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Ah, competition. Ain’t it grand?
Center Street in downtown Rutland has suddenly become Caffeine Alley.
For approximately forever, it seemed like every time the Coffee Exchange changed hands or looks, its hours got shorter — a supply and demand thing, we were told. And that’s just fine if you’re a morning person, but for those of us on a 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. kind of shift, it has been a drag not being able to grab a java after midafternoon.
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BENSON — Do yourself a favor this summer, and go to the Wheel Inn in Benson. Especially on Wednesday’s.
I could stop right there, but you might not believe me, so I’ll give you the details.
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Decades of living in tourist country have conditioned me to thinking of public places as tourist/nontourist. It’s not that I won’t go to a “tourist” place, but I prefer them in shoulder season or off-season, when I don’t have to stand in line.
It’s not as extreme in Rutland as it was living in southern Maine, when most places east of I-95 were so busy from Memorial Day through Labor Day as to remind me of the Yogiism, “Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.” There are exceptions to any rule, however, and for me there’s a very short list of tourist-oriented businesses I’ll frequent in season.Decades of living in tourist country have conditioned me to thinking of public places as tourist/nontourist. It’s not that I won’t go to a “tourist” place, but I prefer them in shoulder season or off-season, when I don’t have to stand in line.
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Every once in a while, an institution passes into history, leaving fond memories and possibly a for sale sign: Eight-track players, rotary dial phones, $1 per gallon gas. They don’t disappear in a bang, like Enron, they just sort of fade away.
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Today’s tip of the toque goes to fellow foodie Sharon Nimtz, who called me out in a recent column for not including Costantino’s deli in my weekly trip through
hole-in-the-wall restaurants.
Sharon’s favorite — eggplant Parmesan — is not one of mine, so I’ll leave the superlatives to her on that one.
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What does a boy who grew up on a cattle ranch out west know about fish?
It’s self-defense, really.
The first thing a steak guy learns when he orders a sirloin east of Chicago is: don’t. It’s kind of like getting cheddar or maple syrup when I go back to visit my folks. It’s got the same name, but it’s not the same food. Or when I do find the genuine article, it’s crazy expensive, and you’ve still got to trust a cook who has never, ever scratched his steak behind the ears, back while it still had them.
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Mendon - So when we rolled into the Thai Star in Mendon for lunch last week, I was eager to get something that bit back. It turned out my dining companions were less fond of the whole capsaicin-endorphin/pain-pleasure cycle than I, but that’s OK, because the menu wisely starts off with a surplus of safe, not-spicy-by-Vermont-standards food, with an optional four-star system where you can request anything from “touch of spicy” to “very spicy.” We started with a sampler of appetizers — spring rolls, chicken satay and dumplings. My healthy-food companions preferred the fresh spring rolls — raw veggies rolled in soft rice paper — to the Thai spring rolls, which are deep-fried. I insisted on pan-fried, not steamed dumplings, however. Sometimes you just can’t compromise your principles.
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Barre - It’s an unseasonably warm evening, and many of the regulars, their wine bottles uncorked, have been hunkered down in their folding chairs for quite some time. It’s BYOB at the taping of New England Cooks at its 386 North Main St. studio in Barre. Think of the wine as a lubricant for laughter, not that it’s needed.
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Wallingford - The untimely death of (Chef) Beat (Bee-aht) Schonbachler shook up circles upon circles of people all the way from Switzerland to Wallingford and Rutland to New York and, well, the world. It’s not that Beat was a self-important person who inflicted himself on others — far from it. He was so entirely unassuming and warm and genuinely interested in others that people loved him from the first time they laid eyes on him, and they passed him from one circle to another as though he were a gift.
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It’s an enduring mystery to me why so many New England sandwich shops open with a menu of hot Italian, turkey, roast beef and ham. It’s more of a mystery why so many seem to thrive when the big choices they offer are American or Swiss, lettuce or cabbage, onions or pickles.
That’s not to deprecate a good hot Italian, mind. Anyplace that starts with capicola and mortadella instead of “hot ham” and bologna is worth at least a second visit. But there’s so many more ways to stuff a loaf of bread that it seems like a waste not to experiment a little.
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Ever since I moved here, I’ve been intrigued by the bright yellow sign along Route 103 in Cuttingsville, pointing toward Over Easy’s breakfast and lunch in the Post Office plaza.
