305 Main Street, Peru, 824-4800

I just took my first weekend trip for my extracurricular project, co-authoring the latest edition of Vermont, An Explorer's Guide. I stayed in Dorset at the newly updated Barrows House, where I had an exceptional dinner at the hotel's new gastropub. But more on that another time. 

For lunch the next day, I headed further south towards Peru, home of what was Vermont's longest-running general store. J.J. Hapgood General Store opened in 1827. After a four-year closure, it reopened last year with a wood-fired oven and a deep stock of hard-to-find gourmet products.

Though I was tempted by take-home treats such as Flowery Lavender caramel from Spoonable, "Brooklyn's saucy caramel," it was lunchtime, and a doughnut and strawberries from the Dorset Farmers Market were no longer sustaining me.