Vacation Photos

John and I are back from our food-themed trip to the Cook's Country farmhouse in Rupert, VT. We cooked some pretty amazing meals in the set kitchen (not the best photo, but you can see the studio lights on the ceiling). Can't you just picture Bridget and Chris cooking right here?

The kitchen conveniently contained pretty much every cookbook and magazine ever published by the Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen people.

We cooked dinner every night we stayed there, except for the evening we had dinner at American Flatbread in Burlington (delicious pizza and beer! I highly recommend if you're ever in northern Vermont!). My friend Kate, who is an excellent cook, made her famous ribs one night. I don't know her recipe, but I'm pretty sure she laces them with some kind of addictive chemicals because just looking at this picture makes me jones for these:

Kate also made a tomato pie. Not the pizza kind you're thinking of if you live anywhere near Trenton, NJ, but an actual pie crust filled with layers of cheese and fresh summer tomatoes (this was a Cook's Country recipe, appropriately enough):

John and I made our spicy honey-brushed chicken thighs one night, and I made this fresh corn, black bean, and tomato salad as a side dish (from the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook):

When we weren't busy cooking delicious things, we kept ourselves occupied by reading in rocking chairs on the wraparound porch....

...and playing in the huge backyard:

If you're looking for a relaxing New England getaway, I can't recommend this place highly enough. I'll be back soon with some of the recipes mentioned above!