The All-American Nomad's College Life, Excerpt 3:

“Lessons In Italian Living, Day Two: Eat Before You Drink.”

After walking around town all day, having digested nothing but the Florentine dust blown by the high winter winds around the Duomo since my small, very European breakfast of a croissant and half a peach saturated in its own liquid, I find I have drunk my glass of chardonnay at dinner before eating a little too quickly. I am a little too warm. A little too blurry. A little too quick to divulge. A little too excited with life, and a little too charmed with the hole-in-the-wall Robin and I managed to locate after walking a few half-circles in lower Florence, my Rick Steves’ guidebook held out in front of me like the Holy Grail. Written in Hebrew, of course. Because that little hand-drawn map is just as readable to me as Cyrillic symbols.

I am, in other words, “tipsy,” or, because it describes how I feel much better without the connotations of the giggling girls tipping over in hallways and I am not quite there yet, “light-headed.” (And so you know, I do not get “drunk”—plastering myself on other people, with an uncontrollably modulating voice, easily convinced to do stupid shit; I get “tipsy”—giggling and swaying in hallways and on sofas. Modulating voice and stupid shit I am convinced into perfectly sober.)

Anyway. The waiter asks for our orders. I’m pretty sure I butcher every word after “penne.” I ingest roughly a pound of pasta in chipped meat and cream sauce. Not feeling the pressure of tipping like we do in America, I leave a Euro for our abrupt yet serviceable waiter. I am happier about this Italian custom of non-tipping more than I’d care to admit. With my mathematical skills and hypersensitive apathy, leaving a tip is always the point in a meal that I hem and haw and feel guilty—not when I’m ordering. I imagine the waiter or waitresses’ children. The car that needs to be repaired. The college loans that have just started to come monthly calling. The electricity bill. What it would be like if it were me; how much I’d want someone to pay for my work. What my friends who wait have to deal with—the rude customers, orders in the middle of nowhere, and 17-cent tips. In other words, if you wait tables, you want me as your patron. I am a helplessly conscious push-over.

After, we back-track toward the Uffizi to find a proper gelato shop—one that puts real fruit in their window displays of the creamy, decadent treat—and I smoke my second cigarettes and eat my first gelato in Italy. Tiramisu-flavored. The cone is better than in America. I decide to say, fuck my state of affairs— chardonnay, smoke, and gelato go perfectly together.

XOXO

The Kitchen Bitches & Flannel vs. Flannel Do Bobcat Cafe and Brewery

Bobcat Cafe and Brewery, Bristol, VT.

Alli: Bobcat Café and Brewery is nestled on Main Street in Bristol, Vermont. Bristol’s mission statement reads something like: “We aim to be the quaint, Rockwellian, New England town where all our residents know each other’s names, our town hall meetings are always full, and our picket fences are always freshly painted.” It’s a picture-perfect scene on a chilly October night in small town Vermont.

Carissa: As you’ve probably already read from Flannel vs. Flannel’s review of Bobcat Café and Brewery, this Bristol hot-spot in infamous for its homemade brews. But Alli and I decided to tag along for the ride with the boys after we got a tip that the food was equally exceptional. Seeing as I was raised “on Kobe beef and pâté—since the womb, trained to only recognize good food,” as the Arts and Entertainment editor of the Current noted, I had to get in. Plus, being with the boys of Flannel vs. Flannel and Friends, we got to witness Man Law in action—pint glasses are ok to share a sip out of, whereas drinking out of the same beer bottle would be a “no.”

Alli: All of Bristol’s fifty or so residents are either tucking kids into bed or congregating in the brewery. In our twenty minute wait for a table big enough for the six of us, we saw a whopping three cars drive by. The only sound in town is coming from inside, the glowing light spilling out onto the sidewalk in front of the big windows marking it as the warmest place on the street.

Carissa: The ambiance inside Bobcat was Vermont woodsman meets French Provencal bistro hostess. Rough-hewn table surfaces were polished to a high shine, and the lighting was dim but cozy.

Alli: This is my domain. Carissa gets her fancy-schmancy gastropubs and French fusion cuisine. Bobcat, the kind of place that plays Nickel Creek and serves down-home, New England country cooking, is mine. For God’s sake, our table is literally my childhood kitchen table. The whole café feels like home, and I suspect that it’s not just a product of the furniture. There’s a steady volume of chatter and laughter and a sense of amity floating through the peppery air. The wait staff laughs and jokes with the diners, and doesn’t say anything when the 21+ portion of our dinner party shares a sip of site-brewed beer (all in the name of a good review). If there’s one thing that Bobcat does exceptionally well, it’s good company (and great beer).

Carissa: The curry in the butternut squash soup I got as my appetizer was a kick to fall’s ass. It opens your nasal passages right up, and the great slightly sweet bread they offered, when dipped into the thick, bisque-y soup, tones both down nicely.

Alli: Carissa’s curried butternut squash bisque kicked a little, but it’s the kind of warm that you want on a brisk fall night, like holding your fingers almost too close to the flame after coming inside on a cold day.

Alli: I started with the Vermont apple and cheddar salad. I can legitimately call this a “cute” salad. A fan of perfectly sliced apples and an adorable little pile of toasted walnuts framed a hill of greens. I got soft-eyed when I knocked over the lettuce and saw the cubes of Vermont cheddar hiding in the corner. The greens were crisp and flavorful but not bitter or strong, and the ginger cider vinaigrette was phenomenal. The sides paired perfectly with the salad, adding a crunch or a bit of crisp sweetness or a hint of sharp creaminess layered throughout bites, adding the depth that I’m convinced every salad should have.

Carissa: As the queen of the “baby salad with extras,” I really enjoyed the apple and cheddar salad. Slightly warm and limp arugula in a ginger cider vinaigrette appeased me, but I am not a fan of warm nuts…roasted nuts, that is. The roasted walnuts that accompanied the salad were no exception. After having one, and then another for benefit of the doubt, I left the rest on the plate.
Carissa: The broth of the steamed littleneck clams we got to share as I took Alli’s clam virginity exploded in my mouth and knocked me outta this world. It was cheesy, and salty, like seawater from the same bay they got the clams from. The clams themselves were sweet and both soft and chewy, with pale pink flesh. However, the slices of garlic clove in the broth were not my favorite, though the chunks of bacon were a nice flavor additive.

Carissa: Henry, our Arts and Entertainment editor from Maine, dug into the bowl of clams with his fingers. “I don’t know what anyone ever taught you—you eat steamers with your fingers.”

Alli: As an entrée, I ordered the Misty Knoll Parmesan Chicken Lasagna. First rule: throw out everything you ever thought you knew about lasagna. Otherwise, you’ll be confused and potentially disappointed by what will be placed before you. It’s lemon parsley ricotta, roasted vegetables, roasted vegetables marinara, and misty knoll organic chicken between lasagna noodles, topped with a small pile of greens slightly wilted from the rising steam and grated parmigiano reggiano, with a balsamic demi-glaze circling the plate.

Alli: Now, let’s get this straight: this ain’t yo mama’s lasagna. This is Vermont harvest lasagna. The roasted veggies gave it a hint of wood smoke to contrast on your tongue with the zing of the demi-glaze. The marinara was heavy and meaty from veggies pureed with a thick red sauce. It was so good that I forgot about the chicken until I cut into it—right there, in the center of my lasagna, was a breast of fried chicken sprinkled with sea salt. Yeah, fried chicken. Like I said, forget everything you ever knew about lasagna, because the crispiness of fried chicken in between sheets of pasta smothered in smoky marinara with chunks of roasted vegetables is genius. Absolutely phenomenal, especially because it wasn’t heavy; all the crisp, none of the grease. And, even better, the portion is home-style, too.

Carissa: The braised duck I ordered for my entrée was so succulent. So moist. So pink. It was almost like a pulled pork, but it was duck, so, SO much better. The orange and cranberry preserves crowning it were almost as good as the jam at the Bluebird Tavern. The mushroom crepe under it was a new idea to me, and well done, the woodsy, earthy flavor complimenting the sweet and savory-ness of the duck.

Carissa: Since we went with the Flannel vs. Flannel crew and Company, we occasionally got sips of what they were reviewing. Though I found heaven on beer, or beer on heaven with the fizzy Heller Bock, my favorite was the Porter “Twan” got—it started out with a bite, smoothed out on my palate, and then came back for a second round of deep, almost chocolatey taste and gave me goosebumps with its goodness. Is it any surprise women want the sweet stuff?

Carissa: Speaking of which, Alli and I split a maple crème brulee for dessert. It was so maple, so Vermont, so lovely, from the torched sugar top to the custard that overtook the crust when broken into like an oozing lava flow of dessert. It was sinful. I would have sold my soul for more. The texture was so smooth and light, unlike some brulees that get grainy. The maple taste waited until after the crunchy sugar dissipated to tickle your taste-buds like a particularly teasing French maid. I myself was called a tease by Nick for only offering a small taste after raving and moaning about it.

Alli: The maple crème brulee is like the soft, slow stroke of a fingertip. The more you explore, the more you uncover. Thank God there’s a church next door, because it’s sinful and I’m going to need absolution.

Carissa: Final verdict? By the time Bobcat started closing down around us—yes, we shut the place down—and I threw in my napkin, I was blissed-out on comfort food. Comfort is what Bobcat provides, from the food, to the atmosphere, to the friendly and accommodating wait staff with a good sense of humor, to what the boys were feeling after a few pints. It is warmingly good, honest food—but we’re never going with the boys again because they’re far too distracting.

Alli: By the end of the night, I had dropped my silverware an extraordinary number of times, we were all stuffed, our sides aching from laughter, Flannel and Flannel & co. had enough to be a little buzzed, and us Kitchen Bitches were drunk on good company. That’s what you get at Bobcat. Great food, great beer, great atmosphere, and great company. It’s well worth the drive.

VISIT IT.

XOXO

Kitchen Bitches Do Bluebird Tavern: Twice As Tasty

The Bluebird Tavern, 317 Riverside Avenue, Burlington, VT

Carissa: The Bluebird Tavern opened this pat July, owned by Sue Bette, with Aaron Josinsky, previously sous-chef at Shelburne Farms, taking a head chef position in the kitchens. In what was previously “Tortilla Flats,” a rambling, brown stucco building, The Bluebird Tavern has made its new nest. The lighting is low; the atmosphere relaxed, like you just fell off the road and into a little English pub tucked up against the pavement and river. Sit on the patio, if you can—even though we’re going into nights that are getting cold and would require you to eat with your coat on, like I did, there’s a delightful Vermont jungle feel as the sun sets over the wrought iron and brick walls with wide windows that overlook trees and greenery.

For a menu that changes every day, I noticed that a few of the “share” entrées and the “snack” appetizers were dangerously similar in meal composition: who is to say that the “snack” of lamb meatballs, harissa, and yogurt would make less of a meal than the entrée of Bluebird bacon, turnip greens, and apple cider? The wine list, however, would make my father drool and my under-21 self weep.

Alli: I didn’t grow up in a foodie-family like my lovely co-Kitchen Bitch. I wasn’t raised with lamb and fancy cheeses. I grew up on chicken pot pie and burgers, apple crisp and whoopee pies. Walking into Bluebird, sitting down, and taking a look at the menu was intimidating. I didn’t know what the hell kohlrabi was—by the way, in case you don’t either, I Wiki-ed it; it’s a German Turnip and supposedly like a sweeter broccoli stem—and, much to Carissa’s dismay, I’m not a particularly adventurous eater. It’s just not the way I roll. She might drool over the prospect of chicken livers, veal tongue, and fried rabbit, but I’ll stick with things that don’t scare me at night, thanks.

Carissa: I ordered Boylan’s Black Cherry Soda to go with my lamb ribs—the soda looked like a deep red wine on ice, and I thought it would pair with the lamb well. Lamb and cherry; you just can’t go wrong with that.

I was surprised when our waitress didn’t ask me if wanted my lamb dripping blood off the bone, or charred black. Trust the chef? What? What if he—gasp—cooked it well-done? This Romanian Princess doesn’t do well-done; I like my meat wet. Bloody, dare I say.

Alli: There were plenty of things that didn’t look too scary, though: poutine, fried herbs, and gravy; mackerel, chorizo, and olive oil fingerlings—those are fingerling potatoes, not appendages of slow waitstaff—double burger and frites; papardelle (turns out it’s pasta!), lamb sausage, tomatoes, and mint. And, thinking back on it, the kohlrabi-gingered apples-walnuts-mossend blue meal probably would have been a kickin’ choice that I’m going to dream about longingly tonight. If you didn’t learn from Carissa’s anecdote about how trusting the chef turned out to be the best choice she’s made all year, let me assure you: it will be the best choice you make all year. If you don’t know what to order, ask your server to recommend something and just say yes, no matter what it is. Or you could even tell the chef to surprise you. Trust in Aaron Josinsky is trust well-placed.

In the end, I went with flatbread topped with house labneh, arugula, a grated, hard cheese, and falafel. It all paired perfectly with my Pear Ginger Ale, and, in case you’re wondering, pear is the perfect ingredient in ginger ale. Whoever discovered that is, in fact, my hero.

Carissa: Our bread came out accompanied by the eponymous little round circles of Vermont Cheese & Butter Company cultured butter. Bluebird gets two thumbs up for that choice alone. It’s butter that will change your life. Children, we are in Vermont. We are surrounded by cows and dairy agriculture. There is no reason to be eating bland butter when you can eat butter that tastes like grass and milk and cow and sun and snow and autumn foliage.

Alli: The very fact that we both recognized a couple pats of butter on sight and visibly lit up with excited approval demonstrates the truth to our claim that it truly is life-changing. You’ll never again think of butter the same way.

Carissa: The cheese board came to us on what looked like a fraternity’s long-lost spanking paddle wielded by an old friend as I instantly recognized Vermont Ayr’s signature rind and a salty bleu cheese that my father had brought home one or five times. I am at home with cheese. Cheese is one of my (many) delicious vices, and there was cheese to indulge in. Two hard cheeses, one a cheddar; two soft cheeses, including a triple-crème that was divine; and the bleu were accompanied by cranberry-sized pickled yellow tomatoes that burst with flavor, an oozing honeycomb, and an otherworldly fabulous plum jam that hit all the right notes of tart and sweet on my tongue and kept me licking at the corners of my mouth. Some of the honey had made its way over to the salty yet delicate bleu cheese, and the salty/sweet combination complimented both beautifully, making me believe one should not exist without the other in the future.

Alli: The flatbread was served on the same sort of spanking paddle the cheese came on, and, at first, looked…like nothing particularly special. Good, yes. It looked good. There’s only so much you can do to make falafel flatbread as gorgeous as this tasted, though. The bread was good and sturdy, something that held up well. There was a beautiful bite to the arugula, a slight sharpness to the cheese, and a creamy zing to the labneh that culminated in what can be described in no other way than moaningly fabulous.

Then there was the falafel. After much debating and studying, I figured out how Josinsky made the falafel: it involved magic. What he does, you see, is search out all of the most beautiful Lebanese women and he collects them in his kitchen. He then waves his spatula at them, says, “you are now falafel,” and puts it on your flatbread. I’ve never had more delicious Middle Eastern flavor, and I’ve had Middle Eastern mothers cook for me. The spices—cumin, coriander, and God knows what else—were difficult to indentify (not that I cared; you reach a point where it’s just so good that the ingredients don’t matter) because the original explosiveness is then tempered with a mysteriously complex subtlety that can only be explained by my gorgeous-Lebanese-women theory.

Carissa: The tomato jelly served under my lamb ribs started sweet like…well, jelly, and ended with a kick in the back of my mouth like a particularly feisty pepper had booted my tonsils with steel toes. The house yogurt was a little salty, but toned the tomato jelly down. But I quickly abandoned both of these to focus on the real star of the show—the lamb. The tomato jelly and yogurt were soon dismissed. The lamb could stand alone.

It arrived the lovely, hearty and moist red I love to see in my red meat. And as I picked it up, it fell off the bone. Right off of the little rib bones, and into my mouth. The gristle and fat make a lovely savory crackle in my teeth, flavor exploding every time my teeth clamped down to try to catch some more of that taste. I wanted to suck on the bones. It was the best food decision I’ve made in the past year. I had to send my compliments to the chef. They were, truly, the best lamb ribs I have had in my life. And I’ve eaten a lot of lamb ribs in my 20 years. Lamb is my favorite red meat. And he gave me a foodgasm with his. In short, he is the Casanova of the kitchen, the Ron Jeremy of my dining dreams. I have a food-crush on the cooking. You may notice we use some scandalous word-choice in here. It’s just that for us, food and sex are frighteningly similar. They make you warm, taste good, fill you up, and leave you spent and glowing. When they’re good, they’re really, really good, and when they’re bad, it’s so depressing.

Alli: Carissa was nice enough to share a bite with me. If I’d been standing, my weak knees and tingling toes would have knocked me on my ass. I refused to speak immediately after from the fear that opening my mouth might distort the dreamy aftertaste.

Carissa: Being women, we couldn’t settle on one dessert, and so, ordered two to share.

Alli: Carissa told me not to look at the menu as she read the top three desserts aloud. Resisting the temptation took serious restraint, and was a little like being tied to the headboard: frustratingly gratifying. The desserts we ordered were the mind-blowing orgasm to the menu’s foreplay.

Carissa: I could taste the espresso in the espresso-whisky torte, which was drizzled with a crème and caramel sauce, whisky-infused. The End of Summer fruit tart was…summer. On a plate. Sweet, from the thick but waffle-ish almond tart base soaked in the honey-sweet juices of the fruit, to the whipped mascarpone top. Though I was leaning more toward the fruit tart in personal preference, I wouldn’t kick either dessert out of bed for eating crackers. And the espresso torte could probably keep me up all night and happy, as Alli so kindly pointed out. See what we mean? Food and sex—all feelings one in the same.

The only snag we ran into was having to ask for our French-press coffee to be brought out again after we ordered it with our desserts. You’re not going to walk away stuffed, as is the usual American dining expectation, but you are going to walk away well-fed.

Alli: Regardless of our raving, I’ll give you the skinny; it gets pricey. I’m pretty careful about where and how I spend my cash. Unlike Carissa, I hold onto the balance in my bank account longer than the week after I get my paycheck. Normally, getting the check at the end of a meal at a place like this would send me into momentary cardiac arrest. The cheese board alone was thirteen bucks. Shockingly, though, I didn’t care what the bill was—I was so enamored with the food and the man making it that I would have gladly emptied the entirety of my bank account, just as long as he kept cooking. Please, God, keep that man in the kitchen. I’ll be his bitch.
The Bluebird Tavern is Vermont Fusion at its best. The wait staff had that friendly, attentive Vermonter manner, never without a warm smile. Speaking of the wait staff, I wouldn’t mind if the waiter who brought our cheese board was dished up and brought out on one of those Bluebird serving boards. Regardless of how intimidated I was originally, the atmosphere was undeniably comfortable. There was wrought iron and exposed brick, charming French-country yellow and blue on tiles with patterns straight from Seville in the bathroom, well-dressed folk laughing over wine, and gentle candle glow lighting. There was also a football game and a fútbol game on the two flatscreen TVs behind the well-stocked bar, a man in an Iron Maiden t-shirt right at home at the table next to ours, and Petty, OAR, Jack Johnson, Hootie, Dispatch, and Dave Matthews playing softly through the audio system. It was, simply put, a chill place.

Carissa: The Bluebird Tavern does what Magnolia tries to do, and in my opinion, what Magnolia fails at—taking local food and produce, using a few other simple ingredients to enhance the natural flavors already there, and then leave it alone to speak for itself. At Magnolia, the food tasted a bit bland. At Bluebird, they rocked it, Vermont foodie-style.

Alli: If there was nothing else I could say about The Bluebird Tavern, I’d be able to say that it gave me my new happy place. No more wide open fields of flowers and ponies; oh no. The only frustrating part was trying to concentrate on my own food over Carissa’s rather vocal foodgasms.

Carissa: I’m not normally clumsy, but instead of scoring by Michelin stars, we’re going to score this meal by how many times I dropped my silverware with a clank and rattle onto the china and it slipped from my fingers. And I dropped my silverware 4 times.

XOXO