…read on!

Water buffalo are not something you expect to see grazing the Vermont countryside. They are hairy, horned animals that would look more at home in a rice paddy in Asia.

Water buffalo milk is much thicker than normal cow milk. It contains much less water and more protein and fat. This all makes for very yummy cheese. The best mozzarella is made using water buffalo milk, and it is prized by Italians. The higher percentage of solids in the milk means you can get more cheese from a gallon of milk. The bummer is that water buffalo produce less milk than cows. A dairy cow will produce between 50 and 70 pounds of milk a day, while a water buffalo will produce 10-12 pounds a day.

Bufala di Vermont is one of two places in the U.S. were water buffalo are raised for their milk and the only place making water buffalo mozzarella. Up until recently Bufala di Vermont was known as the Woodstock Water Buffalo Company, which unfortunately closed. Luckily, an Italian born Canadian named Frank Abballe took up the reins and tried to make a go of it. Abballe plans to diversify offerings and improve distribution. I am hopful we can start getting their products down in DC.

They are not quite set up to for tourists yet. Right now you drive up dirt road and park and then go up to a building opposite their barn. This building houses the cheese making facilities and their office, which is upstairs. Luckily someone was in! He invited us to look around the barn and also say hi to the new baby calves in their pen. They are curious and beyond cute. He said they just took one of the calves down to a Boston Whole Foods for a little publicity tour. I am sure he won over more than a few hearts.

After saying hi to the water buffalo, we went back to the offices and bought a ball of mozzarella. The guy went and got it right from the cheese making plant. It doesn’t get much fresher than that! He also threw in a container of their Water Buffalo Yogurt, which was a real bonus.

The mozzarella was amazing! The texture was airy and soft, yet creamy, and had a real structure instead of just being a blob. There was also so much more mozzarella flavor than ordinary fresh mozzarella. To me, fresh mozzarella is usually pretty bland; this cheese tasted like cheese, not a piece of styrofoam. It is possible to get the same flavor with imported mozzarella or the same texture with fresh, artisan mozzarella, but this brought both aspects together perfectly. We ate half of it straight from the container. It was that good. When we got home we tossed the rest with some tomatoes, olive oil and salt.

The yogurt they gave us was equally amazing. It was almost as thick as a custard and creamier than you could believe. That is because there was lots of fat in it. Whatever, it was better than ice cream. If you ever see their mozzarella or yogurt, you MUST buy and try.

Crowley Cheese
14 Crowley Lane
Healdville, VT 05758
Phone: (802)259-2340

Part of: Vermont 08 – Cheese & Tasty Things Tour

I met one of the most amazing cheese makers on our tour…and I totally forgot to ask his name. This is what separates us bloggers from real reporters. Every now and then we miss some details. Luckily he was wearing a shirt with his name on it…or a name on it. Anyhow I will go with that and call him Hutch.

This is not the point; the point is that Crowley Cheese is an American original. They make damn good cheese and have been doing it the same way since 1824. They are the oldest cheese makers in America, and they still make their cheese the same way they did back then, by hand.

Hutch walked us through how they make their cheese. It was by far the best tour we got on our trip. Crowley makes Colby cheese, but as Hutch was quick to point out, Crowley was making cheese before anyone in Colby, Wisconsin. The only reason that the style they make is referred to as Colby is because in the 1880s a survey of American cheeses started out West and worked East. They got to Colby, Wisconsin before they got to Healdville, Vermont. Such is life.

The tour we got was great. The cheese “factory” has more in common with a barn than modern factories which look more like operating rooms. This is not say it wasn’t clean, everything gets bleached down between batches and all of the pipes hold a bleach solution when they are not pumping milk. Instead of looking sterile and inhuman, this building reflected the history and character that this cheese has and the amount of personal effort that goes into making each block.

The whole process starts in the milk holding tanks. They get their milk from a variety of farms, so there may be a difference from batch to batch. Before a shipment gets accepted, it gets tasted and a bacterial count is performed. The first step in making the cheese is pumping milk up from this holding tank in the basement to the a very large tub on the ground floor. This tub is heated by steam from a small boiler in the basement. Once the milk is heated, rennet is added causing the milk to curdle. Rennet comes from the stomachs of calves and it binds together the proteins in milk. These days it comes in convenient 5 gallon plastic jugs, but the old school way of doing it was to hang the stomach over the tub of milk. Thank God for progress.

Once the milk curdles, a sheet of solid curd will form on the top. The cheesemakers then cut this sheet by hand using a comb-like raking tool. The curds are brought up to temperature and then most of the whey (the watery part, curd is the solid part) is drained. The cheesemakers then have to scoop the curds from the tub to a very large sink on the other side of the room. In the sink they wash the cheese with spring water. The curds are mixed with salt and then placed in molds, both rounds and blocks. The metal molds are lined with cheese cloth, and are used to shape the cheese and remove any remaining whey. They are placed in a large hydraulic press, where they have the dickens squeezed out of them. This is one of the few places where anything mechanized is used.

After the cheese has been pressed and has sat over night, it is removed from the molds. It is either cut into smaller blocks using a wire grid or left whole. The next step is to wax the cheese. The smaller blocks are dipped into a slow cooker full of wax, while the larger blocks go into a large cauldron of wax that is heated by steam and dates back to the 1800s. The wax is mostly bees wax and has shot up in price because of all the trouble bees have been having. Some of the cheese will be aged. Crowley has 4 different ages: mild, medium, sharp and extra sharp. Their aging room is in the attic, so all of the cheese has to be carried upstairs…by hand.

Yep. That is how cheese is made. Or at least that is my understanding of how cheese is made. Take it for what it is worth. What I do know, is that the fine folks at Crowley know how cheese is made and do a damn good job of making it. Their extra sharp Colby is amazing. It has full flavor and tang of a English cheddar but it is not as dry and crumbly. It is a great cheese, made by hand in the traditional way, full of history, heritage and character…really what more could you look for. If you find a block, buy it. If you are anywhere near Healdville, Vermont, stop by, they are great people.

So remember way back, about a 1000 words ago when I was comparing bloggers with real writers? Well, I did some Googling and it looks like a real writer, wrote about Crowley. Her story has everything you would want, actual names, quotes, and fact that have a better chance of being correct. I recommend giving it a read.

Here is my last parting tid bit; Crowely is owned by a group of 5 shareholders who bought the company from the Smiths, who bought the company from the Crowleys. The group has owned Crowley since the 1970s and operates it more like a hobby than the treasure it really is. They need to get their butts in gear and work on consistent funding for production, better branding that reflects the heritage of the cheese and how it is produced, and improved distribution. If I can get Grafton Cheddar down in DC, I should be able to get Crowley. These days everyone is looking for food that is “real”; Crowley is it, and it shouldn’t be so obscure. Shareholders, if by chance you read this, come talk to me I have ideas.

Part of: Vermont 08 – Cheese & Tasty Things Tour

Helmut’s Strudel Shop in Rockport, MA has amazing coffee cake muffins, among other things, including coffee and cheese strudel. Every time we go to Rockport we make a trip to Bearskin Neck for some “penny” candy, salt water taffy and coffee cake muffins. Sometime we even call ahead and ask them to save some for us. They are that good. And when we get home they don’t last long!

Part of: Vermont 08 – Cheese & Tasty Things Tour

I like old people candy. There, I’ve said it. Don’t give me any sour flavored, blue colored, gummy candy treats. Instead give me black licorice or better yet some NECCO wafers.

What better to do, when in Boston, than go to the New England Confectionary Company – Home of the NECCO Wafer. NECCO Wafers are the longest produced candy (or confections as fancy people say) in the United States. This is all well and good, but they register pretty low on the excitement scale. The wafers are pretty simple, made out of sugar, starch, a little flavor and a little color. This is all compressed into a dry, hard, disc. None of this should be exciting to anyone under the age of 60. There are no bright colors, outrageous flavors or crazy gimmicks. Still, for some reason I like the dang things.

This brings us full circle to my visit to the NECCO HQ, located in beautiful Revere, MA. Unfortunately you can’t tour the factory floor, but they do have a Candy Shoppe (which is Shop in olden time speak) where they sell every type of candy NECCO makes and then some. We picked up a roll of regular NECCO Wafer, a roll of Smoothie Wafers, a SkyBar and a NECCO t-shirt. Since NECCO also makes/invented Conversation Hearts, this might be a good place to visit before Valentines day. Definitely worth the trip for any “NECCO Head” or someone simply looking for something to do in Revere who doesn’t like delicious Roast Beef sandwiches.

Part of: Vermont 08 – Cheese & Tasty Things Tour

There are two kinds of fried clams in this world–fried clam strips and fried clams with bellies. The first kind is a flavorless dried out, stringy, piece of clam meat. The second kind is moist, tender and full of ocean flavor. For the past couple of years pork belly has been the big thing…I hope clam bellys get their turn to shine.

There are two parts to clams–the “muscle part” and the “soft everything else part.” The “soft everything else part” is what is called the belly. When you have fried clams with belly, you are eating the whole clam. Soft shelled clams or steamers are the clams that are most often used. They are also called longneck clams or Ipswich clams. These clams spend most of their life chilling out in the mudflats of New England, filtering water for tasty bits of food. Anyhow, the belly is where all the magic happens for the clam, and where all the flavor is. When you just get the strips, you miss all this goodness.

I grew up in Massachusetts, but in the Western part which has as much in common with Albany as it does Boston. When I was growing up fried clams meant fried clam strips. Luckily Carolyn grew up on the other end of the state and got to spend a lot of time in Rockport, MA where fried clams always means belly included. One of the best places for fried clams is Ipswich, MA. You should have guessed this since soft shells are also known as Ipswich Clams.

After a day in Rockport we went to the Clambox in Ipswich and ordered two large Fried Clams with Belly boxes. Four people manage to devour this order in a record 12 minutes. While we probably could have gotten away with a smaller order, no one walked away from the table unhappy. The clams were perfectly fried, with a moist and tender interior and a crisp and crunchy crust. The meaty part was not at all over cooked and the belly tasted like the ocean. The clams were not from Ipswich; it seems like they are having a little Red Tide problem. Instead, they were from Maine and were just as good. Since you keep clams live until they are cooked, it is not problem to bring them a couple of extra miles.

Fried clams with bellies are tougher to find outside of New England. Luckily for us, and all of the other residents of DC, Hank’s Oyster Bar has a mean plate of fried Ipswich Clams with Bellies. While the ambiance might be a bit more yuppie and a little less New Englandy, it is some tasty eating and I dare say almost as good.

Here are the wines we brought back:

• Norton Reserva Malbec 2004
• Septimo Dia de Bodega Septima Malbec 2005
• Enrique Foster Reserva Malbec 2003
• Ben Marco Malbec 2003
• Luigi Bosca Reserva Malbec 2004
• Bodega Lurton Reserva Malbec 2005
• Don Nicanor Bodegas Nieto Senetiner Malbec 2004
• Xumek Sol Huarpe Syrah 2004

The Malbecs are all from Mendoza and the Syrah is from San Juan. According to the guy in the wine store, Mendoza produces the best Malbecs and San Juan produces the best Syrahs. The Syrah won a silver medal in 2007 for Syrah du Monde (Syrah of the World).

At dinner at Gran Bar Danzon I tried the Ben Marco and Enrique Foster, and loved both. But the first wine store we went to didn’t sell either. So, we just asked for six bottles of wine, and the guy picked them all out. We hadn’t tried any of them. The wine store near our hotel had both the Ben Marco and Enrique Foster, so we picked up a bottle of each. That’s how we ended up with eight bottles.

Update: Last night we made beef stew and opened the bottle of Norton Malbec. The wine was really good; it went perfectly! I have a feeling we will be able to find this wine in the U.S. because it is a big name.

We’ll keep you posted on the other wines as we try them. You can read about our Argentinean eating adventure here.

The great things about dining in Argentina are:

1. The food is amazing
2. The exchange rate with the dollar makes it possible to be a little extravagant.

We definitely took advantage of both!

Here is a diary of our favorite meals. You’ll notice that most meals were our favorite! And of course, you can’t have meals with out some amazing Argentinean wine.  And I’ve included links to the restaurants/bars Web site when available. Enjoy!

Day 1 – Thursday, Nov. 22 – Thanksgiving

We arrived at our hotel (Sheraton Convention Center) in Buenos Aires around noon, or maybe later. After showering we ventured out into the city, walking along the very crowed Florida Ave. Billed as “great shopping” by the travel books, we were sorely disappointed. It was very touristy and the stuff was poor quality. Though we did amuse ourselves with all the Mr. Sweater shops Otro Mr. Sweater And we soon realized that there was a Christian Dior on just about every corner in Buenos Aires.

Anyway, Lunch… We were starving by this point! We visited the famed Café Tortoni for some Coke a Cola Light and bocadillos. I had Jamon Crudo y queso. Luke had a regular ham sandwich. It hit the spot. We also noticed that they had churros y chocolate on the menu!

Walked around a little bit more, and then hit up an ice cream parlor on Florida Ave. It was the most amazing ice cream ever! I had 2 scoops of Banana Split flavor. It was to die for! Luke had a scoop of dolce de leche and a scoop of tiramisu.

Before dinner we walked around the Palermo neighborhood and saw a bunch of cute restaurants, bars and shops. This was my favorite neighborhood in BA. We were looking for a couple of cool-sounding bars that we read about in the travel books. Unfortunately, some of them must have closed, because we couldn’t find them. We had a few pre-dinner drinks at Vace (1982 Fitz Roy).

What better way to celebrate Thanksgiving than with a nice steak dinner? Our first night we went to El Trapiche (5599 Paraguay, Palermo Viejo). The steak was good, but this was actually my least favorite meal. The place was very cute though and it looked it liked they had good pastas, too. We had Trapiche Origen Malbec wine.

Day 2 – Friday, Nov. 23

We flew to Iguazu to visit the waterfalls. We were at the Hotel Esturion for 2 nights. We walked around the small town center, again looking for a cool-sounding bar/café that was listed in the book. It too must have closed because we didn’t see it. Instead we ate lunch at a pizza place, I don’t know the name, but the pizza was sooo good! We also order 3 empanadas that were to die for! Jamon y queso, beef and queso. And we got the large beer!

For dinner we ate at El Quincho de Tio Querido (Bompland Street) and ordered the mixed grill, which included some strange meats that we did not eat. But the steak, chicken, ribs and sausage were delicious!

Day 3 – Saturday, Nov. 24

We visited the national park and saw the waterfalls! They were soooo cool! There were all these trails that you could follow that took you right up close to the Falls. After a boat ride through the falls, in which we got completely soaked, we shared a jamon y queso bocadillo from the park café.

For dinner we ate at the hotel outdoor barbeque next to the pool – Naipi y Taroba. I don’t know what that means, but it was really good! We both got steaks and had Latitude 33 Malbec wine.

Day 4 – Sunday, Nov. 25

Back in Buenos Aires, we did an insane amount of walking around … visited the San Telmo street market. For lunch we went to Pizzeria Guerrin (1368 Corrientes). It was an old-time pizza place and the pizza was to die for!! For dinner we ate at Filo. I had pumpkin ravioli and Luke had meat ravioli. Both were amazing!

Day 5 – Monday, Nov. 26 – My birthday!

We returned to the Palermo neighborhood for some shopping! Had lunch at the most random, delicious, hole in the wall, authentic Spanish café El Preferido de Palermo (4801 Guatemala and Borges). First we were on the restaurant side of the place, but they didn’t serve the special that we saw advertised on the street sign, we had to go to the other side of the café, which was more casual. We ordered the “Maxi” plate of different meats (jamon, salami, etc) and cheeses. YUM!

After a little shopping, we regained the strength we needed to make it back to our hotel NH Jousten by stopping at Bar 6 (1676 Armenia between El Salvador and Honduras) for some fruit smoothies. I had raspberry and orange and Luke had pear and cilantro and lime. They were delicious.

We had a fantastic dinner down by the waterfront at Cabanas Las Lilas. This restaurant was written up by Tom Sietsema, Washington Post food critic. It was a little chilly that night, but we sat outside and watches stars emerge. At the restaurant, they started us out with a bunch of free appetizers – potato puff things, mushrooms, tomatoes and mozzarella, roasted red peppers, grilled vegetables and bruchetta and a spicy pesto like dip for bread. We were in heaven already! Tom had recommended the rib eye steak and potato soufflé, which were like airy French fries or potato chips – so that’s what I ordered. Luke had a strip steak, but it wasn’t like a NY strip steak… so, we would have to return again so he could get the correct steak. Oh, and we had beef carparrcio for an appetizer.

Day 6 – Tuesday, Nov. 27

Again, we did an insane amount of walking. For lunch we ate at Tancat (645 Paraguay, between Maipu and Florida) another Spanish tapas place. We were starving and went a little crazy with ordering – the waiter literally had to tell us to stop ordering because we had ordered a lot of food! We had tortilla espanola, mushrooms, jamon y queso, olives and a big jug of sangria. Yum! We didn’t get the try the gazpacho or the boqerones.

For dinner we ate at Gran Bar Danzon. This place was really cool! We started with some cocktails at the bar, then moved to the restaurant section and actually sat at the bar because we didn’t have a reservation. It was a wine bar, so we tried 4 different wines by the glass. I had Enrique Foster Reserva Malbec 2004 and Ben Marco Malbec. Both were really delicious, we brought back a bottle of each. Luke had Achaval Ferrer Quimera 2004 and Dona Paula Pinot Noir 2006. He liked them, but not enough to buy a bottle to take home with us. The food was also AMAZING here! We shared a couple of appetizers and an entrée ceviche and an apple and goat cheese tart to start and rabbit ravioli for an entrée. We had chocolate cake for dessert.

Day 7 – Wednesday, Nov. 28

We chilled out on our last day in Buenos Aires. Didn’t do too much walking because we knew we wouldn’t really be able to stretch out on the plane ride home. We picked up some Argentinean snacks from the Arcor factory store to send to my brother and some Havana cookies to bring into my office. Unfortunately, we left the bag of goodies on the airplane whoever found it had themselves a little fiesta!

For lunch, and our last meal, we went back to Cabana Las Lilas. Luke wanted to order the correct steak (the Chorizo Steak is the closest cut to a New York strip steak), plus it was our favorite restaurant overall. So, again, they brought us all the free appetizers. This time we ordered the veal empanadas, which were recommended by Tom. Luke ordered strip steak and I ordered the fish of the day – a white fish that came with mushrooms and tomatoes and 3 different kinds of dipping sauces. YUM! A perfect end to a great vacation.

Dinner was on the plane and it was not good. Luckily, Luke is Primer Exec. on United, so we got to go into the Red Carpet Club. We had a couple of beers, some cheese, nuts and crackers.