Vermont summers have a funny way of making you feel like you're constantly running behind.

We spend all year looking forward to these three short months, then we immediately try to cram 52 weeks’ worth of concerts, dinners, festivals, hikes, lake days and backyard cookouts into about ten weeks. The tourists have the right idea…they come here because it's the perfect place to relax in July. Meanwhile, the rest of us are checking the weather, juggling calendars and wondering how we're already booked through Labor Day.

Here's hoping we all remember to slow down long enough to enjoy the place that everyone else is coming to see.

As I write this, I’m just coming home from the evening’s Champlain Dinner Club.

You'd think by the fourth time, I'd stop getting nervous beforehand. Not a chance.

Every month, I have this nagging worry that no one is going to have a good time. Will people hit it off? Will the conversation flow? Will the first-timers feel awkward?

It turns out that almost everyone walking through the door is wondering some version of the same thing.

Tonight's dinner was a bit smaller than usual, which isn't too surprising…it's the middle of summer, and half of Vermont seems to be on a boat, at a camp, or in an airport somewhere. But it turned out to be one of those groups where, by the after-party, you couldn't really tell who'd been coming for months and who had just taken a chance on us for the first time.

That's the best part of these dinners…watching complete strangers go from six degrees of separation to Vermont’s two degrees, all in real time.

The favorite story of the night, though, came from a guest who said he’d told three coworkers at the car dealership that he and his wife were headed to this dinner club. All three immediately assumed it was a swingers club.

(For the record, it is not).

A common denominator, though, is always how many people admit they'd been nervous about coming. Most first-timers say some version of the same thing: I almost didn't sign up. And yet, a couple of hours later, everyone is lingering over one last drink, swapping phone numbers, making plans to come back next month.

Speaking of which: our next dinner club is happening Tuesday, August 18, and we’re road tripping to Waterbury…Vermont’s favorite little town full of big restaurants. We’d love to have you join us and make a new friend or two.

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Another week, another award. The Jericho Country Store just made Food & Wine's list of the country's eleven Most Charming Local Grocers. The write-up traces the store back to 1807, when founder Pliny Blackman rafted goods down from Montreal to stock the shelves, through the Jordan Brothers and decades under Gerry and Lil Desso, up to the St. Amour family's 2002 purchase and the shop's 2024 sale to current owners Valerie and Michael Blanchard. It also gets into what's still on the counter today: meat cured on-site, hand-cut fries, a Cabot cheddar sandwich, and a creemee that probably doesn’t survive the walk to the car.

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There’s big news out of Grafton, too: Mary Ann Esposito, host of the longest-running cooking show in America and the face of PBS's Ciao Italia, is doing a one-night dinner at the Grafton Inn on Saturday, August 1. It opens with a 6 p.m. meet-and-greet cocktail hour, followed by a Tuscan-style multi-course dinner built from her newest cookbook, Plant, Harvest, Cook!: Ciao Italia. Tickets are $95, include wine and a signed book, and the dinner is set up outdoors in the inn's vegetable garden (moving indoors to the 1801 Tavern if it rains). Reservations need to be in by July 25, by phone only, and seating is limited.

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Crumbl is opening its second area location, this one in Plattsburgh, with a launch celebration happening tomorrow, July 24th…the first 100 people through the door get a free shirt and sticker. The Utah-based chain, started by two cousins, opened its first Vermont location in Williston's Finney Crossing a couple of years back and has grown past 600 locations nationwide. It's built its following on a weekly rotating menu and the bright pink box the cookies come in…the kind of thing that was built for Instagram, though we hear the cookies taste good, too.

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And there are three new products making appearances in Vermont…all of them canned and all interesting.

Zero Gravity's Strawberry Moon is back for its once-a-year run. It’s a kettle sour built on pilsner malt and organic strawberries from Adam's Berry Farm, is 5% ABV, and sold in 16 oz four-packs.

Mad River Distillers has new ready-to-drink canned cocktails out, too, launched with a 21+ photo contest for the best outdoor shots. You can find the cans at their Tasting Rooms, the Waitsfield Farmers Market, this weekend's Ski Essentials Warehouse Sale in Stowe, or Sunday's VSFA Makers Market at King Arthur Baking.

And for anyone sitting out the alcohol, Parch has brought its non-alcoholic agave cocktails into Vermont. It’s a Hispanic- and female-owned company, and it’s canned in flavors like Prickly Paloma and Desert Margarita, both built around Sonoran desert botanicals. Sounds like the perfect thing to grab before your next cookout.

Read the full interview, including the mac and cheese craving that launched her business, the misconception about soul food in Vermont she's working to change, and the full-circle cornbread story that led to catering a wedding…

Before we go…

We're always keeping half an eye out for anything fun with food or drink attached to it. This week that turned up in Sauce Town, a small apparel shop printing clever food-and-cocktail art on Comfort Colors tees. We saw quite a few we liked…and may have to start some Christmas shopping early…

These are but a few favorites, but you can find many more fun designs by visiting their website here. Full disclosure: those are affiliate links, so if you order something, we get a small commission.

And if you do see something you like, feel free to use the promo code with my name, TRACYSTOLESE, for 10% off.

See you next week…