Sarah Wright and Giles Smith haven’t gotten much sleep in the past two months. But that’s not a bad thing. When they became proprietors of Hostel Tevere, Warren’s newest lodging and dining offering, Wright and Smith didn’t expect much shut-eye. Having both spent plenty of time in hostels while living in and traveling around Europe, the pair knew what to anticipate when they opened their business — late nights, early mornings and a lot of laundry in between.... Read more

TAGS: food, outdoors

Pancake-battered catfish fingers and smoky pulled pork may not often share space on a menu with tapas, but they soon will at

River Run in Plainfield. Jimmy Kennedy, owner since 1991 of the Mississippi-style restaurant — voted one of USA Today’s Top 10 Catfish Restaurants in the country — recently sold to Ignacio Ruiz. Kennedy will stay on as chef. TAGS: food, restaurant news, side dishes

Necessity is the mother of invention, the saying goes. But foodies surveying the 2009 Burlington-area restaurant scene may be more tempted to say desperation is the mother of innovation.... Read more

TAGS: economy, essay, food

On the day that Ken and Carol Borland’s lives changed forever, hundreds of pickups jockeyed for space outside the couple’s West Glover homestead. Hulking American-made trucks, many with livestock trailers in tow, filled the farm fields and choked the road below their house. The Borlands knew to expect a huge turnout — to date, theirs was the biggest farm auction of the year in Vermont — but all those vehicles and the people who drove them there were still an overwhelming sight.... Read more

TAGS: agriculture, business, dairy, economy

The door of the Community Halal Store in Burlington bears a chart of the cuts of meat into which a goat carcass can be divided. Presumably it’s an animal that has been slaughtered by a deep incision to the throat by a mentally competent adult Muslim, according to the rules of Halal laid down in the Koran.... Read more

TAGS: burlington, business profile, food, immigrants & refugees

Brian Rooney, owner of Rooney’s Café and Deli at the corner of City Hall Park on College Street, runs a bustling takeout business in soups and sandwiches that closes after lunch. That’s a common pattern, he claims, in a town lacking cheap evening dining options: “Burlington doesn’t have a good, affordable restaurant to eat dinner and not spend a lot.”... Read more

TAGS: food, restaurant news, side dishes

Nearly everybody loves cheese, but being a judge at the American Cheese Society’s (ACS) annual conference and competition requires more than a passing interest in fromage. This year, the nonprofit swept into meltingly hot Austin, Texas, with a record 1327 artisan cheeses from North America in tow. A panel of aesthetic and technical judges painstakingly tasted each wheel, wedge and sliver, enumerating the joys and defects thereof.... Read more

TAGS: cheese, food, side dishes

Last Friday, visitors to the McDonald’s restaurant in South Burlington got a surprise: free “Unhappy Meals” courtesy of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.... Read more

TAGS: food, side dishes

In 2003, a woman named Julie Powell, formerly a disgruntled secretary, pulled off one of the biggest coups in food-writing history. The preceding August, Powell had resolved to cook her way through Julia Child, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle’s

Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume One — which includes 524 recipes, many complex — in a single year and blog about her progress. TAGS: food, movies

When Democrats overrode the budget veto of Gov. Jim Douglas in June, they made Vermont history. Never before had lawmakers overturned a budget veto, and never before had they overturned two vetoes in one session.

More explicitly, never had Democrats — despite holding significant majorities in the House and Senate for the past six years — successfully held their ground against Gov. Douglas.... Read more

TAGS: dairy, environment, fair game, health care, howard dean, politics