Delicious memories

I just got back from a visit to PCC to pick up some raw milk (I'm going to endeavor to make cheese curds tomorrow), but while we were there, my son and I meandered through the cheese aisle, and after deflecting him from choosing some really expensive cheese, I was surprised to discover two offerings from the Grafton Village Cheese Company, of Grafton, Vermont. One was their conventional cheddar; the other was maple-smoked cheddar. Mouth watering, I didn't look t the price, but just purchased the latter.

Now, you probably haven't heard of Grafton, VT, or their cheeses, but to me it conjures up some pretty vivid memories of walking from our house in Montpelier down to the co-op, and purchasing packages of the "ends and pieces" of Grafton's smoked cheddar, which were priced extremely low considering the extremely delicious cheese inside those packages. Pretty they might not have been, but I've never considered that a significant factor when choosing cheese.

This small block of maple-smoked cheddar is enough to send me into a rapture of memory about Montpelier. We moved to Montpelier when our son was four months old so that I could take a position teaching at Norwich University (in Northfield, VT, about ten miles south of Montpelier.) We lived there for less than a year before we answered the call to return to the west coast, but Montpelier made a big impression on me, and a lot of it revolved around food.

Although Montpelier is extremely small, it is home to an amazing array of extremely delicious food offerings. Aside from what wonders you can purchase at the co-op, it is home to Manghi's Bread, a bakery that specializes in bread, but also features a few pastries. My favorite was their maple-walnut bread. It was amazing fresh, in sandwiches (with Grafton's smoked cheddar, among other things), toasted...pretty much any way you wanted to eat it.

Manghi's is also a place filled with really sweet, generous people. In addition to loaves of bread, they also make rolls, and I was charmed to discover that they sell them for a pittance to the hungry students who come walking by in the afternoon -- the bakery is a block or two from the local school. They have a sliding scale -- little kids get charged a nickle or dime, older kids a little more. When we lived there, my son mostly was still too little to eat much variety of food, but by the time we were getting ready to move, the ladies at the counter would usually hand a roll to my cute sprout in the kid-backpack. He'd suck on it, and nibble some of it; sometimes I'd get a bite, too.

Montpelier is also the home of the New England Culinary Institute, and that worthy body sponsors three eateries in town, so that the student chefs can get some real-world experience. If you live in a city where there's a culinary school, do find out when they serve meals, and go have a wonderful experience. We ate at the NECI bistro many times. From time to time we wouldn't have as good an experience, but then they would comp us the dish, or the meal, and probably bring us a free dessert, and we would feel entirely mollified, and come back again the next week or so. They certainly new how to treat their customers!

In addition, it was an entertaining place for us to eat with our son, Tristan, because they had a window into the kitchen where customers could watch the student chefs work. Unlike some children, Tristan was not one of those that would happily sit in the high chair for 30-60 minutes while you ate your meal. We would be lucky to get 10 minutes of sitting out of him, and then one of us would have to walk him around to look at things (like the student chefs) so that the other could eat, and then we'd switch. It wasn't very romantic, but it was fun to watch the chefs. The student chefs were also generally quite amused by us, since Tristan's favorite toys were kitchen implements. So Tristan would generally be looking in the window into the kitchen, firmly clutching a wooden spoon, or a spatula, or what ever the tool of the day happened to be. The student chefs would look up and see Tristan with his tool -- so they'd grin, grab their own spoon or spatula or what ever, and show it to him through the window. There were generally a lot of smiles involved.

I could keep rhapsodizing about the eateries in Montpelier for some time. I'm leaving out the Black Door, the little Thai place whose name I don't remember, and several others. But I will conclude by mentioning one of the two (at the time) coffee places -- Capitol Grounds. Both coffee places in Montpelier made very good coffee, but Capitol Grounds was extremely notable in that they roasted their own, and it was extremely good. It tickled me that, in addition to their House blend, they also had a Senate blend. It was their darkest roast, and was extremely good. I'm glad to be back in Seattle, and we do have some good coffee here, but I really miss that Senate blend.

Tomorrow I will amaze my husband, Peter, when I pull out the little block of Grafton's maple-smoked cheddar, and we sign, and remember all the good things that we miss about Vermont.