Archive - 2009 - Staff Blog

There's something unusual about sweet potatoes. They're an in-between vegetable, more sweet than savory, just as comfortable in dessert dishes as they are in dinner dishes.

I knew all this, but I'd never really cooked anything with them. Sweet potato fries, roasted root vegetables, sweet potato pie…that was about where my list of possibilities ran out.

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I spent much of this week pulling together information for a two-part set of articles about slaughterhouses in Vermont, which you can read here and here.

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Will Stevens plucked heads of garlic apart, throwing each clove into the empty crate beside him. It was a Wednesday morning at Golden Russet Farm in Shoreham, and the day was just getting started.

“All you need is a little leverage,” he said, pulling off a particularly stubborn clove.

David, who was at the farm interviewing to work next season, was also separating cloves.

“Is that a life lesson or a garlic lesson?” he asked.

“A little of both, I guess,” said Will.

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I didn’t really intend to play Quidditch again. I played in the first Quidditch World Cup at Middlebury College, back when it was definitely not a "World Cup."

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An update just rolled in from the Vermont Department of Health: The department has confirmed cases of H1N1 influenza in all regions of the state, and increased levels of influenza-like illness are being reported in most regions.

Vermont will report “widespread” influenza activity for the week ending Oct. 17 to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Most U.S. states (41) have already reported widespread activity levels.

That "widespread" activity was slower to hit New England than other parts of the country.

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Throughout the summer, almost every small produce market and grocery store in Rome has packages of fiori di zucca — zucchini flowers. Their delicate orange blossoms are usually around four inches long and slender, petals scrunched together. When crushed, they give off the crisp smell of fresh leaves.

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I haven’t made any new posts, and gone on very few runs in a while due to a combination of mediocre weather (bring back September!) too many exams to administer and grade (although my students would prefer I went running, no doubt), and a nagging head cold which has slowed me even further. Enough excuses. I had the realization this morning that despite all the mountain biking, hiking and trailrunning I have done over the last 20+ years, I had never taken the time to explore the National Forest trail closest to town – the one leading up to Abbey Pond.

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Dark was falling over the foggy landscape when we pulled up to Windfall Orchards in Cornwall last Friday night. In the dusky light we could see the curves of the Green Mountains in the distance, and closer to us, apples trees stretched back hundreds of feet. The apples were bright points of color against green leaves.

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