The Recipe Page You've Asked For

Hello Featherbed Friends,

One thing we love about Vermont is the way the change of seasons completely transforms our sensory experience of place, space, and time. Now in stick season, night comes early with stunning starry skies, frosty mornings follow with the sound of frozen crunching leaves under our feet, the days are just right for hiking and biking with no crowds to contend with, and evenings are cool enough to enjoy a soak in the hot tub as the stars come into view. The chorus of spring and summer tree frogs has gone quiet. The trees are bare, the air is crisp, and the smell of fresh cut grass has been replaced by the earthy aroma of decaying leaves. Everything looks and feels and smells and sounds different from just a couple of weeks ago, when the Mad River Valley was an explosion of spectacular color and teeming with visitors here to experience the drama that Vermont offers like nowhere else.

Even our sense of taste changes with the seasons, not entirely disconnected from the changes in local produce as summer turns to fall. Since we source as much as we can from our local farms, our breakfasts reflect the changing seasons in a delicious sort of way. Charred plums with goat cheese make way for baked maple pears with house-made granola; Persian zucchini frittatas step aside for braised eggs with leeks and preserved lemon; blueberry bread pudding takes a break while carrot cake pancakes take their turn at the table.

And this quiet season has given us the time to, finally, add a page to our website with many of your favorite recipes. You asked, and we listened. It just took us a while to get there. We'll add recipes to the page periodically, and we invite you to contact us if a) you've eaten a dish here that we haven't yet posted a recipe for, or b) if you have suggestions for breakfast dishes and recipes you think we should try.

Indeed we welcome you to contact us for any old reason, especially as ski season is on its way. Some of our winter weeks and weekends are already fully booked, so it wouldn't be a bad idea to look at your calendars and start planning your next visit. We'll have spiced hot chocolate and cookies waiting for you when you return from the slopes and trails. And we can't wait to hang out by the fire with you.

We hope to see you this winter. We will once again be partnering with Umiak Outfitters to offer guided evening snowshoe and dinner tours. And the slopes of Sugarbush and Mad River Glen are still just eight minutes away. Ole's Cross Country Ski Center and Blueberry Lake Cross Country and Snowshoeing Center offer miles of groomed trails for skiing, snowshoeing, and fat biking. Our hot tub will be steamy, and we'll always have s'mores fixings available for evenings by the fire pits. It's a little hard to imagine this place blanketed by snow while we enjoy this week of strangely warm and sunny weather, but we know it's coming (and we're getting our skis tuned).

One last thing — we will be taking off next week for a two-week vacation (hooray!!!). If you call or email during that time, it might be a little while before we get back to you. You can certainly reserve your stay online any time.

Sending wishes for positive change (please vote!),

Karen and Mick