Globe Corner Blogs

Having spent the last four years attending college in rural Vermont and now finding myself back amist the horn-honking, always-in-traffic city life of Cambridge, I cannot help but feel nostalgic for the Green Mountain State. To alleviate my suffering, I picked up the Cooking with Shelburne Farms cookbook written by Melissa Pasanen and Rick Gencarelli. Shelburne Farms, located along Lake Champlain in Vermont, is not only a National Historic Landmark, but also a nonprofit environmental educational center that works to educate community members on the importance of local grown food and maintaining sustainable farmlands in Vermont.

After skimming the recipe titles and the intermittent farm life anecdotes, I decided to make one of the dishes and reconnect with my wannabe Vermonter heritage. I settled upon the Macaroni and Cheese with Ham and Horseradish. While I am certainly no cooking master, the dish turned out wonderfully and, unsurprisingly for a Vermont-born recipe, could truly be termed comfort food. If you do decide to try this dish (and you should!) I would give only three small pieces of advice: buy good freshly-grated Vermont cheddar, don’t skimp on the horseradish, and make more croutons than the recipe calls for. If this one dish is at all representative of the rest of the recipes in Cooking with Shelburne Farms, you will not be disappointed with any dish you try and you will most likely find great alternative recipes for traditional, home-style meals.

Read more: Book Reviews, Food & Wine, New England


Jess is a GCB alum and now contributes to the travel blog as often as she can. Jess attended Middlebury College so she loves the Green Mountain State. She also studied abroad in Paris for a semester and has traveled through much of western Europe and the UK. Her most recent travels include trips to Portland, OR, Los Angeles, CA and Spain (Madrid and Andalusia). She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

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