Last year, when I was in Vermont, I had tried this amazing granola from Bien Fait, a local creation, and ate it with organic yogurt, fresh peaches and wild blueberries that we had picked earlier that day. This trip, I came in search of more granola. Unfortunately, it seemed that this local treasure was more native to eastern Vermont, near Caspian Lake. I couldn’t find it in the markets near Waitsfield and the owners of the B&B had never heard of it. But they did, however, recommend Nutty Steph’s Granola and Chocolates, which was a shop just up the road.
Side note, this is probably one of the most amazing things JM and I noticed about Vermont. Every town has produce and products that are grown and made locally. And local really means local - within a few miles of that town. Even the local restaurants advertise who’s farm the ingredients came from. The milk, cheese, herbs, greens, eggs, even the meat was fresher. The B&B had things like soap, tea, art, and wine that were all from Vermont. It was nice to see a place like that promoting the businesses in the area. It gave the whole state a real homey feel.
So we checked out Thursday morning and headed up to Nutty Steph’s to see if it measured up. And boy - did it ever! Jean-Marc and I walked into this cute little shop with wall to wall chocolate. There were large bags of granola and many homemade chocolate bars, truffles, freeze-dried raspberries, and flavours of all kinds. The best part? You could sample just about anything!!! We tried some chocolate dipped candied ginger, some white chocolate infused with dried raspberry dust (also called the Love Bar), maple walnut bar, pina colada bar (white chocolate with coconut), and all 3 kinds of magic chunks, which are granola clusters dipped in chocolate with either fruit and nuts, peanut butter or mint. We walked out of there having had our chocolate fix for the day, and a few extra bars for the road. We are looking forward to trying their lemon ginger pecan bar and the pistachio cranberry. Yum yum!
Then we headed to the campground. Now, if anyone is ever thinking of going on a vacation, staying at a gorgeous B&B first, then a campground second is not the preferable order. Having been accustomed to the amenities provided by the B&B, going to the campground was a considerable change in lifestyle. We did, however, have the company of JM’s college friends. After hearing so many great stories about them over the past few months, it was really nice to put name to face and I had a fun time getting to know them. We spent Friday morning at the beach, got a little too much sun, had a BBQ lunch over at Graham’s house, and headed back to the beach to relax in the afternoon. Later that night we went to Radio Bean for dinner with some of Graham’s friends from Burlington. They were extremely welcoming to the Canadian crew and it was nice to experience such hospitality.
Saturday is the wedding and then we’re headed back to Canada to start the East Coast part of this trip. JM still hasn’t got his visa issuance number but my school finally sent me a contract - only 2 weeks after I accepted the job. Of course there were no instructions sent with it, nor did they get my citizenship right. Apparently I’m from ‘Canda’ - haha. I don’t know with all this traveling when I’ll have the opportunity to print and sign it, but at least I have a job! Woohoo!
Until next time,
Jennika
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