As Autumn hits Vermont and the last traces of summer linger, hanging through the air, residents are streaming through the farmers' markets and co-ops to gather up the last of the season's loot. Likewise, we're all gathering our friends and tapping out the last few late-summer-evening dinner parties remaining before all meals are spent in front of the wood stove. To celebrate the season, and the ultimate in feminine dreamery and friendly, romantic nights enveloped underneath the still warm starlight: Honeymaker Lavender Mead, Willow Hill Farm alderbrook sheep milk cheese, Bread & Butter Farm 3 seed bread, and a dinner dish entangling sauteed radishes, leeks, McIntosh apples and eggs over a bed of wilted rainbow swiss chard.
First, I had high, high expectations for the handcrafted lavender mead, made in small batches in Portland, ME. I so wanted it to taste like a misty, ethereal dream that I was almost afraid to taste it and instead spent a good three minutes inhaling its scent (to be fair, it's highly aromatic, with heavy bottom notes and top notes tinged with citrus). Bearing that introduction, I was slightly disappointed with the first sip. But come on! I wanted it to taste like romance, and it's just mead. It tastes exactly the way it should: deep, thick honey with a slightly green, mineralic slice of perfumey florals as it washes over the tongue; sweet in a rich caramelized fashion, not sickly like candy. It tastes just the way Burberry's perfumes smell: like humid, damp nights spent striding down slick Western European cobblestones in the rain and your best heels; more high fashion than the tumbling sweetness of frolicking through open lavender fields at dusk.
The Alderbrook, made in Milton, VT, however, was far more impressive than I expected. At first taste the pungency is similar to salt water up the nose, and then blossoms into a rich, subtle roundness. Earthy and gentle, it simply tastes warm and friendly. The subtlety is almost devoured by the moist, dense chewiness of Bread & Butter's German style, wood-fired bread, but not quite, and the healthy, lusty taste and texture of the sesame, flax, and sunflower seeds pairs wonderfully with the eccentric-yet-shy cheese. It's fun to note that Bread & Butter holds "Silo Sessions" concerts through the fall and winter on their Shelburne (Vermont, of course) farm. They're good, they're in a bakery, go to one.
All the robust flavors of the dinner party appetizers call for a lighter, crisper main course. If you slowly saute thinly sliced radishes and rings of leeks, adding in slices of fresh, crisp McIntosh, cracking an egg over the top and mixing a few sploshes of balsamic vinegar and a small spoon of wildflower honey (balsamic excluded, all local, all organic, honestly not intentional) when all is cooked and simmering, you'll be pleased. Served over rainbow swiss chard, it's colorful, bright, and green enough to round out the nutty, chewy, oddly cheesy taste of the sauteed egg mix. All in all, it's an incredibly pastoral, kind, endearing meal. Enchanting and incredibly delicate and effeminate (sheep! honey! hens! rainbows! lavender! sunflowers!), it's best paired with the ambiance of a cluster of close, chatty, vibrant friends; sunset turning to starlight; Mice Parade. If enjoying alone, I'd advise a pairing of Vogue, Hemingway, or Wilde, Madeleine Peyroux, and Steinbeck's simple quote, "I am happy to report that in the war between reality and romance, reality is not the stronger".
Flavor: 9/10, will want to recreate, will remember on every night spent choosing a granola bar on the go for dinner.
Economic Reality: Totally doable. $36 all in all, with enough food for 4 people (or 4 nights), and enough bread and eggs left over for a week's worth of breakfast. Added plus, all scraps are completely compostable.
This is great!!
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