With the recent extension of the border closing between the U.S. and Canada until August 21, entrepreneur Dori Ross has decided to put her Vermont-based specialty maple products company up for sale.

Ross founded Tonewood Maple in the Mad River Valley in 2012 during the 25 years the Canadian native lived in the U.S. In 2017, Ross, her husband and their three children decided to move from Vermont back to Canada.

Broker Paul Carroccio of TPW Real Estate's Manchester office said he already has a trio of solid prospects among many calls of interest.

In late March, about a week after Gov. Phil Scott ordered restaurants to close to stem the spread of the coronavirus, the Skinny Pancake turned its commissary kitchen in Winooski into the cooking site of a program called ShiftMeals.

The initiative was designed to provide free meals to restaurant workers, musicians and other Vermonters who lost their jobs during the pandemic and were in need of food assistance.

ShiftMeals then formed a partnership with the Vermont Foodbank to expand its reach. The program currently has 18 distribution sites around the state and has provided 50,000 meals to Vermonters in need, with a goal of distributing 100,000 meals by year's end, according to ShiftMeals director Jean Hamilton.

Now ShiftMeals is serving as a model for a statewide initiative, backed by $5 million in government funding, in which restaurants around the state will use their facilities and employees to help feed Vermonters who are experiencing food insecurity. The new program, called Everyone Eats, was announced Monday morning at a press conference outside the Skinny Pancake’s Lake Street restaurant in Burlington.

Consider it a preview of sandwiches to come: Poppy Café & Market will start offering weekly takeout this Thursday, though not yet from its eventual home at 88 Oak Street.

Sisters Abby and Emily Portman's breakfast and lunch café is one of two food businesses planned for the former Chubby Muffin spot in Burlington's Old North End, now operating as the Oak Street Cooperative.

They will share the space with Maria Lara-Bregatta's Café Mamajuana, operating at different times of the day and sharing a small market — allowing each business to have a presence while the other is open, the Portmans explained.

When the weather gets steamy and local produce is abundantly in season, the blender is your friend.

A bit of chopping, a few buzzes in the blender and you can have two cold soups made within 10 minutes each: cool as a cucumber-yogurt with your choice of herb (mint, dill or cilantro) and a classic tomato and bell pepper gazpacho spiked with sherry or balsamic vinegar.

They do each benefit from a bit of time in the fridge but are also delicious sipped right out of the blender. (Not that anyone would do that.)

Packed in mason jars, these soups travel well in a cooler to kick off an elegant holiday weekend picnic menu.  Don't forget a few herb springs wrapped in a damp dish towel, or cherry tomatoes to gild the lily (aka garnish the soup).

No one needs to know they took you so little time and effort. Cheers to drinking your vegetables!

Herbed Cucumber-Yogurt Soup

Makes about 1 quart

Ingredients

• 1 clove garlic
  
• ¼ cup loosely packed fresh herb leaves, such as mint, cilantro or dill
  
• 1½-2 teaspoons coarse salt
  
• 3 medium cucumbers (about 1½ pounds), peeled if desired and cut into chunks
  
• 2 cups plain yogurt (if Greek, you might need to add a little water)
  
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
  
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  
• extra herb sprigs for garnish

Directions

1. Using a blender or food processor, pulse the garlic, herbs and 1½ teaspoons salt.
   
2. Add the cucumber chunks and process until finely chopped. Add the yogurt, olive oil, lime juice and cumin and blend until smooth.
   
3. Taste and add salt or more lime juice as desired. Thin with a little water if desired.
   
4. Chill and serve garnished with herbs.
   

Gazpacho

Makes about 1 quart

Ingredients

• 1 clove garlic
  
• ½ sweet white onion or red onion, cut into chunks
  
• 1½-2 teaspoons coarse salt
  
• 1 large bell pepper, any color, cored, seeded and cut into chunks
  
• 1 large cucumber, cut into chunks
  
• 4 large tomatoes (about 3 pounds, to yield about 4 cups), cored and cut into chunks
  
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  
• 1 tablespoon balsamic or sherry vinegar
  
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
  
• several dashes hot pepper sauce, such as Tabasco

Directions

1. Using a blender or food processor, pulse the garlic and onion with 1½ teaspoons salt until finely minced.
   
2. Add the bell pepper, cucumber and tomatoes and pulse a few times until relatively smooth.
   
3. Add the olive oil, vinegar, lemon juice and hot pepper sauce and pulse to blend.
   
4. Taste and add more salt or lemon juice as desired. Thin with a little water if needed.
   
5. Chill and serve garnished with cherry tomatoes or cucumber slices.
   

Source: adapted from a recipe by Jim Lamberti, former owner of Inn on the Common in Craftsbury

Got cooking questions? Feel free to email them to [email protected].

Alan Newman has purchased the Burlington restaurant and live music venue ArtsRiot.  Newman, ArtsRiot cofounders Felix Wai and PJ McHenry, as well as partner George Lambertson, announced the deal in a press release on Wednesday.

"We put everything we had into creating and growing ArtsRiot over the years, but our time has come to move on and we are excited to hand the reins over to Alan," Wai, McHenry and Lambertson wrote in the release.

When Kraemer & Kin opened as the first brewery in the Champlain Islands in February, co-owners Christie, Levi and Heather Kraemer hoped to establish a tasting room within a year. Despite the global pandemic, it took them only five months to achieve that goal.

On Friday, July 3, the family-owned microbrewery will open a tasting room inside the GreenTARA Space art gallery and community center at 3275 U.S. Route 2 in North Hero.

What's better than a creemee stand? A creemee stand that also serves burritos.

Taco Gordo will take its takeout business to the next level this Tuesday, with the opening of  Little Gordo Creemee Stand in the former Union Scoops window at 71 South Union Street in Burlington.

Customers at the walk-up window can expect housemade creemees; blended, candy-filled "wizards"; and bulging burritos. Picnic tables are available out front, but the tiny spot has no indoor seating.

The USDA has awarded contract extensions to two Vermont-based organizations distributing Farmers to Families food boxes to those in need due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Of the additional $8.5 million awarded, the Abbey Group, a family-owned food service management company based in Enosburg Falls, received just over $8 million. The balance went to Willing Hands Enterprises, a Norwich-based nonprofit that serves the Upper Valley. This brings total program contract value to Vermont organizations to almost $14 million.

My husband cannot understand why we still need a landline. There are several reasons, but one is that I have a message saved in the voicemail system from October 1, 2014.

It is my friend, Barb, calling about my fruit crisp recipe. Apparently, I had written it on a piece of graph paper at least a decade prior, which sends us back to the very early 2000s.

"Every time I make the crisp," she said in the message, "I pull out this piece of paper you wrote the crisp topping recipe on, and there's your handwriting and it's so lovely."

Barb suggested that I write something about "the recipes that we get from our friends that are scrawled on pieces of paper."

She also said that when I first wrote the crisp recipe down, I reassured her how easy and basic it was in a way that was both encouraging and, as she put it, implied, "Be braver, young cook!"

It made me think that I rarely hand-write a recipe to give anyone these days, though I am constantly giving recipes to people. I'm usually printing out a copy of something I've written up for publication, or maybe sending a photo of a spattered page with some scrawled suggestions or changes I've made over the years.

This recipe for strawberry-rhubarb crisp is one of those that I've scrawled, published and printed out for more than a dozen friends and family members over the years.

In October, 2014, Barb was making an apple crisp. The topping works for any fruit, of course, but my rhubarb plants are still producing abundantly, local strawberries are ripe and the pairing is classic for a very good reason.

I hope the recipe serves you as well as it has served Barb.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp

Ingredients

• 12 tablespoons (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for greasing (sub: non-dairy butter for vegan)
• 4 cups hulled and halved strawberries (about 3 pints) (sub: pretty much any fruit for a total of 8 cups. If using anything other than rhubarb or sour cherries, ½-¾ cups sugar should be plenty)
• 4 cups sliced rhubarb (about 1 pound)
• 1½ cups granulated sugar
• 1¼ cups all-purpose flour (sub: for gluten-free crisp, 2 tablespoons cornstarch for the flour tossed with the fruit, and oat or almond flour for the topping)
• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans, optional

Directions

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 13-by-9-inch (or equivalent) baking dish with butter.
2. In a large bowl, toss together the strawberries, rhubarb, granulated sugar and ¼ cup of the flour. Evenly spread the fruit mixture in the prepared baking dish.
3. In the same bowl, stir together the remaining 1 cup flour, oats, brown sugar and cinnamon. Add the chopped nuts if using. Using your hands, smush the butter into the mixture and squeeze it together until it clumps. Evenly spread the clumps over the fruit, pressing down lightly.
4. Place the baking dish on a rimmed baking sheet to catch any juicy spills and bake until the topping is golden brown and the fruit juices bubble, about 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool about 5 minutes before serving.
5. Serve warm with ice cream if desired.

Source: The Little Local Vermont Cookbook: Recipes for Classic Dishes by Melissa Pasanen (W.W. Norton, 2020)

Got cooking questions? Feel free to email them to [email protected]