Dinner Party Delights
If you’re keen on hosting dinner parties but not so keen on cooking, you might consider moving to the Mad River Valley. That’s because everything you need to impress your guests and delight your palate and theirs can be found within this Vermont paradise.
Ingredients for an ideal dinner party
To get this dinner party started, you’ll need a car for the hunting and gathering, a handful of hungry family and friends, and a table on which to host them. Beyond that, count on the Valley to provide everything you’ll need for a great dinner party—appetizers through desserts.
Appetizers:
The Taste Place in Waitsfield offers a broad range of local cheeses and artisanal crackers to whet your guests’ appetites. Add beefy Castelvetrano olives and a few locally cured salamis and sausages, and you have a cheese and charcuterie board to rival any from the big city. If you can’t make it into the Taste Place, Mehuron’s supermarket offers an enviable cheese selection. And Von Trapp Farmstead, tucked just off the bucolic Common Road, offers organic, award-winning cows-milk cheeses in their family store. Try the buttery Oma and the natural-rind Mad River Blue.
Starters:
As we enter the cooler months, soup is an ideal start to the seated meal. While you’re at Von Trapp Farmstead picking up cheeses, grab a couple of quarts of their ever-rotating organic soups, reflecting the bounty ripe in Vermont’s fields.
The Main Course:
For this dinner party, we want something ready-made that tastes homemade. Kitchenette and DinoBones to the rescue! Both caterers offer weekly menus of complete meals sure to delight. The DinoBones brisket, pulled pork, or baby back ribs paired with their honey bun rolls (a family recipe) will have your guests cheering. Everything you can order from Kitchenette will be delicious, though we are partial to their pasta and their chicken parmesan.
Dessert:
For the meal’s grand finale, choose from assorted bars, cookies, and ice cream treats at the Sweet Spot, or order a custom cake or pie from Pies on the Side. The Warren Store can also be relied on for delicious seasonal pies and assorted baked goods.
Beer and Wine:
You’ll need wine and beer to pair with all this good food. Head to Lawson’s Finest for craft beer heaven and The Taste Place or Mehurons for a solid selection of beers and wines.
All you need to do now is invite your guests!
If you know of additional dinner party resources in the Mad River Valley not included in this post, please share them by replying in the comments section below