Crumbs

When Katie Zezima of the The New York Times [1] thinks of Burlington, she writes, images of Phish, “gleaming new hotels” and our socially conscious ice cream entrepreneurs come to mind. But while reporting a November 2 piece called “36 Hours in Burlington” — part of a regular feature in the paper’s Travel section — Zezima noticed something else. She waxes eloquent about “the city’s developing restaurant scene, where menus are now filled with heirloom tomatoes and grassfed beef . . . and you’re practically required to wash it all down with a local microbrew.”

For the sake of her stomach, let’s hope Zezima was allowed more than 36 hours for her research. She talks at length about seven different food sources: Lake Champlain Chocolates [2], L’Amante [3], Radio Bean [4], American Flatbread [5], Leunig’s Bistro [6], The Green Room [7] and Magnolia Bistro [8].

The coverage is great, but some bits may raise a few eyebrows. For one thing, The Green Room is referred to as “Green Street,” and although I love L’Amante as much as the next squash-blossom fan, I wouldn’t say that the 5-year-old restaurant “led the charge” of upscale restaurants into town. Smokejacks, Trattoria Delia [9] and Leunig’s were all here already. And shockingly, there was no mention of Penny Cluse [10].

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When life gives you out-of-state tomatoes . . . Bove’s Restaurant [11], famed for its recent Food Network match-up against Bobby Flay on “Throwdown,” was spanked by the Vermont Attorney General’s office last week for labeling its pasta sauce as a Vermont product. Why? The stuff is made in New York with non-Vermont products.

The penalty: A $5000 fine and an agreement to donate at least $50,000 worth of food to the Vermont Foodbank.

But the Bove family decided to up the ante. They doubled their donation to $100,000 worth of pasta sauce and SweetZas0 — a dessert flatbread.

It wasn’t exactly a ribbon cutting, but Governor Jim Douglas showed up at the restaurant last Friday to accept the fine — and for a photo op. You know finances are tight when the CEO starts doing collections.