Oregon Cheese Trail
Oregon
The Oregon Cheese Trail has 16 stops all over the state, but clusters of creameries make for some regional hubs. In the Portland area, the Ancient Heritage Dairy has a small shop right in downtown where passersby can watch through a window as workers make cheese, or visitors can sample and buy it at the chocolate shop next door. Portland Creamery Kitchen is open Wednesday through Saturday, and visitors can try a variety of cheeses made using milk from a private herd of dairy goats.
Near Dundee, Briar Rose Creamery and Willamette Valley Cheese Company “are both in the heart of wine country,” said Katie Bray, executive director of the Oregon Cheese Guild. Briar Rose makes a variety of goat milk cheeses and has a farm store and tasting room that’s open Fridays and Saturdays or by appointment during the week. About 20 miles south, Willamette Valley Cheese Company makes its huge variety of cheeses — gouda, fontina, Havarti, cheddar and jack — using Jersey milk. Groups can visit the tasting room at the farm Tuesday through Saturday and seasonally on Sundays.
On the southern end of the state, four dairy farms and creameries make a Rogue River/Applegate Valley cheese hub. By George Farm makes organic, raw-milk cheese from cows grazed on organic pastures. Pholia Farm is known for its aged, raw-milk cheeses and offers a variety of cheesemaking classes. Crushpad Creamery works well for groups because it’s attached to Wooldridge Creek Winery. The two share a tasting room that’s open daily, and the venture just expanded this summer into house-made charcuterie.
In that same vein, the Oregon Cheese Guild is working with Travel Oregon to expand the trail to feature specialty food producers such as jam and jelly makers, chocolate shops and an olive oil mill near Dundee, Bray said.
Cajun Boudin Trail
Louisiana
There are a few food staples that, whenever mentioned, make your mouth water for a taste of Louisiana: beignets, crawfish and boudin. Boudin is a Cajun sausage made with ingredients that vary depending on the family recipe but usually include a zesty blend of pork, rice and spices. Boudin can be found all over the state — in five-star restaurants and gas station stores — but the area in and around Lafayette is a boudin hub.
The Cajun Boudin Trail includes a dozen boudin locations in the Lafayette region. At Bayou Boudin and Cracklin, visitors will find scratch-made Cajun food as well as a collection of 14 bayou shacks that serve as a collective bayou bed-and-breakfast. Guests can wash down boudin links with a cup of the owner’s homemade root beer.
In Lafayette, Johnson’s Boucaniere (Cajun French for “smokehouse”) is known as much for its boudin as its smoked pulled pork or brisket sandwiches. Joseph Guidroz opened Guidroz Food Center in 1959, and his son still runs the family business, a local favorite where the line often stretches past the hot-food counter into the market’s aisles.
Along the Interstate 10 corridor west of Lafayette, Early’s Food Store and Don’s Specialty Meats, both in Scott, offer their own homemade boudin. Early’s is a Cajun supermarket, and Don’s also sells boudin balls, boudin burritos and boudin pistolettes, which are bread rolls stuffed with boudin and fried.
Now entering its 10th year, the Boudin Cook-Off in downtown Lafayette is a one-day festival that features samples of regional boudin and a boudin-eating contest.
Northeast Kingdom Maple Trail
Vermont
Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom includes three counties in the northeast corner of the state and was listed in Patricia Shultz’s book “1,000 Places to See Before You Die.” And while visiting, there are 1,000 maple syrups to try — roughly.
April’s Maple harvests maple sap on its 800 acres of sugar bush near Canaan. The sugarhouse is open every day except Tuesday, and free tours and maple syrup tastings are available. April’s Maple also has a cafe where groups can have lunch and try the soft-serve maple ice cream.
About 45 minutes west, near the town of Derby, Jed’s Maple is a family-owned operation where groups can experience all things related to “sugaring.” The gift shop sells a range of maple goods, such as maple-frosted nuts and maple balsamic vinaigrette. In 2015, the Wheeler family opened a maple museum in a former sugarhouse, where visitors can see a working wood-fired evaporator, antiques and mementos.
Just a few miles west, on the south end of Lake Memphremagog, the Northeast Kingdom Tasting Center in Newport is a food hall that acts a sort of living museum of the region’s many specialty foods. There, visitors will find a restaurant, a bakery, a cider house, a tasting bar, a coffee shop and a maple shop. Butternut Mountain Farm’s shop showcases the farm’s maple products: syrups, sugars, candies, popcorn, butters, barbecue sauce and pancake mix.
To experience the Vermont tradition of sugaring, the annual Maple Open House is a must. Hundreds of sugarhouses normally closed to the public throw open their doors for a weekend, March 25-26 this year, to teach people about sugar-making. Visitors can enjoy pancake breakfasts and make sugar on the snow, just like Laura Ingalls did in “Little House in the Big Woods.”
