Council Considers Storm Aftermath, Biomass

THE BRIDGE
MARCH 17–APRIL 6, 2011 • PAGE 7
Council Considers Storm Aftermath, Biomass;
Welcomes New Member
by Robyn Estabrook
A
new city council gathered on March
9 to discuss recent weather events,
hiring a new fire chief, and the distrcit energy project.
This first meeting since the Town Meeting
Day election began with the administration
of an oath to reelected councilors Tom
Golonka of District 1 and Sarah Jarvis of District 2, and to Angela Macdonald-Timpone,
the newly elected councilor for District 3.
Alan Weiss, previously the newest council
member, handed over his “newbie badge” to
Macdonald-Timpone, whose family came to
watch and support her on her first day.
The council voted councilor Andy Hooper,
Jarvis and Weiss as president, vice president
and parlimentarian, respectively.
Next up for discussion was the thirdbiggest snowstorm in Vermont on record.
City Manager Bill Fraser recognized the Department of Public Works for their handling
of the March 7 storm.
“I would like to thank the crews of DPW
for the great job that they did during the
storm,” Fraser said. “It really caught us by
surprise, and we had a lot of problems, but
they had everything up and running the next
day, which was great.” He continued, “We
have had some questions about snow removal and pickup. There is a lot more snow
than normal, and it is taking longer, and all
of our snow dumps are filled, except the one
at the Elks Club, so it is a longer haul. It is a
longer process, but be patient; we are posting on our website every day which areas
will be targeted for that night’s snow removal.”
Information about snow removal, warnings and other updates are posted on the
city’s website, Twitter account and Facebook page.
The council also received an update on the
possibility of flooding. With rain and ice
chunks breaking loose from the river, Montpelier could have seen floods. Areas of focus
included the Main Street bridge and the Pioneer Street dam. Montpelier Fire Chief Gesualdo Schneider wanted to let the public know
that the fire department was prepared, but
that it was only a warning. “We do want to
emphasize first of all that it is only a precaution. Forecasting is a very tricky business, to
say the least. But we felt that we would have
been negligent if we didn’t give people the
opportunity to take action,” Schneider said.
Ice could break and flooding could occur
rapidly, leaving little time to prevent damages. “If it does occur, the problem with this
is that it comes very quickly. It is just a matter of an hour or two to the serious flooding
of the downtown,” Schneider said, “Once
the jam has started to work down, we have
relatively little that we can do when the jam
is actually forming. It forms really quickly.
What we can do is warn people ahead of
time so they can try to take actions to protect their property and be prepared to evacuate if necessary.”
The city posted online updates on its Public Flood Monitoring Page throughout the
week, reporting March 11 that the immediate danger of flooding had passed.
The council also discussed the search for
a new Montpelier fire chief, since Schneider
is retiring at the end of April. They are currently accepting applications, and the goal is
to have someone by the retirement date.
Weiss brought up the option of combining
the position with
other responsibilities. Some councilors, like Sherman,
felt that the position
was a full-time job.
“It would be greatly
reducing the services to the community by having a
part-time chief,” she said. It was decided that
the position is a full-time job.
The district energy project update was
then led by Gwendolyn Hallsmith, city planning director. The state of Vermont and the
city of Montpelier’s Department of Planning
and Community Development want to develop a biomass-fueled district heating facility. It will first heat state and city office
buildings and then expand to offer heat to
businesses and residences in downtown
Montpelier, as well.
The total project will cost about $22 million. To fund the project, the Department of
Energy is giving a grant of $8 million and the
state is putting in $7 million of state-capital
money. The city of Montpelier is expected
to put down $2 million. The remaining
money would need to be paid through other
funding sources or project cost reductions.
The council had mixed feelings about the
project. Many councilors felt that it was a
good idea but that they could not afford the
$2 million. As of now, the council is committed to going forward with the project.
Mayor Mary Hooper
said, “I believe this
will work, and it is
the future.”
The meeting concluded with councilor reports, including a welcome for
Macdonald-Timpone.
“I would like to say a very welcome to Angela,” Jarvis said. “I think that it is so valuable
for us to have a new member. I think that we
have gotten comfortable and a little complacent working together, and I think that it
will be great to have a fresh perspective.”
Macdonald-Timpone thanked not only the
voters but also the councilors for being welcoming and helpful. “I do want to thank the
voters of District 3 and I appreciate all of the
votes that I did get. I just want to say that I
thank everyone for coaching me along and
helping me through this process. Tonight
was a really fun and interesting meeting.”
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Tell them you saw it in The Bridge!
PAGE 8 • MARCH 17–APRIL 6, 2011
THE BRIDGE
tiny bites Sam Clark Design
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kitchen design
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cabinets
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ecological kitchens
central Vermont food news
his weekend, March 19 and 20, is the 10th annual Maple Open House Weekend at
sugarhouses all over Vermont. Visitors are encouraged to visit sugarhouses to taste and
learn about Vermont’s liquid gold. A list of area sugarhouses is at vermontmaple.org. For
those who don’t want to go too far, the Capital City Farmers Market will offer traditional
sugar on snow—with local pickles and homemade doughnuts—on Saturday from 10 a.m. to
1 p.m. at the Vermont College of Fine Arts gymnasium.
T
Office: 802 479 4018
www.samclarkdesign.com
ho doesn’t love chocolate? Lee Duberman, chef at Ariel’s restaurant in Brookfield,
recently completed a three-day seminar at Barry Callebaut Chocolate School in Quebec. She offers her season’s last cooking class Sunday, March 20 from noon to 3 p.m. She’ll
share new chocolate delights and old favorites. Salted-caramel chocolate tart with chocolate
sorbet, anyone? Class participants will also taste a variety of different single-source chocolates and use chocolate in a warm alcoholic beverage. $75 per person. Details at ariels
restaurant.com; call 276-3939 to register.
W
W
Sugar
on snow
FREE Maple Syrup Celebration
Saturday, March 19 • 10–1
Last few winter markets . . .
april 2 & 16, 10–2
Vermont College Gym, Montpelier
e
Liv ic!
s
mu
Market moves outdoors May 7!
montpelierfarmersmarket.com | Find us on Facebook
ant to learn more about GMOs? Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, will
host a forum on genetically modified organisms on March 31 at 4:30 p.m. The panelists
include Nina Fedoroff, science and technology adviser to the secretary of state; Natalie DiNicola, vice president of Monsanto Corporation; Doug Gurian-Sherman, senior scientist at
the Union of Concerned Scientists; and Eric Holt-Giménez, the executive director of the
Food First Institute for Food and Development Policy. The event is free and open to the
public. Details at dujs.dartmouth.edu/ad-fontes.
ot gardening? The Skinny Pancake is offering a $500 Community Gardening grant to
the local food project that gets the most votes. Any local food project in Washington or
Chittenden county is eligible. Submission deadline is April 1; the public will vote during
April. Check out skinnypancake.com/grant to submit your idea or to vote for your favorite.
G
he Northeast Kingdom Farm and Food Summit is shaping up to be a dynamic day
of workshops, informational sessions and networking on topics including business planning, composting, farm safety, agritourism, microdairy processing, value-added production,
digital marketing, renewable energy and more. The summit, on Saturday, April 2, from 9 a.m.
to 4 p.m. at Lyndon State College, is free and includes lunch! Details at nekfarmandfood
.eventbrite.com.
T
ural Vermont offers a workshop on the ins and outs of starting and maintaining a successful food-focused business on Monday evening, April 11, at Green Mountain Girls’
Farm in Northfield. Attorneys Adam Prizio and Kenneth Miller will discuss the topic and answer questions. A sliding scale fee of $5–$10 is requested to defray expenses, but no one will
be turned away for lack of funds. Details at ruralvermont.org.
R
G
Time to
Start Seeds!
luten-free, or know someone who is? Learn to cook delicious gluten-free dishes with
Lisa Masé at the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism. Masé will teach participants how to make freshly milled flours from whole grains and cook gluten-free versions
of baked goods and dishes. This is an excellent way to bring whole grains into your diet even
if you are not gluten-free. Enjoy samples and take home recipes. The class, on April 18 from
6:30 to 8 p.m., is $12 ($10 members). Preregistration is required: 224-7100 or e-mail
info@vtherbcenter.org.
—compiled by Sylvia Fagin; send food news to sylviafagin@yahoo.com
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Tell them you saw it in The Bridge!
THE BRIDGE
MARCH 17–APRIL 6, 2011 • PAGE 9
Curry & Spice and Everything Nice
Couple Brings Taste of Indian Subcontinent to Central Vermont
by Sylvia Fagin
T
en years ago, I was fortunate to spend
two months traveling in India. I
stayed in a variety of home-based
guest houses and was continually impressed
with the warm hospitality and generous welcome extended to me. I’d lost the memory
of that hospitality until I visited Bhavna Rauniyar and Rajnish (“Raj”) Gupta, owners of
Curry & Spice Indian Cuisine, last week.
They invited me to lunch with them in their
Montpelier home and sample the dishes that
Bhavna prepares fresh every day for take-out
customers.
Over lunch, the couple shared memories
of their childhoods—he is from outside of
Calcutta, she was born in West Bengal and
raised in Nepal—and their hopes for their
professional lives and family here in Vermont. The affectionate couple finished each
other’s sentences, nudged each other’s
memories and created a friendly atmosphere
for a lovely lunch.
The Curry & Spice menu lists an impressive array of Indian appetizers, salads,
breads, rice dishes like biryani and pulao,
and main courses.
While we chatted, we enjoyed chicken
tikka masala, chunks of tender chicken
simmered in a mild sauce of tomato puree,
cream and butter; dal makhani, black
lentils cooked with onion, tomato and butter
and flavored with cinnamon and other
spices; steamed potatoes infused with bay
leaves; rice with caramelized onions; cucumber raita; and naan, the popular Indian
bread. Every dish was as beautifully presented as it was delicious.
Bhavna explained
that Indian cooking
is like many other
cuisines: There are
some basic recipes,
and each cook infuses the dish with
her (or his) own
culinary personality. A staple of Indian
recipes is a spice combination called garam
masala, masala meaning “mixture,” and
many cooks make their own.
Bhavna was tight-lipped about the particulars of her garam masala. The subtle flavor of
her dishes is a secret worth guarding.
Bhavna started Curry & Spice about a year
ago. She makes every dish to order in her
spacious kitchen on Forest Drive, cooking
enough for lunch for two or a rehearsal dinner for 50. Business is growing steadily by
word of mouth.
“I never thought it would go so well,” she
says, “and people are so nice. I will never be
able to leave Vermont because people are so
nice.”
Bhavna earned a four-year degree in hotel
management and catering—roughly equivalent to a hotel and restaurant management
degree in the U.S.—from a college in Naipur.
There, she studied world cuisine, bakery,
quantity cooking, business and finance. She
learned to cook Thai and French cuisine and
how to speak French. And she met the man
who would become her husband—but not
at school.
Bhavna’s uncle was Raj’s undergrad college guardian, and when Raj fell ill with the
chicken pox, he convalesced with her
uncle. There he met Bhavna, who was lodging with her uncle while working on her degree.
“He fell in love with me,” she says of their
first visit. A year later, he popped the question.
“I proposed right away, rather than wait
and play games,” he recalls. But it wasn’t
that easy.
“Being ambitious, I never wanted to get
married,” she says. “Very sweetly, I said no.”
She continued on with her degree, and he
continued to pursue her, repeating the question regularly. Her response didn’t change—
until her father got involved.
“My dad had seen him as a kid,” she says.
“Once my father
knew it was Raj, it
became a family affair.” The more time
they spent together
the more she knew
she would say yes,
and soon she did.
“I proposed for
seven years before
we got married,” he recalls.
To hear Bhavna tell it, the wait was worth
it. “He’s the man that every woman wants,”
she says.
A little irony exists in the fact that when
they met, Raj didn’t cook at all. “When I
opened his fridge for the first time . . .” she
begins the story.
Food
Bhavna Rauniyar and Rajnish Gupta, owners of Curry & Spice. Photo by Sylvia Fagin.
“It was clean. There was nothing in it,” Raj
laughs.
“Just a packet of chicken nuggets and
some buns,” Bhavna recalls. “He hates to be
in the kitchen.”
“I’m learning a lot,” Raj says. “She spoils
me.”
Chicken remains Raj’s favorite dish, and
Bhavna says she’s learned a “hundred” different chicken recipes for Raj.
They both laugh at this story, obviously
still enamored with each other. That was
2003; now he works as an engineer with the
Vermont Agency of Transportation, she
cooks and plans other projects, and they
raise their 4-year-old daughter Jiya bilingually
in English and Hindi.
Those other projects? “If I concentrate on
one thing too long, I get very bored,” she
says. So she’s just finished writing a children’s book set in a Himalayan kingdom,
based on the Indian myths that she and Raj
heard as children. As she waits to hear back
from her editor, she’s contemplating a cookbook of Indian recipes using ingredients easily found in the States.
One such recipe might be her variation on
gulab jamun, a popular Indian dessert consisting of a flour-and-cheese dumpling
soaked in a sweet syrup. Bhavna is experimenting with sweetening her version with
maple syrup and adding ricotta cheese to the
syrup for an extra-rich treat.
And she’s just begun preparing take-out
meals for Hunger Mountain Coop, where
shoppers can pick up lunches like cashew
rice with jalfrezi, paneer cheese cooked
with onions and peppers; paneer tikka
wraps, Indian cheese and vegetables in a
wrap for a quick snack; and vegetable croquettes, a combination of beets, beans and
peas, breaded and fried.
Some have suggested that Bhavna open a
restaurant, but for the time being she prefers
her home-based business so that she can be
available to Jiya. Being so far from so much
of her family, she keeps Raj and Jiya close,
stating simply, “it’s the family that counts.”
View the entire menu at currynspice.net;
order at 229-0587.
Sylvia Fagin writes about local food and
agriculture. Contact her via her blog Aar,
Naam ~ Come, Eat, at sylviafagin.wordpress.com, or via e-mail at sylviafagin
@yahoo.com.
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PAGE 10 • MARCH 17–APRIL 6, 2011
THE BRIDGE
THE
Hands-On
Gardener
by Miriam Hansen
Lions, Lambs and Greens
S
now, sleet, rain and ice have brought
early March in like a lion, but when late
March goes gamboling out as a lamb,
my five trays of onions will be ready to go
out in the greenhouse. I’ve been snipping
the onion tops to encourage root growth,
and the stems are filling out. I also have a bonanza of celery seedlings and a newly started
tray of lettuce and spinach to transplant into
the greenhouse next month.
We shoveled five feet of snow away from
the greenhouse door to get a picture of the
spinach, claytonia, Asian greens and lettuce I
planted last fall. As the daylight lengthens,
they’re growing again, and harvest should
begin in about two weeks. The Blushed Butter Cos lettuce I planted in August is a bit
bedraggled but may yet come back. I did harvest pretty aggressively throughout the fall
so if those plants don’t produce, I’m ready to
pop new seedlings in around them. I’ve
planted three lettuce seeds per cell and will
use the “cut and come again” method of harvesting one loose head or leaves and leaving
the others to grow. By the time I’ve harvested the last of the three, the first one will
be “coming again” for the second round.
Nancy is a favorite Butterhead, well suited to
early spring greenhouse plantings. Other favorites include Forellenschluss, a speckled,
delicately flavored Cos, and De Morges
Braun, a loose-leaf that matures like a romaine and is one of the last to bolt.
Space, with its giant, slightly savoyed
(crumpled) leaves, is hands down my
spinach of choice for the early spring greenhouse. But I also grow Olympia spring and
fall in my cold frames, and Tyee is the best
spinach to plant when mud season morphs
into summer overnight. I realize that not
everyone is addicted to growing as many different varieties as I am. My advice would be
to ask other gardeners what they like to
grow and then experiment and settle on the
varieties you like best.
This time of year I get hungry for parsley,
so I soaked some seed for 10 days, refilling
the bowl twice when the water evaporated.
And it worked! Instead of waiting almost a
month for the parsley to germinate, the first
seedlings were up in one week. I’m trying
that with delphinium seeds, too. I’ll let you
know how it works out.
One of the most common mistakes for beginning gardeners is overwatering. Let your
trays and pots get on the dry side before watering. I water my seedlings every two to
three days depending on need, using a large
plastic Pepsi bottle. The narrow neck of the
bottle allows me to control the flow so I
don’t knock over the emerging seedlings.
Last year I planted broccoli, cauliflower
and Brussels sprouts early to mid-March for
spring crops. It was too anxiety producing
because they were ready to go out in early
May before danger of hard frost was past.
Even with a May snowfall, I squeaked by with
floating row covers over the plants as protection. But this year I’ll plant my earliest
broccoli and cauliflower the last week of
March and wait to plant Brussels sprouts until
April. I did have a successful crop of sprouts
last year, but I’d rather have them all get
sweetened by frost before I start harvesting.
A neighbor recently called asking what my
favorite varieties of tomatoes and peppers
are, so I thought I’d share those with you.
Now is the time to start tomatoes for setting
out in the greenhouse. They suggest six to
eight weeks from germination, so if I plant
March 12; the seeds will germinate by March
20 and be ready to put in the greenhouse the
first week in May. If you are growing them
outdoors, start early to mid April.
I like to grow cherry tomatoes in the
greenhouse. They’re such a treat and will
bear well until the end of November. Sweet
Chelsea is a large, sweet and tangy variety
I’ve grown for years. The cherry you can’t
do without is Sun Gold, the sweetest melt-inyour-mouth candy-like cherry tomato on the
market. This year, true to my insatiable nature, I’m also going to try Matt’s Wild Cherries—a variety Johnny’s describes as “the
wild tomato with luscious taste.” It purportedly grows wild in Hidalgo, Mexico, which
means you can save the seed or let it selfsow. If the taste is as fabulous as the description (not always true), this will be a
keeper!
All the other tomatoes I’m planting are
heirlooms. Unlike hybrids, heirlooms are
plants whose seed will “come true” or reproduce the original plant. I used to grow the hybrid tomato Celebrity, but Monsanto has the
patent now, and I’m happy to report that
there are heirloom varieties as good or better
that allow you to save your own seed and not
contribute to that corporation’s swollen coffers. Opalka Paste is a Polish tomato that produces enormous meaty paste tomatoes for
my sauce, which one of my neighbors says
makes the best lasagna around! Cosmonaut
Volkov and Brandywine are the two I grow
for salads, slicing and to add to Opalka for
sauce and salsa. Oh, and this year I’m also
growing Orange Banana Paste Tomatoes. The
description got me. Again.
That brings me to peppers. This year I’ll
plant them at the end rather than the middle
of March. My outdoor peppers produced as
well or better than the ones I grew in the
greenhouse. I’m not sure why. But tomatoes
and cucumbers gave such outstanding yields
in the greenhouse; I’ll prioritize those and
do my peppers under floating row covers.
I’m embarrassed to reveal how many
kinds of peppers I plan to grow this year—
five sweet and four with various degrees of
heat. Of these, I only want to trumpet Apple
and Amish Pimiento as varieties that produce large yields of irresistibly sweet red
peppers, the kind I can’t often afford to buy
at the store! Anaheim Chile Numex Joe
Parker produced a huge crop of slightly
heated long red peppers that I cut up and
froze or put into sauce and salsas. Absolutely
delicious! My husband loves pepperoncini
so I am trying three new hot peppers this
year, Jaluv, Chilipeno and Hot Portugal. I’ll
let you know how that turns out.
Enjoy your seedlings and save room for
the big push in April! Happy gardening.
Miriam Hansen lives in East Montpelier,
where she and her husband David grow
most of their own meat and vegetables on
about 1/6 of an acre. If you have specific
questions you’d like her to address in a column or would be interested in attending a
spring workshop, you can reach Miriam
c/o The Bridge.
THE BRIDGE
MARCH 17–APRIL 6, 2011 • PAGE 11
A Change in Tempo for Rhapsody
by Elizabeth Casey
I
f you are a regular reader of The Bridge,
you may already know that Rhapsody
Café, a Main Street mainstay, has been advertised for sale. It is now under contract,
and current owners, Elysha and Sjon Welters,
will close this chapter of Rhapsody Café at
the end of March. The Welterses, whose dedication to bringing people into community
through food and sustainable, macrobiotic
sustenance, have enlarged their vision as
their focus has sharpened on an expansion of
the production business of tempeh, egg rolls
and amazake and offering these locally made
products to the larger community.
I met with Elysha and Sjon on a sunny winter day at their home in Cabot to talk about
the changes they are undergoing. Elysha and
I talked as we meandered through the
“neighborhood,” viewing fields glistening
with bright snow and imagining these fields
filled with soybean crops. We sat with tea
and animal crackers, enjoying the view from
their great room, again letting our minds envision these meadows differently, this time:
rice paddies. In our discussions, I learned
that both Sjon and Elysha feel that their devotion to a macrobiotic, organic and local
food source could best be realized right at
home, enabling them to expand their vision
of land use—for themselves and for their
home community, and perhaps impacting
the world at large.
Amazake?
y first question: what is amazake?
Amazake is a sweet, nourishing
beverage made from rice. While it is a
close cousin to rice milk, it differs in that
it has been fermented. For amazake, the
rice is first steamed and then cultured
with koji, the fungus (or spores) that is
used in most Japanese cultured foods
and beverages. It is then incubated until
the rice starch has been converted into
sugars, hence the sweetness of amazake.
(If the incubation period continued, the
fermentation would then convert the
sugars to alcohol; the resulting product
would be sake, or rice wine.) Amazake is
quite versatile: it is a fine substitute for
those with lactose intolerance; it is a
high-protein sweetener, especially good
on oatmeal (with a touch of ginger) and
it is an ideal addition to smoothies.
—Elizabeth Casey
M
All big changes for the Rhapsody family,
but the primal vision remains the same: living
and promoting the universal benefits of a
macrobiotic diet, deriving protein chiefly
from beans, legumes and grains. Elysha and
Sjon believe that by sharing this diet, this way
of life, they support not only themselves, but
their neighbors. Elysha explained, “Food is
community. It brings people together.” Further, they believe that in adopting this
lifestyle, they can live in closer harmony with
the Earth. First, they minimize their carbon
footprint by raising crops for immediate consumption and use. Second, they promote reducing or eliminating land use for the giant
agribusiness growth of meat protein. This is
not to say that the Welterses are rigid in their
focus on vegetarian diet, for themselves or
others. They do eat chicken or fish occasionally. Last, they are able to increase community sustainability with their support for local
farmers whose vegetable, legume and grain
crops provide for Rhapsody’s business.
Things have changed for the Welterses
since they opened Rhapsody nine years ago.
The café, while a labor of love, began to be
too laborious. Sjon found he was drawn to
producing tempeh from scratch, and he
began to devote more of his time to this endeavor. As he was still cooking for Rhapsody, a full-time job, he found the help he
needed to continue his tempeh production
from his children. Both daughter Madelief
and son Oliver have been involved in the
family business from an early age. Currently,
Madelief manages the café, and Oliver has
been assisting in the building of the new production facility for Rhapsody’s new ventures. Another son, Quint, is pursuing his
master’s in fine arts in Holland.
The production facility—the “factory,” as
it has been nicknamed—is nearing completion. Sjon and Oliver were working on different spaces inside the factory as Elysha
gave me the tour; I learned much about the
production of the three main offerings that
Rhapsody will be marketing and distributing.
These are well known to most Montpelier
residents as Rhapsody Café’s big sellers: egg
rolls, tempeh and amazake. Being able to
produce tempeh from the factory is the realization of a dream for Sjon, especially since
he began producing for markets other than
the café.
The factory includes spaces for the walkin cooler and freezer, fryers for the eggrolls
and amazake steamers, as well as a great deal
of space and machinery devoted to tempeh
production, including the incubation room.
Next to the factory is a small short silo. Originally this was to be used as a silo—to store
Sjon Welters in the “factory,” scheduled to start production next week. Photo by Elizabeth
Casey.
grains—but as plans changed, Elysha
jumped on the opportunity to turn the silo
into an office. It is an enviable office space,
with 360-degree views, a short walk from
the production area and, most importantly
for Elysha, not housed inside her home. She
is looking forward to her new commute, a
five-minute stroll from her kitchen—no need
for a car or the 35minute drive she undertakes on the days
she comes into
Montpelier. Just recently, she and Sjon
decided on the footprint and orientation of the desk, and
it has been built and
installed.
When Elysha and Sjon talk about their
new directions, one can see the excitement
in their faces. Elysha is quite animated about
the rice paddies; she is almost in disbelief
herself as she educates me about the cultivation of rice, “From each shoot, each plant,
the yield is up to 1,600 grains! That is 1,600
seeds to plant for the next crop!”
Additionally, Elysha has not given up her
love for her Montpelier connection; she and
Sjon are considering the possibility of a
Rhapsody booth at the Montpelier farmers’
market.
Leaving Rhapsody Café is bittersweet.
Helping to ease the growing pains that
Elysha and Sjon are experiencing is the
knowledge that the prospective new owners
of the café space value locally and organically grown food as the Welterses do. Sjon
and Elysha had hoped for that direction. To
say “goodbye and many thanks” to Montpelier and all they
friends
they’ve
made over nine
years, Elysha and
Sjon are hosting a
farewell buffet on
March 27 from
11:30 a.m. to 3
p.m., on the last day
of the film festival.
The food will be free. Come and taste your
favorites one last time in that familiar spot,
wish the Welterses good fortune and look
forward, as they do, to a new beginning.
They have also prepared a questionnaire; let
them know your thoughts about their new
ventures. Your suggestions will help refine
their business line to offer what you’d like to
see.
Food
If you’d like more information about
Rhapsody, their vision and their products,
please visit their website: rhapsodynatural
foods.org.
Tell them you saw it
in The Bridge!
PAGE 12 • MARCH 17–APRIL 6, 2011
THE BRIDGE
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32 Main Street
Montpelier, VT 05602
Ph: (802) 223-0500
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MARCH 17–APRIL 6, 2011 • PAGE 13
The Past and Future of the Alvarez Block
by Nat Frothingham
R
aymond Alvarez was three days past
his 84th birthday on a recent Saturday
afternoon when he welcomed me
into his Montpelier home.
I had phoned Alvarez a few days earlier to
talk about the number of vacant downtown
Montpelier storefronts and the growing
length of time that some of these storefronts
have been empty, some for a year, others
longer.
Alvarez owns a two-story building at 112
–116 Main Street, about halfway between
Langdon and School Streets. A granite
marker just under the building roofline identifies it as the “Alvarez Block.”
It was Raymond’s father, Narciso Alvarez
(also called Villa), and his mother,
Josephine, whose maiden name was Ghiringhelli, who first opened the Capital Market
at 116 Main Street after the 1927 flood. And
it was Raymond’s family and the store’s loyal
and hard-working employees who made it
the success it was. The market was sold after
the Montpelier flood of 1992.
Longtime Montpelier residents remember
the Capital Market, with its oiled hardwood
floors with fruit and vegetables out front and
the pasta, canned goods and jars of this and
that neatly stacked on shelves on either sides
of two narrow aisles. These aisles led to a
counter where your purchases were added
up on the back of a brown paper bag. At the
back of the store was a big meat case and,
behind that, a walk-in cooler.
The heartbeat of the store was the Alvarez
family: Josephine, Josephine’s sister Rose
Ghiringhelli, Villa at the meat case and Raymond himself. These were the people at the
counter greeting customers by name, bagging groceries, taking money, giving change.
For 30 years, Amos Dow drove a Capital Market truck and delivered grocery orders. It
was personal and friendly.
“I probably started working at the store
when I was 14 years old,” Alvarez said,
“pecking potatoes, sweeping the floor.”
The potatoes came in a 60-pound bran
sack and were dumped into the cellar
through a chute in the sidewalk. It was Alvarez’s job to “peck” potatoes into 10- or 15pound bags. Back then, a 10-pound bag sold
for 49 cents. “Now they sell for as much as
$4.99,” he said.
“We always had two or three meat cutters,” said Alvarez, who was a meat cutter
himself.
“We had a wonderful meat cutter whose
name was Maurice Perusse. When he left the
service, he trained to be a meat cutter. He
was home from the service for three days
when he began working at Capital Market.”
Perusse was a fixture at Capital Market for
the rest of his working life.
Customers shopped at Capital Market for
meat, but a number of other elements contributed to the store’s success.
As Alvarez explained, “Back then, many
women didn’t work outside the home. They
called in orders, and they got billed once a
month. A lot of customers were National Life
employees and their families. Since they got
paid twice a month, they would come in
every two weeks and pay their bills. People
operated on a cash basis.”
The Capital Market delivered to your door.
This meant that people got fresh food, fresh
milk from local farms and fresh bread from
local bakers.
“Back when we started,” Alvarez said,
“there was no such thing as a 40-hour week.”
It was 7 in the morning until 7 at night.
During the holidays it was turkeys and fruit
baskets. “I would be there from 6 in the
morning often until 12 midnight.”
Alvarez remembers a record holiday season when he and another employee, Pedro
Monte, eviscerated and dressed 350 turkeys.
The Alvarez family thrived on hard work.
Josephine lived to be 98. Villa was still working at the market when he was 104. In his
final years, he would come down to the
store at 7 a.m. and work until 11 a.m. and
then go home.
In 1964 the Alvarez family bought the
block that now bears their name. It was Raymond who negotiated the deal. He bought
the building from Barre attorney Richard
Davis.
When the Alvarez family bought the building in 1964, it was a four-story block. But in
1972, a fire broke out in an upstairs apartment over the Lobster Pot. The alarm
sounded at 7:30 a.m. and the fire from the
Lobster Pot apartment “jumped the roof”
and badly damaged the Alvarez block. Local
contractor Ken Baird was enlisted to settle
with the insurance company and put everything back together again, but as a two-story
building.
“We were fortunate. We had good tenants,” Alvarez said. For a time, upstairs was
rented out as an attorney’s office. First, it
was rented to lawyer Richard Brock. Later, it
was rented to another lawyer, John Burgess.
Other upstairs tenants included a federal
Fish and Game office and Mass Mutual, and
later the New England Culinary Institute
(NECI) rented the upstairs space. “NECI was
a great tenant,” Alvarez said.
At street level, the Times Argus was a
longtime tenant, dating back to the 1870s.
“They owned the building at one time,” said
Alvarez. “The paper was printed in back.”
But the Times Argus moved out in June
2010.
When Capital Market was sold in 1992, it
was sold as a market and subsequently
turned over twice as a market. Then Red-
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Above, the building at 112–116 Main
Street, owned by Ray Alvarez, right. Photos
by Nat Frothingham.
berry Boutique, a women’s clothing store,
took over the space. When Redberry closed
a couple of years ago, the space was taken
over by Adorn, another women’s clothing
store. In recent months, Adorn has moved to
another downtown location.
Today, the Alvarez Block has one remaining tenant, Vy Vy Nails. The upstairs is
empty. After the Times Argus moved out,
Venus Tattoo came in. But the tattoo business closed in three months. “The owner
was taken sick,” Alvarez explained.
When there were three storefront tenants,
even though the upstairs space was empty,
the building was a break-even proposition.
With a single tenant left, it’s no longer breakeven.
There has been interest in renting spaces
both upstairs and down. People have inquired about renting an apartment in the upstairs space. But Alvarez really wants to rent
the upstairs as a commercial space.
“It’s partly my fault,” he said about the
empty space upstairs. “You could make that
two apartments.” Then he added, “I’m 84. I
didn’t want the hassles.”
There’s been interest from hairdressers
and exercise people for the upstairs space—
even from antique sellers. Hairdressers
would require more water and Alvarez didn’t
want to get into that.
“I had a guy who wanted to start a winetasting business.” But the city council said
no. “We’ve had inquiries from some people
who couldn’t make the rent,” he added.
When someone calls, Alvarez doesn’t start
out talking about how much the rent will be.
Instead he asks, “What’s your background?
What type of business are you in?” Only
when he has satisfied himself on these questions will Alvarez proceed to the details.
In all the time he’s rented space upstairs
and down, Alvarez has never taken a security
deposit. “It’s been word of mouth,” he said.
“We’ve had good tenants. My word is my
bond.”
But with his last two tenants, Alvarez has
taken a loss, because there was no security
deposit. “I don’t think in all the years, I’ve
had more than four leases. It’s been a shake
of the hand.”
His deal with Vy Vy Nails was a verbal
agreement. And it has worked: “They pay
the first of the month. It’s right on time.
They are a reputable tenant. Their word is
their bond.”