Simple Pleasures of Vermont
By Jen Murphy, Assistant Features Editor
from the blog Mouthing Off (Food & Wine Magazine)

My mom has a big birthday coming up this month so a memorable gift was in order. When I was in college in Boston the two of us would spend a weekend each winter in Vermont. We hadn't been in years so I treated her this past three-day weekend with a stay at the Fan House, a precious B&B in Barnard, Vermont. Whenever I go to Vermont I'm reminded how the simplest things in life can sometimes be the most satisfying. Some highlights of our trip:

1) Out of all of the amazing dishes Sara Widness, the gracious owner of the Fan House, cooked for breakfast each morning, my favorite was also the least complicated: a baked Granny Smith apple with a scoop of vanilla yogurt. I forgot how good a baked apple tastes in the winter. It inspired me to come home and try a few twists on such an easy, healthy dish.

2) A day cross-country skiing in two-feet of fresh snow on the trails of Mount Tom and the Woodstock Inn & Resort ski center erased any remaining NYC stress I had brought with me.

3) Two years ago my mom and I attended Live Well New York, an expo featuring healthy-lifestyle products and organic foods. We picked up a sample of Vermont Morning organic hot cereal and absolutely loved it but were never able to find it again. I spied it on a shelf at the Village Butcher in Woodstock. I think the find made my mom's birthday. She bought two huge pound-and-a-half bags to last her the rest of the winter.

4) I could spend hours browsing the aisles of Gillingham's general store in Woodstock. Their hermit cookies are sinfully good.

5) The paper-thin-crusted, Tuscan-style pizza at Pane e Salute, a 22-seat, husband-and-wife-run restaurant and wine bar in Woodstock, is some of the best I've ever tasted and their roast chicken with fennel pollen is equally delicious. The impressive, all-Italian wine list is far from simple - it's totally unexpected for a tiny Vermont restaurant.

USA Today has a great article about Woodstock by Larry Olmsted.

'Life on Vacation: Live like a Rockefeller in quaint Woodstock' June 6, 2008

Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel has a nice page on Barnard and the Fan House.

Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel Online March 21, 2006

A new story by Suna Kanga about Vermont and the Fan House on:  travellady.com

'Autumn Chase', an article by David Butwin in United Airlines' Hemispheres Magazine:

Most of the New England hotels that answer the "Where's a cushy, cozy, romantic inn?" question are priced upwards of $300 a night for the most basic rooms. But in the bucolic town of Barnard, Vermont, the three-room 1840s Fan House, so named for the fans carved in the wood frames over each window, offers a shockingly high standard of hospitality (handmade lamps by Simon Pearce, Anichini bed linens, Gobelin tapestries on the wall, Bulgari bath amenities) for just over a hundred dollars a night. Hiking, ice skating, snowshoeing, and massages in your room (particularly nice in the fireplace suite) can all be arranged, and the shops and restaurants of Woodstock and the artisan studios of Simon Pearce, Charles Shackleton, and Miranda Thomas are all within a 30-minute drive, tops. You'll return to a fire roaring in the living room and a mug of hot apple cider prepared by owner Sara Widness, who used to work in New York handling public relations for upscale travel clients like the Orient-Express and who seems to know instinctively when to welcome you and when to leave you alone. With the money you save on lodging, splurge on dinner just down the street at the Barnard Inn Restaurant (802-234-9961), noted for its local lamb with a Zinfandel reduction—and its rave review in the Boston Globe. Rooms start at $130 including breakfast (802-234-6704 or thefanhouse.com). newyorkmetro.com
New York Magazine Winter 2006

When you get there, you'll find that everything about the little bed-and-breakfast is as seamless as the directions.
SKI Magazine December 2003

For an excellent dinner, head to the Barnard Inn restaurant. For breakfast, you only have to go down to the dining room for the Fan House special, a cheese soufflé.
NEW YORK POST February 4, 2003

From the outside, the Fan House looks like a modest Vermont home. But once inside, guests are in for a pleasant surprise. The inn's centerpiece is a Victorian kitchen. The kitchen, complete with polished, 18-inch wood-plank floors and a turn-of-the-century wood stove, leads to a farmhouse dining room and living room, where guests congregate around the fireplace to read, listen to classical music or just chat. The decor throughout is elegant, complete with heirloom tapestries and art Widness has collected on her travels around the world.
BOSTON HERALD July 10, 2003

Best Places To Stay ... the new Fan House with pine floors, brushed-steel bedsteads and Provencal fabrics.
TRAVEL & LEISURE April 2003

Relax after a day of bird watching at The Fan House, Barnard, Vermont.
BEST FARES November/December 2003