Three Early Summer Dishes

If you’ve dined at the Inn, you know we’re passionate about fresh, local, sustainably produced food. We love to serve what we grow here on the Farm — our vegetables, fruits, grains, maple syrup, cheese, beef, and lamb — so you, our guest,  can directly experience where the food on your plate comes from. Guests can visit our fields, pastures, woodlands, and gardens, where our farming practices are completely transparent. It’s the straightest shot from farm to table possible. Our hope is that it encourages you to explore your connections with all the food you eat.

Beyond that, we love supporting other local and area farmers who are equally dedicated to raising food sustainably. We are a community, and together we are safeguarding Vermont’s working landscape — and the planet.

So, when menu planning, we’re always considering how the dishes we serve will speak to this idea of community and exploration. As we opened the Inn & Restaurant doors this season, we asked Executive Chef Jim McCarthy, What current dishes best represent our approach or food philosophy?

"As the season marches on, our garden’s bounty can change from week to week or even day to day. ‘Current dishes’ are therefore changing all of the time. This time of year is special because we use the overwintered crops from last season alongside the young shoots of the new crops. Our sunchoke soup is a prime example: We serve this classic veloute with sunflower seed brittle and sunflower shoots.  

Another dish that we will typically run is simply called Everything from the Garden (pictured above). This consists of usually 12-15 different vegetables all prepared differently and then brought together with a bright sauce and homemade crackers. I like to think of it as a ‘vegetarian charcuterie’ plate.

Our third dish is actually a set of dishes. It reflects how we believe in serving our animal proteins. We raise 100% of the lamb and beef that we serve, so both environmentally and economically, it is important to utilize the whole animal in each dish. Each of our proteins will consist of 2-4 different cuts of the animal prepared in a different way. For example, right now our beef dish consists of small portions (6-8 ounces total) of grilled ribeye, roasted leg, and braised short rib.

Lastly, our humble cheeseburger! We serve this at our Farm Cart during lunch hours. Our burger is really the one food that brings together every part of our farm. The meat from our pastures, cheese from our dairy, lettuce and tomatoes from the garden, and buns from our onsite partner O-Bread Bakery. We even serve it with maple pickled onions, which includes maple from our woodlands! I often tell guests that it might be the only place in the country (world?), where you can purchase and enjoy your burger while seeing — all at once — where every bit of the burger was produced!"