It started with one simple question – can you create delicious and practical meals using only ingredients that can be grown in Vermont?

The Vermont Farm to Table Cookbook features 60 recipes made
with Vermont grown ingredients.

The idea for The Vermont Farm to Table Cookbook was born over two years ago when my sister (and co-author) Nora Rice and I were having a conversation about so-called ‘superfoods.’ The discussion began around the realization that superfoods aren’t much more than good marketing, that a blueberry is packed full of vitamins and anti-oxidants just like a goji berry, but with the added benefit that it can be grown locally, by someone you know and trust. That it can taste even better because you can enjoy it fresh here in Vermont. And that it doesn’t have to be shipped thousands of miles, with a trail of pollution spreading out behind it. And so we began to wonder, would it be possible to create a farm-to-table cookbook with recipes made from only Vermont-grown ingredients?

Right away the ideas started to flow. Early on it was challenging creating recipes within our parameters, but once we got our bearings, the ideas came quickly. Maple bourbon crème brûlée, crispy corn cakes with summer veggie toppings, cider and squash soup and herb butter basted steak were among the 60 recipes that made the final cut.

Jenna Rice photographs a frittata for The Vermont Farm to
Table Cookbook.

The idea of farm-to table foods here in Vermont is nothing new. Indeed our state is one of the best places to live if you want to know where your food comes from. Books on local cooking and restaurants that feature farm-to-table ingredients are easy to find in our state. But, until now, there has never been a book of recipes made with only ingredients from Vermont. Having this foundation of vibrant local food systems to build upon was a large part of our inspiration as we began to work on what, over a year later, would come to be The Vermont Farm to Table Cookbook.

Nora and I grew up in Hartland, Vermont, at the base of an east-facing hill, overlooking fields that have overflowed with a bounty of food for decades if not centuries. Our parents are avid gardeners, and our neighbors were vegetable and dairy farmers. So it goes without saying that we grew up with local food as a part of our lives, (although we did not come to appreciate what we had until years later). As a child, a summer dinner might have included bright yellow crookneck squash from the garden, sautéed with rich golden butter and sweet caramelized onions, perhaps with an appetizer of nutty alpine-style cheese from our neighbor’s farm.

Jenna (L) and Nora (R) as children, with Jersey calves they
helped to care for on their neighbors’ farm.

As young adults tend to do, we spread our wings in our different directions. Nora moved to England where she attended culinary school, while I stayed here in the Upper Valley finding my unconventional way and eventually starting my business offering photography and creative services for food and beverage businesses in Vermont. After cooking in restaurants all over the world from Seattle to Montana to Ireland to New Zealand to Italy, Nora made her way back to Vermont in 2023.

It was later that year that we began developing recipes for The Vermont Farm to Table Cookbook. Nora would create and test recipes before bringing the finished dish to my home photo studio where we would carefully style and photograph it. She has said to me many times that, at the outset, she was skeptical that it would be possible to create a cookbook with only Vermont-grown ingredients with our few tiny exceptions for things like salt and oil. But as we progressed through creating recipes, she was surprised to find that having parameters like the ones we had set for ourselves encouraged more creativity, leading to new ideas and using ingredients in new ways.

In the spring of 2023, as the snow began to disappear, first from the south-facing slopes, and then the shaded hills, we were fully immersed in the project. Creating and photographing recipes on a weekly basis. We still didn’t have a title, we still didn’t have a publisher, but we were certain that we were going to see this project through. We were having too much fun, and were too invested in the idea to stop now.

Cider and Squash Soup, a recipe from the fall chapter of The
Vermont Farm to Table Cookbook featuring locally grown
butternut squash, carrots, and hard cider.

With the cookbook about three-quarters of the way complete, we decided it would be worth reaching out to some publishing companies. It seemed like a longshot, everything we read said that the world of cookbook publishing was incredibly competitive, and after reaching out to an agent and being told that we were too regionally specific, we weren’t too optimistic. But we submitted our manuscript to a few publishers anyway, and were thrilled to hear back from Hatherleigh Press. Located in upstate New York, they had already published a farm-to-table cookbook based in the Catskill Mountains and they wanted to publish us, too. Words fail to express how excited we were when we put pen to paper on our final publishing contract. But we couldn’t rest on our laurels for long because now we had real deadlines to meet. Every recipe had to be  tested to ensure that the directions were clear. We enlisted friends and family for this task. With the recipes tested and finalized, we next turned our attention to design and layout of the cookbook, and finally marketing and promotion.

Crispy Corn Cakes, a summer recipe from The Vermont Farm to
Table Cookbook featuring locally grown cornmeal, tomatoes,
beans, cilantro, peppers and cheese.

As is to be expected with any long term project, our enthusiasm and energy waxed and waned along the way. There were times when we were full of excitement to test recipes, copy edit our manuscript, work on the design and layout and market the book, and there were also times when the opposite was true. This is the part in the story where I am supposed to tell you, the reader, about the struggles that we overcame to bring this cookbook to fruition.

While creating The Vermont Farm to Table Cookbook was not without its ups and downs (a 12-hour copy-editing-marathon-before-a-big-deadline comes to mind) I don’t have too many low points to share. In truth it was a fantastic adventure, a quest to discover if it was possible to create an entire book of recipes using only Vermont-

grown ingredients, and with that same do-it-yourself attitude, for two sisters from Vermont to publish that cookbook. And the answer to both is a resounding YES!

You can learn more about The Vermont Farm to Table Cookbook at VermontFarmToTable.net, or find a copy at major book retailers.