This June Chef Lee Duberman of Ariel’s Restaurant added Cornmeal Manchego cheese waffles with Spring Vegetable Ragout, crispy leeks and Romesco sauce to her menu. They’ve been such a hit she’s taking an iteration of these savory Belgian style waffles to the Brookfield Old Town Hall this Sunday from noon until 3pm.
The Floating Bridge Food and Farms Cooperative harnesses the excellence of our well-known local chef, face-time with local farmers and their fresh food with hands-on experiences giving us all a chance to celebrate and engage directly in the fullness of Vermont’s summer vibrancy.
Fieldstone Farm’s Ian and Chandra Blackmer will be adding their wood fired oven pizza topped with local seasonal produce and meats to the localvore lunch offerings at the market. And Green Mountain Girls Farm’s own NECI-trained Guy Scheibner is preparing hyperlocal Vietnamese style Bahn Mi Pork Sandwiches with pickled onions!
While you make room for dessert you can get your gardens set with local plants and flowers including Pagoda Pond Garden's daylilies and Spruce Lane Farm's hanging baskets. Stock your kitchen with produce, pasture-raised meats, pickles, jams, jellies and of course quality sweets including caramel, honey and maple syrup and pick up other great local products such as beeswax candles, soap, wool roving and the new Vermont Farm Table Cookbook featuring Ariel's Restaurant.
Speaking of sweets and dessert, the Fat Toad Farm team is making Whoopie Pies with caramel cream filling and ice cream. And Brookfield Bees is adding yet another global dimension to hyperlocal eating with baklava made with their honey. Rounding out all the other delights they’ll also satiate our thirst with sodas made from their homemade fruit syrups!
Even Vermonters have grown distant from real food. Busy with contemporary commitments, we still cherish certain local foods but they are few and often relegated to special occasions. Knowledge and confidence in cooking and relevant skills have atrophied. Even those of us committed to buying local get caught in ruts making the same old dishes. The Floating Bridge Food and Farms Cooperative aim to “bridge” this gap, bringing more local products into our daily lives. At this weekend’s market we will dig deeper into where your honey comes from and get ideas for seasonal local meals. And at 1pm Brookfield Bees will offer a beekeeping demonstration with their observation hive and at 2pm Chef Lee Duberman of Ariel's Restaurant will conduct a seasonal cooking demonstration.
Come with your hunger and thirst for deeply nourishing delicious food, righteous local treats and connection with Vermont’s working land heritage. And for those inclined to also get up close and personal with Sunset Lake, one of Vermont’s best swims, you should also bring swimsuits to “the Pond Village”. Hope to see you in Brookfield Sunday or on the Floating Bridge Food and Farm Trail soon!
