Susie Crowther

Finding abundance in Vermont winters

A trip to northern California stands in stark contrast to the Yankee credo ‘Waste not, want not’

Last month, my husband Mark and I took a trip out West. We landed in Sacramento and drove a scenic loop through Oregon and Washington state, stopping along the way to promote our newly-hatched book.

I hadn't visited in about 20 years and missed it so. The Northwest reminds me of a slightly nicer version of the Northeast: progressive,-active,-and friendly-er.

Maybe it's the wide skies and gentle weather, but there is an openness about the landscape and its people that leaves me expansive and nostalgic.

But there was one thing that was not nicer. Let's call it “the rotting.”...

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You are what you eat — and how you eat

The most valuable ingredient in the kitchen is the rarest — love

As the weather bites down hard and cold, another round of holidays has begun. Our Crazybusy Culture is now heightened to a crescendo-like peak, as people cram cooking, baking, party-making, party-going, community-serving, fund-raising, church-attending, and merriment-expecting into their already gridlocked schedules. Oddly, in a time when the landscape begins...

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A humbling and tantalizing dessert

T’is Tarte Tartin, for a season of … waiting

T'aint summer. T'aint Foliage. T'aint winter. T'aint no leaf peepers. T'aint no ski bums. T'aint no tourist money flowing in, and t'aint no locals going out. T'aint Halloween. T'aint none of them other holidays, neither. T'aint a whole lot going on, and t'aint a whole lot to do. It's...

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Taming the white, green, and gray monster

The Gilfeather turnip is an amazing beast. This Poor Man's Lobster is fantastic - a turnip, and then some. It is sweet - so sweet, it could be a potato. It is huge - so huge, it could be a pumpkin. It is ugly and hairy - so ugly and hairy, it could be a shrunken head. This huge, sweet, ugly, hairy beast of a turnip is indigenous to New England. I like to believe it is special to Vermont;

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Trust your gut

My sister's birthday is Sept. 19. She is a triple Virgo, meaning her sun, moon, and rising signs are all located in Virgo. What that means to non-crunchy-granola Brattleboroians is that she is a Very. Reliable. Person. She's the one in the family who demands that everyone call her when arriving home, to assure they are safe and sound. September is the month of serious-minded time, less frivolous Virgo energy. We've been playing all summer, la-de-da, and having a grand...

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In Vermont, food is fleeting

The chanterelles are late this year, and they are small. But, oh, man - the flavor. As I sit here eating a spoonful of these delicate apricot-y fungal morsels, I think about summer in Vermont and how fleeting each new ripening is. One can tell the time of the year in Vermont - almost to the day, mostly to the week, and certainly to the month - by what is at the peak of ripeness. As the snow thaws, spring...

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Scraps equals soufflé

Fresh out of culinary school, I found myself working in Florida at an intimate French bistro, Café du Parc. The proprietors, Pierre and Anne Marie Latuberne, moved from their small village in France to southern Florida, where they offered their local delicacies created in the traditional style. This was classic French cuisine, and I was one of only two sous chefs (assistants to the head chef) in the kitchen. One day, I was preparing carrots for a stew. The first...

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The box of rocks

Waste (also known as rubbish, trash, refuse, garbage, junk, and litter) is unwanted or useless material. Wastes are materials that are not prime products for which initial users have no further use in terms of their own purposes of production, transformation, or consumption, and of which they want to dispose. A landfill site (also known as tip, dump, or rubbish dump and historically as a midden) is a site for the disposal of waste materials. A midden is an old...

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