Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

The Cabot Creamery

Since I've been to Vermont a couple times before and have done most of the touristy things, I handed the AAA guide over to The Gryphon and let him pick some places to visit. It was no surprise to me that he was interested in a number of food related tourist attractions, since he's a real foody. He's always watching the Food Network and learning about different types of dishes, trying out ideas. I encourage this, because it leads to tasty dinners. Fortunately, he's also good at finding low fat alternatives, which is part of the reason he's lost 35 pounds this year.

Saturday was a nice, bright day though a bit chilly. As I expected, it was about 10 degrees cooler in Vermont than it had been in Philly, so I tried on my new winter coat. I noticed that, as we were traveling around this weekend, most of the Vermonters weren't wearing their winter coats yet. Many of them seemed to prefer Polarfleece shirts and padded vests, along with a knit cap. I suppose I looked like a flatlander, but I wanted to be warm.

After breakfast and showers, we piled into the family car and drove out to the Cabot Creamery to take their tour. One of the best parts of the tour, of course, was the free samples in their shop, where you're encouraged to wait until the tour. Although they specialize in cheddar, they make a variety of kinds of cheese and add flavors to many of them. We liked the spicy ones, the garlic flavored one, and the sharp cheese.

All of us were cheese fans and were quite happy just trying samples, but they eventually called us for the tour. It started with a video presentation in a little theater, where they discuss the history of Cabot cheese and talk about the farm cooperative that produces the milk for it.

They showed us how the cheese is processed, from the place where they separate the curds and the whey to the assembly line where they prepare big blocks of cheese for shipment.

At the request of my brother's wife, I took a photo of the little family. My nephew is a bit overexposed, perhaps because the light hit him differently at the lower angle where he was sitting.

After the tour, we had to decide which cheese to get. The Gryphon and I got three: a spicy chipotle cheese, a very garlicky garlic cheese and a nice, sharp vintage cheese. My brother and his wife selected some cheese dip and some wheel cheese.

Then we all drove home so my nephew could take his nap. The rest of us hung out, read books and relaxed.

My brother told us about some of the things he's learning from his home inspection course and how he's been using his knowledge to check out the buildings where he works every day.

One of them, he's told his employers, is about ready to collapse. It has a really scary foundation when viewed from the basement. It's got bulges and gaps and all sorts of badness. Of course, my brother had pointed this out to them before he even took the course, but now he realizes it's as bad as he thought.

So later, when we all drove into Montpelier, I asked him to point it out. I wanted to see what a building looks like that's on the verge of collapse. You couldn't really tell from outside; it wasn't sagging or anything, even though it looks old. I only hope that they do something about it before it does collapse.

The plan was to visit Morse Farms, which has a maple sugarworks and where you can learn about processing maple syrup. They close at 5, so we went there before dinner. While they didn't have any demonstrations going, we checked out their displays and could read about the process. We also viewed exhibits which showed how maple syrup used to be made in the old days.

They had a nice pumpkin display, and we took some pictures.

Then of course, we browsed the store. The Gryphon and I bought a jug of amber maple syrup and a container of maple butter. We also got a few postcards to send home to my other family members.

The big attraction were the maple creemies, which are maple flavored soft serve. They were really yummy. My brother and his wife even gave a small taste to my nephew. As we were leaving, my brother remarked to the young woman behind the counter that he enjoyed his first creemie. She kind of rolled her eyes and said, "Get them started young."

This really upset my brother because he thought she was being judgmental of his child rearing abilities. I said, "Well, what does she know?" She didn't see the way my nephew normally eats: everything is whole grain and healthy. In fact, aside from that little taste of maple creemie, I hadn't seen him eat anything sugary since I'd arrived.

We shrugged it off, figuring she was just a crunchy hippie who needed a job and somehow ended up working for a sugar pusher. (For those unfamiliar with the term, "crunchy" is a term hippies use to describe those who are particularly serious about nutrition and environmental causes. The term "crunchy" comes from their penchant for granola and other super healthy foods.)

We visited Montpelier then. The idea was to have dinner at the Main Street Grill, which is run by the New England Culinary Institute. But first, we did a little shopping. There was a clothing store with some intriguing things in the window, and I wondered how pricey they'd be, so I told everyone I wanted to go in. They didn't have great accessibility; we had to use a tag team to lift the stroller over the stairs. So I felt a little silly for having led everyone in there, especially after I looked at a couple price tags and determined it was above my price range.

But then my brother's wife spotted a few items on the sale rack and tried them on. They looked great on her. One was a low-cut brown shirt with flowing sleeves, and the other was an antique pink knee-length dress with a V-neck that reminded me of a silent movie star. She got both of them.

We also stopped at a toy store, where we browsed baby items. Right when we walked in, a toddler saw my nephew and exclaimed, "Baby!" He had to be forcibly restrained from running up to the carriage and shoving his fingers in my nephew's face. My brother and his wife bought a blue ducky for my nephew to play with in the bath.

Finally, we stopped at a consignment store called One More Time. They were high quality clothes, and I tried a few. I bought a red vintage sweater with intricate black beadwork, a really warm polarfleece shirt that's blue with purple flowers, and a knee-length wool skirt with in pink and brown plaid that reminds me a lot of a skirt that no longer fits me, because it's too big.

The last store we stopped in was just The Gryphon and me. We bought a couple bottles of Vermont wine.

We dropped our purchases off in the car and then headed for the Main Street Grill, where we were lucky to get seated right away. I wanted to try something a little different, so I got the garlic soup as an appetizer and then the garlic soup entree. It wasn't as much like sausage as I expected. Many people when they make a vegetarian sausage will use spices that give it a meaty flavor. This tasted very much like vegetables. It was still good, and I think it was a healthy meal, though I found myself wishing I'd tried the salmon instead.

The waiter, a young guy, was amused by my nephew, who was in great spirits, although his nose had started to run from a cold. He was doing the Magic Conductor as he was fed pieces of bread. When we placed our order, I nodded in my nephew's direction and said, "And he will have bread and milk! Yay!" My nephew giggled.

We were seated right next to a young couple who were dressed up. In fact, they kind of matched, with his pink tie picking up the pink in her jacket. I wondered at first if being seated next to us would ruin their romantic interlude, but my nephew is such a good baby that I doubt they were troubled at all.

Then we went home and got my nephew settled in bed. We opened one of the bottles of Vermont wine and then opened up a board game my brother and his wife had been holding onto since last Christmas. You need at least four players, since you have to have teams of at least two. So they were really excited to get to play it.

I could see why once we started to play; it was a lot of fun. It's like a mixture of a number of different games. What you do on each round can vary, from a linguistic challenge to a factual challenge to a creative challenge, where you act something out or draw or sculpt it.

Some of the most hilarious aspects of the game came from the creative challenges. In one, my brother had taken the clay out of the container and was slapping it on the table as he got it ready. "Spank that clay!" I exclaimed.

Then, when I turned over the card to show him what he was supposed to sculpt, we both laughed: "spanking." You're forbidden from making any motions. You can only sculpt an object. The best my brother could do was to sculpt a figure and then put a hand on the buttocks. My brother and I were laughing like crazy, but my brother's wife couldn't guess it. I don't think anyone could have.

Similarly, The Gryphon had to draw a person. Since the previous person had been somebody famous, Picasso, I was expecting that. He drew a stick figure with a gun, as well as a star. I couldn't guess it. "Ringo Starr," I kept saying.

Finally, when I read the clue and found out it was a policewoman, my brother and I both said he should have given the stick figure breasts. Still wouldn't have helped, though, not as long as I was trying to come up with a famous name.

Another amusing thing happened to both my brother's wife and I when we read a card for something called "Sculpturades." We both read it as if it was Spanish: "sculpt-er-ah-days."

Some of the creative challenges were made more difficult by the fact that you had to draw them with their eyes closed. It was always amusing to open your eyes aftewards and see what you'd really done.

The Gryphon and I started out well and thought we were going to win but then we got to the last challenge, where the other team gets to choose what you do. They kept choosing the creative challenges, with which we had more difficulty. They edged past us and won. But that's fitting, since it was their game and their first time playing it.

More on our trip to Vermont:

October 26, 2005 - The Magic Conductor

October 28, 2005 - Snowy Surprise

October 31, 2005 - Montpelier Shopping

November 4, 2005 - More Vermont Pics

My last Vermont journey:

September 30, 2003 - Green Mountain Journey

Copyright 2005 by Alyce Wilson

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