We spent the first day of spring break in Woodstock and Quechee. Woodstock was absolutely charming, full of boutiques, general stores, and galleries. We had Italian Grinders from The Village Butcher for lunch and then departed for the Vermont Antique Mall, which is flanked by a general store and an alpaca rescue farm. In the evening, we had pre-dinner drinks at Au Comptoir in Woodstock and then grabbed dinner from Worthy Kitchen, a counter service place that partners with local farms and makers; their tallow-fried fries were killer.
On Friday morning we paid the King Arthur Baking Company HQ a spontaneous visit for breakfast. After chowing down on a nearly perfect cinnamon bun (more on perfect buns later), I had a field day in their retail store, but only ended up taking home a bottle of vanilla extract and a bench scraper. Then it was onto Stowe. More boutiques, general stores, and galleries (are you sensing a theme here?); I liked Northwood Gallery best. We had bought tickets for a gondola ride up the mountain, but ended up not taking it since you had to ski back down to return to the parking lot (so sad). For our ski-less après ski, we had sandwiches and cider at Cold Hollow Cider Mill where we met someone who has never skied! (This is worth noting because every time Matt and I shared our spring break plans with someone they asked if we were going to ski; there are other things going for Vermont other than the outdoors, y’all!) Lunch was a quick one because we had tickets for a tour of the Ben & Jerry’s factory in Waterbury. It was the highlight of my trip, even if it’s a tourist attraction. After ice cream we drove to the capital city! Tried maple candy at Rabble-Rouser, popped in and out of vintage stores, and then we had a lovely meal at Oakes & Evelyn. Started with the oysters, because we were on vacation after all, and of course we had to get the bao buns. For our main we split the ravioletto, full of local cheese and mushrooms.
Saturday was a bit of a planless day — something I think is always good to have on a chill vacation, but proved to be a bit of a bust when the local businesses began closing at five. We made plenty of memories nonetheless. We started our day at Black Cap Coffee & Bakery, where I had a buttery croissant and an oat milk latte (they make their own plant milks in house — couldn’t pass that up). We stopped into Phoenix Books to warm up, and Matt ended up finding some titles on his want-to-read list. To get to St. Albans we drove across the Lake Champlain islands — not much to see and do, but the views were nice. By the time we reached St. Albans, it was only mid-afternoon, and we realized we were running out of things to do for the day. We wasted time in a coffee shop and slowly walked to the town bookstore (I ended up finding some books for myself this time). Then it was time to wait for our 7 p.m. reservation… And to kill even more time, we drove back to Burlington to see what the Citizen Cider tasting room had to offer (as it turns out, lots of good cider). And then it was back to St. Albans for dinner at The Drake; I got carnitas tacos and Matt got fish & chips. We deemed it the best dinner of our trip.
We hit Burlington again on Sunday for breakfast at Skinny Pancake, another local favorite who teams up with farmers and makers of the area. Vermonters love supporting other Vermonters. Since we were so far up north, it made sense to visit Montreal, so we did just that. I broke out some French hoping to impress Matt (the speaker of many languages), but the only word that left an effect on him was canard, which came in hand at Modavie in Old Montreal where we had duck confit, chicken, and “cheese of the moment.” Finished it off with crème brûlée (vacation!). But I must also give a shoutout to Le Kahéra, an Egyption street food cafe in La Petite-Patrie near Jean Talon Market (a fun place for people watching). No stamp in my passport, so all I have to prove of my visit to Quebec are the pictures of my food.
Now onto those near perfect buns: the Haymaker Bun Company in Middlebury knows how to do buns — and breakfast in general for that matter. While a traditional cinnamon bun can be a delicious start to one’s day, they tend to be dry and flavorless. But the buns at Haymaker are the antithesis of cakey, dense buns. My leek and gruyere bun was anything but dry, and Matt’s chocolate stout bun was the perfect early St. Patrick’s Day treat. The cardamom rose latte was next level, too. Then we drove back to Matt’s place and got dinner at his favorite local restaurant. I got a spicy sausage pizza, and he got the chicken sandwich (duh).