What happens when a University of Vermont student has a craving for nachos and an assignment to write a blog post about food tourism? A trip to the Cabot Annex Store to make a video.
The Cabot Annex Store in Waterbury Vermont is one of my favorite places in this whole state. Coming back from the ski slopes it is conveniently located on the way back to the highway home, and is a great place to stop when you are tired and hungry. Cabot makes some of the best local dairy, and has been doing so for almost a hundred years. They know how to bring in clients, good food, and lots of samples, so you can taste and test the new products and food they have before you buy it. As a member of the local cheese making association, the Vermont Cheese Council, Cabot is a leader in quality dairy products in Vermont, making what has consistently been rated the best cheeses in Vermont, nationally, and worldwide.
When my friends and I decided to take a trip to the Cabot Annex, a short drive from where we live in Burlington, they (my compatriots) were shocked at the number of free samples, and variety of products that the cheese annex was stocked with. It was a place I had been many times before, but no one else in my group had been.
After looking around, testing out many of the cheeses, and deciding which we liked best, what would go well with what we were trying to make, nachos, and deciding that we had to cook on a budget, we purchased chips, shredded cheese, salsa, and sour cream, to make nachos. The sour cream and cheese were made directly by Cabot themselves, whereas the chips and salsa were made by a company called 5th Sun, a Vermont food company. Our chips were different than regular chips, you could tell they were a more local variety because they were maple chips, and Vermonters love their maple products. In total the entire purchase cost about ten dollars, great for college students like myself who are on a budget, or anyone else who wants to eat good food at a reasonable price. With that 10 dollars of food I made enough that 5 of us ate the nachos, and all got more than enough. I cooked my nachos in the common room and you could tell they were going to be good, as people kept coming in asking “what’s/who’s cooking?” and “what smells good?” I did share the nachos with anyone who asked, though serving them at about eleven at night on a Wednesday did limit the demand.
Our trip to Cabot was worth it. The atmosphere in there is very friendly, and it is stocked to the brim with delicious cheeses, more flavors than you can name, or at least more than I can name. Cabot isn’t the only Vermont food store in Waterbury, there are many stores selling some form of Vermont food there, and the town of Waterbury is great place to get a lot of local Vermont foods, as it has so many available to purchase, like from the Waterbury farmer’s market, Arvad’s Grill and Pub, Green Mountain Garlic, and, of course, Cabot cheese. If you are in the Waterbury or Stowe area in Vermont make sure to check out the Cabot annex, or to find any Cabot product, as they sell it many places across the country, you can find out more about them, their products, and where to buy some great cheese (and other food) at their website http://www.cabotcheese.coop/.
Check out the short video from Neil's trip!
This post was submitted as part of the University of Vermont Service Learning Farm to Table course. Interested in contributing to the DigInVT blog? Write [email protected] for guidelines.
