Sickles Market Leads Culinary Tour to Vermont

So what’s so special about traveling with a gourmet market as your guide? The mutual respect and passion between a respected market and their suppliers magically opens private doors to suppliers’ workspaces, farms and homes rarely, if ever, open to the public. The result is a travel experience that is richer than any other tour you have ever experienced before. Sickles Market On the Road Tour to Woodstock, Vermont from September 22-25 is just such an experience. For more details read more below and/or call tour director Kirsty Dougherty 732.741.9563 or e mail kdougherty@sicklesmarket.com. 

With Sickles Market - an award-winning century-old gourmet food and lifestyle market located on family property in Little Silver, NJ, that dates back to a King’s Land Grant in 1665 - your small, exclusive, luxury tour will explore the inner world of food producers and artisans.  For example Sickles Market has arranged a tour with industry leader Allison Hooper, co-owner of multi-award winning Vermont Butter & Creamery. Allison will give you her personal story as she leads you through her cutting-edge cheesemaking facility, then to her new goat farm. The day wraps up with Allison as your host for an as-real-as-it-gets farm to table dinner at her home!

Vermont is known for its top rated cheeses and another visit will be to Vermont cheese pioneers of award-winning Thistle Hill Farm Tarentaise. John and Janine Putnam are renegades of sorts. They set out to make a cheese they loved when the only Vermont cheeses to be found were mainstays such as Cabot and Grafton. They now raise and milk their own grass-fed Jersey cows to produce this magnificent Alpine style cheese. You will hear firsthand as John and Janine recall their journey from novices to award-winning cheesemakers. At the farm you will see how they make their cheese while taking in the gorgeous pastoral views of their hillside farm. Then you will taste the organic Tarentaise and know exactly what “farmstead” cheese means. Idyllic? You bet! Exciting? Yes! This is the kind of trip that will replay in your memory long after the trip has ended. You will have gained a whole new understanding of food sourcing, similar to that of Bob Sickles, who, with his wife Leslie, will be your guides.

Mid-September is Fall Foliage time in Woodstock, a historic village so breathtaking that a recent Boston Globe travel article called it “almost ridiculously pretty.” Other treats include a catered dinner of local foods by Woodstock Farmers’ Market – a must-stop inclusion in a recent Martha Stewart Living travel article - at the gorgeous Jackson House Inn. Accommodations are provided at Woodstock Inn, a Preferred Luxury hotel, which offers both charm and convenience and is the centerpiece in this walk-able Vermont village.

In addition to the expertise of Sickles Market’s professional tour guide, Kirsty Dougherty, Karen Irvine, a Vermont native and food writer, will also be your guide on this amazing trip. The price is $1,700 per person. Upgrades are available upon request. For more information e mail Kirsty at kdougherty@sicklesmarket.com or call 732.741.9563 or visit sickesmarket.com