The Cheeses of Vermont: A Gourmet Guide to Vermont’s Artisanal Cheesemakers

In recent years the number of artisanal and farmstead cheesemakers in Vermont has exploded. These dedicated craftspeople make distinctive, high-quality cheeses from the milk of their own cows, sheep, and goats; age them in their own caves; and ship them to restaurants, gourmet food markets, and cheese lovers all over the world.

Henry Tewksbury, a cheese expert and a passionate devotee of handcrafted Vermont cheese, is your guide to the cheeses, their makers, and their stories. He gives a brief overview of the cheesemaking process, introduces us to the cheesemakers and their herds, and then describes dozens of varieties in delectable detail. He tells you where to go and when to visit to see the cheeses being made, and provides details on where Vermont cheeses can be purchased, both within and outside the state.

The Soul of Vermont

For more than thirty years Richard Brown has been taking photographs of his adopted home state of Vermont. Now he brings together his favorite images in this ode to the land and its people, to share his own deeply personal vision of this beloved and picturesque state.

Richard Brown’s Vermont has six seasons, not four. The familiar glory of fall foliage, when the hills are giddy with color, gives way to the austere “Off-Season”, that brief November transition before the snow flies, when the bones of the landscape are revealed in fallow fields and the bare limbs of trees. In deepest winter the ubiquity of snow renders even more vivid those few colors that remain — the cobalt blue of a shadow on snow, the warm red of a barn. “Mud and Maple” celebrates both the convivial season of flowing sap and the perennial indignities of impassable dirt roads. In the spring lambs frolic in greened-up pastures, and all-too-fleeting summer months bring a burst of industry to gardens and fields before September’s frost.

Brown’s soulful images create a distinctive photographic portrait of Vermont’s landscape. He chronicles with great affection the people who still work the land, and without sentiment celebrates a rapidly disappearing way of life.

The Vermont Encyclopedia

When outsiders think of Vermont, they conjure up images of pumpkin picking against a backdrop of stunning fall foliage, skiing the Green Mountains in wintertime, harvesting maple syrup in mud season, and canoeing on Lake Champlain in the summer. Ethan Allen comes to mind, as do Robert Frost, Norman Rockwell, Calvin Coolidge, and, more recently, James Jeffords. Other Vermont touchstones include Ben & Jerry’s, Holstein cows in hillside pastures, and tranquil village greens featuring a single white church. This is romantic Vermont, a place that seems to have changed little since it joined the union in 1791.

In reality, Vermont is much more complex. It is a place of dramatic contrasts, with a rich and provocative history. First a contested frontier region and then an independent republic, Vermont eventually became one of the most politically conservative states while gaining a reputation for innovation in areas such as the production of machine tools. Although agriculture was its mainstay, Vermont became famous for its high-grade marble and granite and, later, for the development of skiing, now one of its most important economic activities.

Beginning in the 1950s, Vermont became a mecca for enterprising individuals from other parts of the country whose alliance with native-born Vermonters gradually changed the state into a liberal political bastion. Active in the preservation of the good life through conservation and land management, Vermonters also pioneered the legal recognition of gay relationships. The state has preserved such civic forms as the town meeting and the citizen legislature while also providing a welcome for environmentally sound new industries and start-upbusinesses.

Most existing encyclopedias on Vermont were published more than seventy years ago. The Vermont Encyclopedia’s thousand-plus entries, the work of 140 contributors, present a completely up-to-date and comprehensive collection of information on the Green Mountain State. Drawn from the most recent research available, its subjects range from prehistoric settlement to events in today’s headlines. Entries include famous and infamous Vermonters, features of the physical landscape; political, economic, and social history; organizations like the 251 Club; and tidbits on nudism, the Wasp (the only car ever made in Vermont), the fabled fur-bearing trout, and the invention of the jogbra.

Four topical essays introduce the volume. These treat the geography, climate, and natural history of the state; offer an account of settlement from precolonial times to the present; analyze and discuss contemporary features of Vermont’s demography, commerce, and culture; and describe the evolution and current structure of the Vermont Constitution as well as state, county and municipal government. The essays are followed by the individual entries, arranged alphabetically. Supplemented by charts, maps, and photographs, The Vermont Encyclopedia will serve as the quintessential guide to the Green Mountain state for years to come.

Vermont Off the Beaten Path

This guide is packed with little-known Vermont treasures from a combination herb and sheep farm in Stowe to the MG Car Museum in Westminster.

Vermont Covered Bridges

When we think of covered bridges, we think of Vermont. Today, the state still boasts a hundred covered bridges, and records tell of hundreds more such historical structures no longer in existence. Vermont Covered Bridges offers views of the most interesting and beautiful of these bygone covered bridges, as well as old photographs of existing structures. The images are drawn from the archives of the National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges (NSPCB), including the incomparable Richard Sanders Allen Collection and the work of noted photographers Henry A. Gibson, Raymond Brainerd, and others. Royalties from the sales of this book will benefit the NSPCB.

Vermont: An Explorer’s Guide

From the Connecticut River valley to the shores of Lake Champlain to the peaks of the Green Mountains this guide goes beyond Ben & Jerry’s and the popular tourist destinations to include places that are off the beaten path.

The Vermont Life Guide to Fall Foliage

This guide is for everyone who appreciates Vermont’s glorious autumn. Whether you are the casual observer in awe of the colorful splendor or the beginning naturalist who wants to know the scientific processes behind each changing leaf, this book is indispensable. From a distance or up close, on whatever level you choose to participate in the annual spectacle of Vermont foliage, this informative and practical guide is your key to unlocking the mysteries of autumn.

Covered Bridges of New England: A Postcard Book

20 color postcards feature some of New England’s most beautiful and celebrated covered bridges.

Please contact us to order any of the books listed here.

© 2007. Content by The Book Cellar & Bartleby's. Design by Emily Sharp. Powered by WordPress.