Eating our way across Vermont

Last weekend, in celebration of our 3rd anniversary, Todd and I went to Vermont. I could talk about the cute towns of Middlebury and Burlington, the loveliness that is Lake Champlain, and the beautiful lushness of this time of year. And that would be nice, wouldn't it? And if I had pictures, I could post them, which would also probably be pretty great. But I don't have pictures, and talking about all that other stuff really negates the main point of the trip, which ended up being gorging ourselves on local delights.

Last Sunday was a rainy day, which lent itself well to eating. We had a lunch that featured large quantities of cheese (from real Vermont cows!) and then went to a chocolate festival, where we were given free samples. The festival was a bit small for our $8 admission, but we managed to get the most of our free sample coupons by scoping out the place and making our choices wisely. There was a booth where you could get chocolate martinis, but, unfortunately, they weren't giving out free samples of that. Some people who were getting their samples would make conversation with the maker of the chocolate and ooh and ahh about the smoothness of it and crap like that. Whatever. We didn't want to talk with these people. We just wanted to stuff our faces and leave.

There was also a person wearing a moose costume. The moose looked to be either tired or drunk on chocolate martinis. He stumbled into one of the rooms at the festival, brushing me with his antlers as he pushed past. Then he sat in a chair and propped himself up against a wall. Although there were children there, he didn't approach them in the annoying fashion that you often see from people in costumes. And everyone took a wide berth around him. Everyone knew not to mess with the moose.

After eating all we could at the chocolate festival, we then went to the Ben and Jerry's factory for a tour. At the end of the tour, they give a very generous free sample of their flavor of the day (ours was Phish Food). At one point in the tour, they also tell you about their quality control process, which involves a rather large man tasting the ice cream. They say that their quality control people eat about a pint of ice cream a day and because of this they are given free gym memberships and cholesterol screenings by the company. Todd and I both know that we could do this job extremely well. So if our other careers don't work out, we now have a good backup.

The only Vermont food we didn't manage to eat on our binge was some sort of maple product. Oh well. I guess we'll just have to go back on a pancakes-and-candy trip sometime. Maybe next year. Isn't the 4th anniversary the maple year?