Spring is the season of things finally happening. And around here, we have a few.

First, and we know you've been waiting: the Champlain Dinner Club is almost here. Since we introduced it last week, the response has been exactly what we were hoping for…a lot of folks saying, "Yes, this sounds awesome!" (if you missed last week's explanation to the club, check out Issue No. 16 here). We're putting the final pieces together and are looking at the week of April 20 for our first dinner. Seats will open, signups will go live…mark it down.

Second: Burlington Wine & Food, June 27, HULA Lakeside. Fifteen years in, and we are not taking this one for granted. Hundreds of wines, dozens of restaurants and specialty foods and spirits, seminars, live music and tickets are on sale now. If you've been before, you know. If you haven't, this is your year!

And finally…if you're a Vermont business looking to get in front of over 5,000 engaged food and wine lovers every Thursday, or a brand looking to align with one of Vermont's longest-running food and wine events, we'd love to talk. Reach out at [email protected].

Good things are coming. We'll see you next week with a lot more to say.

It’s a sure sign that spring is finally on the way…Vermont Cookie Love has officially flipped the creemee switch! Both locations are open and back serving creemees as of last week. Middlebury is open Wednesday through Sunday from 11 to 5, and Ferrisburgh is open seven days a week. Hours will expand as spring gets closer to actually acting like spring.

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City Market is launching a new monthly cooking class series starting in April at the South End location. Classes are led by in-house culinary experts, and each participant leaves with the recipe and a bag of groceries to make the dish at home. The series kicks off with “Vermont Spring Harvest”… learn how to cook with the best produce selections the co-op has to offer.

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Vermont's most important March bracket has nothing to do with basketball. Runamok has started their New Flavor Contest, and voting is open through April 5. This year's matchups include Bacon Spice vs. Toasted Coconut, Tiramisu vs. Pomegranate Cranberry, and a few others worth weighing in on. The winning flavor goes into limited production later this year, and everyone who votes is entered to win a year's supply.

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Howl Bier, the European-inspired taproom that opened a little over a year ago in the former Archives space on the Winooski rotary, is running a scholarship program called the Der Walz initiative…it’s rooted in the old German craftsman tradition of leaving home, working abroad, and returning with new skills. This summer, they'll send one young Vermont beer professional to Bavaria for a full immersion in traditional lager culture. If you know someone who fits the bill, pass it along…applications close April 8.

To raise funds for the initiative, they’re hosting a brewery collab series on the last Friday of each month. This month (tomorrow, the 27th) features Hill Farmstead, with a handful of special draft pours plus food specials starting at 5 p.m.

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The Vermont Specialty Food Association is launching the first-ever VSFA Producer Expo on May 4 in Montpelier…a B2B trade show connecting Vermont food and beverage producers with buyers, retailers, distributors and chefs. If you're on either side of that equation, it's worth knowing about. Specialty food businesses can register now to exhibit, and retail buyers, distributors, food service operators, hospitality pros and other industry partners can register to attend.

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And, Red Hen is making some moves. As per Seven Days, the beloved Middlesex bakery will close its Camp Meade café at the end of April and open a new spot at 60–64 Main Street in Montpelier on May 1. They’ll feature the same menu of pastries, sandwiches, soups, coffee, and creemee-swirled cones, plus the full bread lineup and a selection of specialty foods. The Camp Meade space won't sit empty: Woodbelly Pizza will take it over the same day, eventually adding morning pastries and breakfast pizza to its usual lineup.

THE CASE FOR GOLD COUNTRY WINES

If you haven't made it to the Old North End this week, you still have a few days…Taste the ONE, Burlington's first-ever Old North End restaurant week, runs through March 29. Gold restaurant, Fancy's, Kismayo Kitchen, May Day, Namaste Kitchen Express, Poppy, Barrio Bakery and The Wise Fool are all offering prix fixe deals on special menus and items. If you haven’t checked out one of the most promising areas for new restaurants, now is the time.

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Something very interesting things are happening tomorrow (Friday, March 27) over on Pine Street: the Venetian Soda Lounge launches its March Tiki Weekend…this one themed around the Curse of the Jade Amulet, with classic tiki cocktails, zero-proof options, live characters and Matt Hagen spinning vinyl jazz exotica Saturday night. The Venetian's monthly tropical weekends keep getting more elaborately committed, so head over and dive in.

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Also this weekend, Smugglers' Notch BrewFest happens this Saturday, March 28, from 6 to 8:30 p.m. in the lower level of the Meeting House at the resort village. The lineup includes Fiddlehead, Zero Gravity, Von Trapp, Harpoon, Stowe Cider, Vermont Hard Seltzer, and Black Flannel, among others…plus a DJ and appetizer buffet to go with your samples. Vermont has more breweries per capita than anywhere else in the country, and this is a pretty good argument for why that's worth celebrating.

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As we mentioned last week, Easter is rapidly approaching on April 5, and we’ve seen a few new special events pop up in the past week…

The Lodge at Spruce Peak in Stowe is hosting an indulgent brunch in their festively decorated ballrooms from 11 to 2…there’s a custom Bloody Mary Bar, customizable pancake station, and plenty of other elevated Easter classics. There’s also a full slate of kids' activities including an Easter egg hunt (along with a sensory-friendly version), a community-wide Bunny-Gnome scavenger hunt, visits from the Easter bunny, and craft workshops all weekend. Check out the full schedule and get tickets here.

Up in the islands, Blue Paddle Bistro in South Hero is hosting Chef Phoebe's special Easter ala carte brunch menu, with door prizes, Easter trivia, and a visit from the Easter Bunny. At press time, they were about two-thirds booked, so call today for reservations.

Other restaurant Easter events can be found locally at Waterworks, The Essex, and Hotel Champlain. Get the specifics here in last week’s edition.

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Want to get your hands dirty? The Intervale Center is offering a pair of free hands-on mushroom log cultivation workshops on April 6 and 7 from 5 to 7pm. You'll learn the full process — wood and spore selection, inoculation, cultivation, harvest, and preservation — and go home with fresh mushrooms and a log to grow your own. Participants also join an on-call harvest group returning to the Intervale between June and August.

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If you've been meaning to actually cook from a cookbook rather than just display them attractively on your shelves, April 11 is your chance. Chef Ariel Voorhees of Gather Round Chef Service is leading a hands-on class at Red Poppy Cakery in Waterbury, working through Julia Turshen's Simply Julia…approachable, flexible recipes built around real technique. Signed copies of the book are available with your ticket purchase.

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And finally…we saw this post from Wine Enthusiast’s Instagram last week, thought it was funny, and planned to share it. It got even funnier when we started reading the comments and realized that they were totally getting called out, over and over, for evidently stealing the content from a sommelier and author named Pairing Paws, who seems to have written an entire book on the topic several years ago. Possibly a lesson in Googling before you publish.

Either way, we support the concept wholeheartedly and would like to see this to become a standard section of every wine publication right away.

Until next week…