Taste of Vermont/Chaz B-Day

The Taste of Vermont is an annual reception over at the Leahy office, and I've been lucky enough to be part of it these last two years. Last year it was a pleasant surprise, and I have to say that I've been looking forward to it for a while know. I'm not exactly excited about the prospects of shuffling through a crowded room filled with politicians, but you can't really beat the food.

Our first stop was the Bove's (I think that's how it was spelled) ravioli. I think that probably could've been our only stop... Basically everything we were going to hit was going to be small-town, local, all-natural foods, and this one was probably going to be hard to beat. After eating the ravioli, I realized that it was from a box. From a box! It's like that ridiculous Pizza Hut commercial where everyone eats their new spaghetti in this fancy restaurant, then they find out it's really Pizza Hut's (probably a big lie...). Basically the same way. You can thaw and bake this stuff every night if you wanted. Straight from Vermont.

A few other places of note are the Magic Hat brewery.... They've got some new "Wacko" beer that has all natural beet juice in it for the summer. Not too bad tasting, but then I found out that it's pink. I'm sorta glad I left it in the bottle.

Ben & Jerry's is always a plus. There's pretty much ice cream at every Vermont event because of them, but there was nothing exciting this time. I always hope they'll unvail some crazy flavor at one of these events, but it's pretty much always the same vanilla, chocolate, fudge brownie, and cookie dough. Boring, but good.

Then there were a few others with names I can't remember.... The salted caramel chocolates, various flatbreads, cheeses, honey-baked ham, pecan pie-ish thingy, and I grabbed some dog treats on the way out for Axle. Pretty good stuff.

I'd say the only downside to these things is that Megan has 100 people that like to stop by to chat, and I can't really concentrate on eating as much as I'd like... To busy getting introduced to people I'm going to forget.

Anyway, we made our way out to Nellie's Sports Bar afterwards for the roommate's birthday. The rain finally stopped in time to get out on the roof and enjoy the weather. It was sweet though, because I got to meet some of Chaz's friends from college and DC. I found out that my roommate was this hot shit track star in Carthage before quitting to pay for school. He's got a pair of wings tatooed on his ankles that I always wondered about.... But yeah, supposedly the dude's got some wheels. And here I am thinking he's just a good baker. One of his friend's is also working on an exercise science degree over at GW. Basically the same sitch at me, but ended up at GW instead (where they have a wider range of graduate degrees....). Anyway, I'm totally jealous of her and my bro the CSCS who get to work out for work.

Thanks to Vermont and Chaz for a good time last night!