Slow Food Vermont's membership drive just ended with tiny Vermont among the top four chapters in Slow Food USA to attract the most new members. But that's not the organization's only big news. Local restaurants are going slow with a new designation and a series of dinners.

Last year, just before the biennial international food conference Terra Madre, in Turin, Italy, Slow Food Vermont announced it would introduce the "Snail of Approval" to award to Vermont restaurants. The first two have finally been chosen.

The symbol at right is used worldwide to denote restaurants that adhere to Slow Food's ethic of "quality, authenticity and sustainability." The first two restaurants in Vermont to gain the honor are Mary's Restaurant at The Inn at Baldwin Creek and Hen of the Wood—Waterbury.

According to Mara Welton, Slow Food Vermont leader and Slow Food USA regional governor for New England, the restaurants were selected using an extremely exacting process. "That’s the point," says Welton. "We’re not just handing these out willy-nilly. We spent an enormous amount of time vetting."

It doesn't take a brain surgeon, or even a food writer, to know that we're in the midst of a hard-cider boom. In Vermont alone, the field has grown from a scant handful of producers a few years ago to more than a dozen today, and the number is growing. A few new companies are set to launch, and established ones — such as Citizen Cider and Eden Ice Cider — keep introducing new, creative products (such as Citizen Cider's Dry-Hopped Cider, shown above).

What's less known is that some of these ciders are taxed at a higher rate than beer and sometimes even wine  — that is, when their ciders reach a certain level of alcohol or carbonation. When cider's abv (alcohol by volume) hits 7 percent or higher, cider is taxed as wine; and when its carbonation levels rise above a certain level, it can be slapped with a Champagne-like “luxury” tax of $3.30 per gallon. (Since alcohol levels stem from the sugar levels of a particular year's harvest, keeping those levels low can entail extra work).

Earlier this year, New York Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) designed the CIDER Act, a bill that aims to “modernize the definition for hard apple and pear cider,” as Schumer’s office puts it, and increase the permitted alcohol and carbonation levels in cider without the attendant rise in tax.

They're the stragglers. The slow pokes. The tomatoes that couldn't bother to turn red and sweet before fall arrives. Yet rather than cave to the unripe fruit of our short growing season, you can triumph over climate and subjugate these hard, tart orbs into something crisp and delicious: Fried green tomatoes.

Yes, a movie was named for this tried-and-true Southern specialty, and with good reason: Green tomatoes are firmer and eminently more fry-able than ripe ones, and their tartness softens slightly during frying — yet but still retains enough tang for a satisfying salty-tart-crunch. They take less than 15 minutes to make, and when you bite into one, you'll be amazed by the alchemy that frying performs on their hard little bodies.

Are cooking schools the wave of the future, or at least the future of food tourism? Marilee and Richard Spanjian, owners of the Inn at Weathersfield, think they might be. As the couple prepared to make a career change a few years ago, they scoured the country for a cooking school to purchase — until they realized that the hands-on, atmospheric space they sought didn’t exist. Instead, the Tennessee residents purchased the Inn at Weathersfield last winter, then renovated the loft over its barn to create their own school, the Hidden Kitchen. It opened at the end of July.

Each class centers around a food from a local Vermont farm, which Inn chef Jason Tostrup uses to guide students in creating dishes. During one of the earliest classes, “Vermont Veal Revival,” Lisa Kaiman from Jersey Girls Farm dropped in to chat as students transformed the meat she had raised into a veal tartar topped with a farm egg, and veal cutlets with andouille sausage and cheese.

“More and more people are becoming cognizant of where their food comes from, and are taking control of what they’re eating. They want to take the time to invest in creating a meal for themselves and they don’t necessarily know how to do it,” says Marilee Spanjian of the classes.

1428 Millbrook Road/Route 17, Fayston, 496-2322

The Mad River Valley has more than its fair share of dining destinations. Venues such as the Mad Taco, the Common Man, the Sweet Spot, Bridge Street Butchery and even Maynard's Snack Bar have all earned places in my rotation — driving the better part of an hour be damned.

With a fusty reputation, the Hyde Away Inn and Restaurant was never on that list. Until now.

Earlier this summer, Bruce Hyde Jr., a graduate of Cornell University's hotel school, came on board and remade the comfort food served at the restaurant and tavern to showcase local ingredients. Really local — most of the food comes from within a mile or two.

The crowd was mostly of the blue-haired variety when we arrived in the dark dining room on Saturday evening. I overheard several recalling the room's previous tenant, Zach's Tavern, part of the Snuggery Inn, which closed in 1987. Its logo graces the background of the current menu.

The antique-filled room recalls an even earlier time. With its petite table lamps and padded leather chairs, it reminded me of visiting my great-grandmother's house.

Earlier this week, I was speeding through the aisles just before Healthy Living Market closed for the night, when I spied these:

As a great appreciator of cute food, I found this a must-purchase. I had my first bite in the car on the way home. With a slightly thicker skin than your average gherkin, the berry-sized "Cuke-O-Melon" really did offer a suggestion of eating a tiny watermelon. But the flavor was that of a cucumber with a hint of sour bite.

So what the heck are Cuke-O-Melons? I called Tangleroot Farm's Adam Reed to find out. His vegetable farm is in Gansevoort, N.Y., not far from the Healthy Living market in Saratoga Springs.

It turns out, the little melons aren't bonsais, but a species of their own called Melothria scabra. They're more commonly known as Mexican sour gherkins, cucamelons and, most adorable of all, "mouse melons."

Reed says he found out about them this past spring through a friend who was planning to plant them. "There was very little research that went into them," he says.

He says that many customers claim they've been popping the mini-cukes "like M&Ms." I've done some of that, but have also halved them and thrown them in with cherry tomatoes and chopped local mini-peaches in a salad.

And, lucky for me, Reed says he just harvested three more cases to send to Vermont today.

You know that a restaurant is intensely anticipated when it gains more than 100 followers in its first 24 hours on Facebook. But not every restaurant is the brainchild of Elena Gustavson, the program director at the Center for an Agricultural Economy in Hardwick.

Gustavson's social-media presence may be blowing up, but she doesn't plan to open DownStreet Eats at 3075 Main Street in Cabot until mid-September.

Gustavson's locavore pedigree is enough to get many diners excited, but the chef-owner admits that she hasn't yet reached out to many of her farmer friends in the Cabot and Marshfield area to source the new restaurant — though she plans to.

Locally focused restaurants are a dime a dozen in Vermont these days. But Korean food is not.

Photo from Norwich Farmers Market

In the constellation of 70 or so farmers markets in Vermont, a few stand out as regional anchors: Burlington, or course, as well as Capital City in Montpelier and Brattleboro in southern Vermont. In the Upper Valley, the big daddy is the Norwich Farmers Market, which has occupied a field on Route 5 every summer Saturday since 1977.

Norwich is such a staple — and has so many craft vendors — that it can be easy to overlook it in favor of smaller, more ecletic and fringe markets, especially if you're always in search of new experiences (like me). Yet when I paid a visit last Saturday, it was clear why Norwich holds the alpha position among its peers. It's well-designed, well-stocked and large enough for you to find everything you might need for a week of eating. It's also a testament to the robustness of the Upper Valley food scene, at least when it comes to purveyors.

Each one of the wooden booths here look like they might blow over during the next storm, but they've actually been standing for years. These were the highlights for me last week:

Summer in and around UVM's Bailey/Howe Library can feel pretty sleepy, except perhaps on Thursday afternoons, when students from the school's Farmer Training Program gather near the entrance to sell kale, peppers, tomatoes and other goodies they've grown. Now, images of those farmers — as well as their historical counterparts — are on display in the library's lobby this summer, and a few local farmers will gather in the lobby on Thursday to celebrate the work.

"Growing Fields" draws together vivid images of UVM's farmers-in-training — as well as the food they grow— with vintage photos of the Vermont hayers, pickers and ploughs of yore. The exhibit runs until August 22, but on Thursday, three women farmers — Amanda Andrews of Burlington's Tamarack Hollow Farm, Nancy Hayden of Jeffersonville's the Farm Between, and UVM farmer-in-training program director Laura Williams — will talk about what drew them to the field during an afternoon reception.

For years, diners in the know have looked for a Vermont Fresh Network sign or window sticker to assure them that a restaurant is making a commitment to serving Vermont-grown food.

But VFN executive director Meghan Sheradin realized there were some restaurants that were really raising the bar.

"All Vermont Fresh Network chefs have to know their farmers and serve products from Vermont, but there are some chefs whose commitment to Vermont-grown products is exceptional," she says.

Now, the VFN is introducing a designation to recognize the best of the best.