We left New Hampshire and the isolation of The Uppermost Reaches of the Mighty Connecticut River in search of more population and the foodstuffs they demand. The driving in the Northeast Kingdom is excellent and there are many, many foodie artisans on this side of the river. We knew we could get dinner in pretty Newport, VT and still have time to explore the countryside as far as dramatic Lake Willoughby.

We had had no foodie finds in New Hampshire, though to be fair it must be noted that we had covered a lot of miles through relatively unpopulated areas.

We had dinner at the East Side restaurant, a huge place with a great view and mediocre food, but they had two local micros on tap: Trout River Rainbow Red Ale and Kingdom Brewing Mexican Cha Cha. I had a burger with a 10-oz serving of each of the locals. I normally don't consume that much beer at sunset when I plan to drive 300 miles home, but we were there for 2 hours, thanks to an enormous wedding reception bogging down all operations. 

As you follow the mighty Connecticut River upstream closer and closer to its source, it becomes much smaller and in some ways more scenic. Of course, the upper reaches are also far less built-up, which helps make it scenic! By the time you get north of St Johnsbury, you could throw a stone across it easily enough, and there are long stretches with no human structures other than the occasional farm. 

But there are still many miles to go before you reach the source. By Pittsburg, NH the great placid river we admired from the Gillette Castle is a babbling stony-bottomed fly-fishing river. And there's still an hour to drive! Fortunately the road is in excellent condition and there is virtually no traffic. It's hard to believe this is the same NH3 that disgorges thousands of cars every rush-hour onto Rte 128 near where I work.

The source of the river is up on the Canadian border at the third of the three Connecticut Lakes. The lake is available, as far as we could tell, by a single gravel boat ramp off a small gravel driveway.

In July 2012 we explored the Microbrewers of the Pioneer Valley, and managed to secure 7 bottles representing 7 local microbrewers.

I sampled them over the following week, most of them with some meal or snack that complemented the ale.

The report is on the pages linked under this one. The reports are in the order in which they were sampled. Each report includes a brief description of the ale, where I got it, links to the brewers, and descriptions of what made for complementary dining with each ale.

There are photos that show the whole ensemble. In most cases I am drinking from my favorite blue stein so you can't see the color, but I do like that funny German mug! I think a favorite glass or stein can be an important part of enjoying a fine ale, nearly as important as seeing the color of the beer.

Each report also includes a link to a BeerAdvocate review of the ale, if a review is available on the encyclopedic site.

If you have an account on this site, you can post your own reviews and thoughts. I am especially interested (as you will see) in pairing foods with each craft beer.

After we finished scouring the Pioneer Valley for microbrewers, we headed up into Vermont for dinner in Brattleboro followed by a leisurely excursion northward along the sublimely scenic and endlessly changing VT100, which wends its way over hill and dale through the Green Mountains from the Massachusetts border to Canada. This drive always gets a 5-star review for foliage season, but it is wonderful in the spring and summer as well.  

Along the way we passed ski resorts, took a tortuous sidetrip into Podunk, stopped at a few country stores (some better than others) and saw alternating vistas and homey hollows of the Green Mountains.  

Eventually we came to Ludlow, at the intersection of VT100 and VT103 at the base of Mount Okemo. Ludlow is a market center for the area; it boasts some very fine dining and the shops and farms to support it.

Our favorite was the Wine and Cheese Depot, in a colorful Victorian house about a block and a half south of Main Street. Please follow the link for a more detailed description of the shop.

We went to the July Brimfield Antiques Fair, but nothing much was happening there, so we set out early on our adventure to explore the microbewers of the Pioneer Valley.

The craft beer resurgence in New England is in full swing, with at least 60 currently brewing in New England! These are small businesses in all stages of production and growth from mighty Sam Adams and Harpoon to nanobrewers like Nate at Treehouse Brewing Co. Treehouse is conveniently based in Brimfield, so that was our first stop.

I spoke with brewer and owner Nate Lanier in his tasting room about his beers and how Treehouse is part of the resurgence in New England and across the country.

Treehouse is in the early stages, but they are producing several ales, filling bottles at the tasting room and available on draft at the fine Cedar Street Grille in Sturbridge.

Nate likes hoppy beers.

While Exploring the Lower Connecticut River, we picked up a Hooligan and his three inebriated brothers to join us for a soiree on the beach.

No, it wasn't that kind of party! Hooligan is a washed-rind raw Jersey cow's milk cheese from the (many, many) award-winning Cato Corner Farm in Colchester, CT.  The other three cheeses are Hooligans that are washed with something other than brine.  All are "stinky cheeses" aged 2 months.

Here's what we got, and what we thought:

• Hooligan: Cato Corner's signature "stinky" cheese. Hooligan is bathed twice a week in brine.  This was Richmond's favorite.
• Drunken Hooligan: Hooligan washed with grape must and young red wine from Colchester's Priam Vineyard.  This Hooligan must have been a younger brother, not quite as soft and runny as his kin. Lorna and Melissa liked this one best.
• Drunk Monk: Hooligan rubbed in brown ale from Willimantic Brewing Company. This monk was pretty elderly, but the flavors were fabulous and still harmonious. Annette and John liked this one best.

We spent Saturday exploring the Lower Connecticut River, starting with the Florence Griswold House and Museum in Old Lyme, then heading north along country roads to the Gillette Castle, and finally eastward along more country roads to Norwich and into sleepy western Rhode Island. We finally reached Jamestown pretty late. We had had lunch at the excellent Cafe Flo at the Florence Griswold House and Museum, but that was hours ago and  were pretty hungry, so we went into Jamestown to see what we could find.

We found a crowd. A big one. Jamestown's Independence Day fireworks display was due to start in 15 minutes! we lucked into a great parking space and saw an excellent show of pyrotechnics (I try not to think of what bizarre chemicals made those flashes and are now being consumed by the lobsters and quahogs of Narragansett Bay). 

Back in Connecticut we had found ourselves in something of a fix. Tonight we will enjoy a cheese tasting with Richmond and Annette, and I was tasked with getting the cheese. I had planned to get it from the Cato Corner Farm, not far from our intended adventuring range.

Plymouth Harbor is formed in part by a 3-mile long barrier beach. The seaward side has a long gently-sloping beach that becomes much exposed during a very low "clam tide".

This is good grounds for sea clams. Every summer Richmond and I go clamming a few times to get these delicious creatures, typically filling a 5-gallon bucket and dividing the spoils.

The sea clam,  more properly known as the Atlantic Surf clam (Spisula solidissima to malacologists), is a big critter: we keep only clams that are as big as the palm of a grown man's hand. After shucking, about 2/3 of the clam is edible, so you can get a good meal from a couple of them. While shelling clams, it is tempting to eat a couple of those adductor muscles, and that's a good thing.

For all the nutritive value and culinary delights of these mighty mollusks, one of the best things about gathering sea clams is just getting out into the water in the early morning, before the beach gets hot and crowded, walking and looking, sometimes chatting and sometimes not, just being out on the quiet beach in the morning.

Honestly, can it get any better than this? Old friends visiting Plymouth for the first time in millennia, we walk and talk and talk some more (and walk some more, but it's hot but we keep talking 'cause there's so much to talk about). And we get a few Lobsters at Wood's Seafood on the Town Wharf. (Do please follow the link to know why that's special. It makes a difference.) 

We have the Plymouth Long Beach and Cape Cod Bay beyond, Least Terns darting and Cormorants gliding and Herring Gulls cagily monitoring the situation. Off Jason's right arm is a fishing boat just done offloading its catch with the fishermen's banter clearly audible, a banal reminder of those who provide our most sublime moments. Behind Jennifer is the Mayflower II and how awesome is that?.

And then a sailboat glides past. I can't take it. Do I live in a postcard or what?

What could make it better? Maybe a local Mayflower Brewing IPA or Summer Rye Ale? No. Then we'd have to leave the pier, or be surreptitious about our hitherto innocent proceedings.

We spent Independence Day on the Lower Cape, mostly searching for and exploring a mysterious abandoned USAF base built during the cold war to watch for Soviet missiles. we had been going to the Lower Cape for decades and never knew about this site until a chance dinnertime glance noticed the top of the radar dome from the window at Bubala's in Provincetown. Our server, Angie, had grown up near there and told us about it. Naturally we had to explore.

The place is spooky. The abandoned homes of the officers and enlisted men look like something from a post-apocalypse movie.

There is nothing of interest from a foodie perspective, but extended exploration brought us to a high sea-cliff and extraordinary vistas of unspoiled beach - who knew?

We had a perfectly gorgeous day in southern Maine for the annual South Berwick Strawberry Festival. South Berwick is a small town, but the festival is a big event with 20,000 visitors and scores of vendors.

At these events I like to prowl the aisles and fields looking for foodie goodness from small artisans that I might never find anywhere else.

This trip was a fruitful one!

Best of show has to go to Captain Mowatt's Sauces (I bought three), but it faced stiff competition from the Jelly Maker's Daughter (I bought a jar of pumpkin butter), and Backwood's Al's jams (I bought two).  In the end, Captain Mowatt's got it for sheer originality, quality, and consistency.

We spent a day exploring beautiful Monhegan Island, off Pemaquid Point in Maine. The trails are easy and the views from the far shore are utterly spectacular.  Most amazing of all, the shores are not built up with houses and the island has no McDonalds or Starbucks.

This does not mean that Monhegan Island is a foodie paradise. There really isn't much for day-trippers. Carina's has fresh-baked bagels and other goods; there is good iced coffee to be had, but sit-down restaurants are absent except maybe in the two hotels we saw.  The Island Inn might be excellent, but we never went in. The Monhegan House served only breakfast (over before we arrived) and dinner (not started until after we left).   

But we did pretty well at the Fish House. It's a tiny place with an excellent pan-fried haddock sandwich that Lorna enjoyed, and I had the pickled herring in cream sauce. The dining room was a few picnic benches on the beach, with a Golden Retriever puppy frolicking along the waterline. I have dined in less picturesque dining rooms!

I took a midweek vacation day for the purpose of visiting New Bedford with Richmond. It was a very, very productive trip!

I had a long list of places that I wanted to get to, taking full advantage of New Bedford's fishing fleet, microbrew renaissance, and Portuguese community. It was a lot to see, but New Bedford is not so hard to get around once you get the hang of it.

The top of the list was our Best of Show for the day, the New Bedford Fisherman's Market. It's 2.5 miles south of I-195 through a little maze of streets, but it's worth the trip. They are only open Wednesdays through Sundays, starting at 10am on weekdays and 9AM on weekends. they had a great variety of superfresh fish, the freshest I think I have ever seen in a market, including many that you don't see in smaller markets. I got some monkfish, sole, and periwinkles. Richmond got some fish too, and they gave us plenty of ice to keep it cold in the cooler I always keep in the back of the car.

We had pretty well explored the byways and washed-out bridges of the Berkshires when we emerged onto the Mohawk Trail/Route 2 hungry and thirsty. A couple of detours had made the drive overlong and we were ready to stretch our legs a bit.

The Bridge of Flowers in Shelburne Falls was just what we needed. It is an abandoned trolley bridge connecting Shelburne Falls with Buckland over the Deerfield River that has become a long, skinny garden. The flowers were exquisite, far beyond anything we had seen earlier at the Berkshire Botanical Gardens.

After stretching our legs down to the glacial potholes and other local wonders, we retired to the Blue Rock Restaurant for some light refreshment: cheesecake and Coke for her, for me a pint of Lefty's Irish-Style Stout. I had found a bottle at the Leverett Village Coop a couple of years ago and loved it, but Lefty's is a small operation and I never could find it on draft.

It was excellent. Subsequent research shows me that Lefty's Brewing is doing well and that old link needs to be updated. I will get right on it!

We went out to Stockbridge, MA for a day in the mountains, including a visit to Naumkeag and the Berkshire Botanical Gardens. The day was beautiful and we spent a lot of time meandering along winding mountain roads through tiny mountain towns that never make the news. We had a pleasant lunch at Patisserie Lenox and explored that delightful town for a while as well.

Naumkeag was as advertised: a gorgeous house with gardens on splendid grounds, fine vistas, and cooling breezes.

Alas! The Berkshire Botanical Gardens were not quite as advertised, unless you are a terribly cynical viewer of the advertising... It seemed we had already seen all the best parts on the website, and there just wasn't much else to see. It's not nearly as big as the Boothbay Botanical Gardens or Heritage Plantation or even Tower Hill, nor as elegant as Blithewold, the Mount, or Harkness. We cannot recommend the Berkshire Botanical Gardens as a destination.

The Berkshires are home to some fine brewers and one excellent distiller.

Your earnest FoodiePilgrim adventurer is always haring off on one adventure or another, and never shows off his own delightful hometown. So yesterday I took a vacation day to explore Plymouth, home of the pilgrims.

I started the afternoon's peregrinations with lunch at KKatie's Burger Bar (that's spelled correctly). It was every bit as excellent as their Yelp! and TripAdvisor pages indicate, and it was particularly appropriate that the 95-degree day was part of their Tiki month.

From there I walked down to the Farmers' Market at Stevens Field, a seaside  park a very short walk from town hall and a 10-minute walk from downtown.

Plymouth has farmers' markets on Saturdays on the lawn of the old courthouse on Court Street just up Bradford Street from the waterfront, and two on Thursdays, a small one at Stevens Field and a larger one at Plimoth Plantation.

The Plymouth Farmers' Market sees an eclectic range of vendors.

After A Lucky Detour, we continued up Route 1 towards Northport, our original destination.

We had driven through Northport on Route 1 many, many times on the way to and from Ellsworth, Bar Harbor and points downeast. It always seems like, to use Gertrude Stein's words, "there's no there there".  You pass a sign announcing that you're entering Northport, and another for entering Lincolnville, but Northport has a colorful Mexican restaurant and nothing else, not even a wide spot in the road.

 So this time we decided to discover Northport. A very close-up on MapQuest showed a Shore Road that looked like just the thing. There is even a section called Temple Heights...there's a there there!

Shore Road was easily missed, but we turned back and followed it into something awesome.

 As expected, as soon as we came within sight of the shore from the south we encountered palace after palace, beautiful summer homes, gardens, and splendid views. Mount Percival forms a steep slope to the sea, so houses on the inland side get a view, too. They were not too tightly clustered, and many were well-obsucred by trees and shrubs, so it did not seem crowded.  

A little further north we came upon a trio of cute gingerbread cottages, and then another.

We were driving along Coastal Route 1 bound for Northport and Belfast when we were detoured inland, toward Union. There had been some sort of terrible accident, so the detour signs were not set up as they usually are for road work. So we ended up exploring some of the parts of Maine away form the coast. 

That was a lucky break for us! The lupines were in full bloom everywhere (indeed, this weekend is the annual Lupine Festival in far Stonington). We went this way and that along winding roads and over gentle hills covered with lupines, until we came upon a sign that read "Fresh Strawberries 2 miles ->"

That's how we discovered Beth's Farm Market, in Warren, ME.

What a find! It's a big place, committed to local and pesticide-free produce, most of it organically grown.

We got:

• strawberries
• new potatoes
• fresh peas
• dandelion greens
• breakfast radishes
• rhubarb
• fresh cream, and
• their own special concord grape juice.

We had spent a fair amount of time in Portland, so it was after 5pm when we finally got on the road again. We made it as far as the Harpswell area, the rugged points that jut south from Brunswick and Freeport to form the northern protection of Casco Bay.

We have been though those coastal hills, along the rocky shores, and over the scenic bridges many times, but it was only this past winter that we discovered a little village not on the way to anywhere except the sea. This is Cundy's Harbor.

There's not much out there besides the scenery, but the village is pretty and well-kept. Roads meander off to various points along the coast, and the view from each is postcard-perfect.

There is a general store, and behind it is a large wharf with Holbrook's Lobster Wharf and Grille.  We were hungry and about ready for the long drive home. We could see the outdoor seating (no indoor seating) had a lovely view of the harbor. The blackboard menu was interesting: one of the specials was a pickled fiddlehead salad, and another was a chilled fresh strawberry soup.

 Naturally I went for the fiddleheads.

We enjoy visiting historic houses, so on Saturday we finally made it a priority to see the Longfellow House in Portland, ME.

I enjoy historical cooking from all periods. Even though I cannot reproduce the conditions of hearth or woodstove cooking in my 21st-century kitchen, I can reproduce many of the recipes from the same ingredients. Of course, in the 18th and 19th centuries there were no supermarkets with freezer cases, and most foods were bought fresh at the "farmers' market", so that part adds an appealing challenge.

For en example of a colonial feast you can prepare today, see the menu I planned for last year's Colonial Tavern Dinner at the Old Colony Club.

Florence Griswold inherited her ship captain father's grand old house in Old Lyme, and promptly fell upon hard times. As many other women of her time, she opened it up as a boarding house for summer visitors, but in her case a flourishing art colony formed!

The artists were mostly summering NYC-based American Impressionists of the tonalist and luminist varieties. They included stars such as Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalfe, and Henry Ward Ranger, and they really left their mark on the house....you have to see the dining room!

The old house has become an art museum, with an annex on the grounds that has rotating exhibits. We get there at least once a year.

This year (just Friday) they opened a brand new cafe, and it is very excellent! We shared a Farmer's Greens salad and a Mediterranean Plate, and were too full from that to sample the fresh fruit and lime curd dessert. They have wine and local beer, too. The service was excellent, and the view - well I guess there's none better on the Connecticut shore. This is where the artists came to summer!

We spent a glorious Sunday on the Cape, starting with Heritage Plantation in Sandwich. Heritage Plantation has acres of enormous old rhododendrons and other flowers, a flower-maze, interesting trees, and all sort of horticultural delights. They also have an old carousel, an art museum, and a great collection of old cars, including a Duesenberg, a Stanley Steamer, and others. We spent a lot of time there, but we passed up lunch to go exploring along scenic Route 6a, on the north side of the upper Cape.

I am glad we did, thanks to two discoveries. We had lunch, on a hunch, at Osterville Fish Too, out at Mattakeese Wharf, in Barnstable Village. The fried clams were as good as any we have had this side of Ipswich, and the lobster roll was full of lobster with little mayo.  

Further along 6a, but still in Barnstable, we came upon the Cape Cod Organic Farm, where we scored the first fresh strawberries of the season. They made a delicious pie the next night, when we welcomed Richmond and Annette back from their travels in Alaska.  

We started a "gorgeous" day  with breakfast by Quechee Gorge, and then explored along the White River and across the Green Mountains and Lake Champlain to Ausable Chasm before dinner. It was a beautiful day on the cusp of spring turning to summer and we knew we would have enough daylight for this ambitious expedition.

Sadly, our trajectory brought us across virtually no interesting new markets or farms. the mountain path was too rugged for most Vermont-style agriculture, and the Champlain Valley has been well-explored by us. The New York side of the lake is less populated, bounded by the lake on one side and the Adirondack State Park, so there are few markets for agricultural products anyway.  I didn't even get the local specialty, a Michigan Hot Dog.

But we did end the day with an excellent dinner at The Shore Acres Inn in North Hero, VT in Lake Champlain.

The special was soft-shell crab, another of the classic harbingers of spring like asparagus and peas. I had been hoping to sample this springtime classic before summer arrived, but they are not really a New England specialty.

US Senator Justin Smith Morrill was the Vermont visionary who created the legislation for the Land Grant colleges in 1862 that opened up higher education to many middle class students, and then another version in 1890 that ensured these colleges would educate black students as well.

Morrill was a blacksmith's son who was formally educated only to age 15. He made a small fortune in local mercantile trade, and build this fine house in Strafford, VT. He became an accomplished speechwriter, and was elected to Congress at a young age. He became one of our longest-tenured Senators.

We enjoy visiting historic houses, which often bring us into otherwise unexplored pockets of New England.

We had another reason to be in east-central Vermont: I know that the  Quechee Gorge Village includes a variety of sizes and grades of Maple Syrup. Having just succeeded happily with a Maple Cream Pie  for another event, I wanted to make it again, but I was out of maple syrup and unwilling to pay Boston supermarket prices for it when I knew we would be in Vermont.

 What I did not take into account was the Memorial Day Weekend crowd of tourists from all over.

We drove to Stonington, Maine, which is one of our longer trips at 660 miles. On the long trips we get less time for exploring, but we still did pretty well; we visited two farms and two excellent markets, and got some fresh Jersey cow cream, fresh fiddleheads and two artisanal goat cheeses, and finished up with local crab and lobster and a hard-to-find microbrew from Orono, ME.

(We nearly got a ticket too, but escaped that. You don't cover as many miles as we do by driving slowly!)

It was dusk before we got on the road again for the long, long drive home, but that was good luck too. We saw many views of a gorgeous sunset as we worked our way back to Coastal Route 1.

Best of Show has to go to the Sunset Acres Farm and Dairy in North Brooksville, not far from Stonington. "Fahmah Bob" Bowen welcomed us and found for us the first Stonington Granite cheese of the season, then he introduced us to the new baby goats!

The goats live in big airy barns with a lot of space. We love seeing goats because they are so curious, even mischievous. They react to visitors much more than sheep or cows do.