HAPPY LA CHANDELUER

Posted on February 1, 2017

These days it would appear that just about everyone and everything has their own ‘day.’ Some of these are super essential: Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Wine WednesDAY. Others can be downright head-scratching: Watermelon Day, Wiggle Your Toes Day, National Underwear Day (all actual Days). But if there’s one minor obscurity that sure as sin deserves its own day, it’s the Official Food of Pancakia: The Crepes.

 

Yes, friends. There is, in fact, a crepe day. Because of the cosmopolitan nature of the skinny pancakes we enjoy, this day isn’t just national, it’s international!

 

While at first glance this would appear to be a marketing ploy that we made up in order to generate some business in the cold Winter months, let me assure, that we are truly not that clever. While we’ve been celebrating Punxsutawney Phil all these years, Francophiles have been flipping crepes on February 2nd on what they call La Chandeleur: a holy day celebrating Jesus Christ being presented at a church 40 days after his birth.

 

It may sound like this is a day to prance around ornate overhead lighting fixtures, but in fact, the day is celebrated with crepes. Why crepes? Good question. One theory suggests the magnanimous nature of one Pope Gelase began the custom, as he would feed crepes to pilgrims traveling to his church on February 2nd. Others say that eating lots of crepes has simply become customary during the Mardi Gras season and a day emerged in particular. But the theory we’ll choose to run with this year is that the form and color of crepes call to mind images of the sun.

 

Ah, yes, the sun. That magical orb in the sky that so often eludes us in the winter months. Alas, much like our friend the groundhog, one might even say that a crepe could just as accurately predict when exactly we will see our spring, but we won’t go there.

 

Legend has it that while preparing crepes for La Chandeleur, one must hold the crepe pan in one hand, and a single coin in the other. While making a wish, simultaneously flip both the coin and the crepe. If you’re able to catch the coin and somehow avoid burning yourself, CONGRATULATIONS, for wealth and prosperity await you the rest of the year.

 

We imagine that many folks on this side of the pond probably won’t celebrate this somewhat dangerous custom, but, we’d still like to give you an opportunity to eat crepes at least, and we’d like to think there’s some good luck granted to those who do. So while we won’t be flipping coins on International Crepe Day, we will be flipping crepes, and free ones at that. To celebrate our day of days, free Nutella, Pure & Simple, or Pooh Bear crepes for those who join in on the holiday.
HAPPY LA CHANDELUER.

An Ode: To the Odyssey of a Troubadour and a Pancake

Posted on January 25, 2017

The first time I heard Josh Panda perform was on Church Street in the summer of 2008. The Skinny Pancake had just one small location on the Burlington waterfront which had just completed its first trip around the sun. As a small operation, I wore many hats back then – payroll, scheduling, accounting, working shifts on the floor and so much more. I also booked all the music that came through the Skinny for those first two years.

The Church Street Marketplace can be a charming scene in the busy summer months, with musicians of all stripes entertaining the passing crowds. It can also be chaotic: choked with enough people to ruin a Fire Marshall’s afternoon. Regardless of your perspective, there is a lot of competition for attention out there. And yet amongst that scrum, Josh Panda’s performance jumped right out from the crowd. His voice is so crystal clear, so versatile, so powerful, his demeanor so playful. His songwriting has a set of barbs that would make a fisherman jealous. Josh had attracted a crowd that day and lured me in too. Alas, after a few minutes, my many duties called…so I dropped a business card along with a few bucks and moved on down the way.

Like many self-respecting (or self-destructive?) musicians, Josh is not one for self-promotion. My business card likely found its way into his pocket and then onto a disorganized pile in short order…if it didn’t go straight into the trash. But Josh has a secret weapon: his now wife, then girlfriend, and co-owner of Pandarue Productions, Ruth Hill. Several months later, as fall waned into winter’s wax, I received an email in signature Ruth Hill style. She weaved a string through her mother to my brother and onto another sibling just to get our attention to perform in our little creperie. She is focused, determined and smart…though frankly, it wasn’t that hard to get a date on the calendar at the ‘Cake back then. My brother’s note read, “This is that Josh Panda guy Ted was referring to you.  The music certainly passes the test as far as I’m concerned.” His first gig with us was booked with his then backing band, ‘The Murder Ballads’ on the winter solstice of 2008. It was a raging success. In our next newsletter, I reported, “Josh & the Murder Ballads absolutely lit up our venue…one of the best performances we have ever had!!! I told Josh as many days later in a mid-town encounter, thanking him for bringing his talent to our little city. His response:

“I heard Burlington was a hip town with a home-grown music scene…and that’s where I want to be right now. Just hoping to be that double-shot of espresso in the mug of Burlington’s music scene.”

 

In the months and years thereafter, Josh hopscotched through dates at the Skinny P. In 2009, We infamously set him up for our biggest night of the year, July 3rd on the Burlington waterfront. When it threatened to rain, I was dispatched to get shelter and returned with a rather dirty 6’x8′ tarp. Apparently, I still had a lot to learn. Suffice to say, it was insufficient. (My sincerest apologies to the great Lowell Thompson who still holds that one against me.) The party abruptly moved inside as the impending rain approached. The crowd quickly completely overwhelmed our tiny venue. It was muggy and wet. We’re lucky we didn’t have a slip-and-fall lawsuit that day. Panda and his band were on a roll and didn’t want to stop. He kept playing acoustic, his powerful voice projecting over the crowd, while we reassembled our fledgling PA from outside to indoors. We only managed to get one speaker working, but he didn’t seem to care that night…nor did the crowd, so long as they could still enjoy his pipes.

 

In January 2011, after several more packed parties at the Pancake, Josh settled into his weekly Wednesday residency, which has enjoyed a proud five-year run, ending January 25th. Before we expanded our location on the Burlington waterfront, performing at the Pancake was a tightrope walk. Somewhere just past critical mass we would find ourselves over capacity. With not an inch to spare, a performer like Panda could pick up a fork and start eating from a guest’s plate…it was that tight.

 

Half way through his residency, we doubled the size of the Skinny. We were careful to make our last night in the old space our regular Wednesday residency with Josh, and what a night it was. When it was all said and done, we took it upon ourselves to begin the demolition right then and there. This big broad wall had curtailed our size and limited our parties. It had been a physical and psychological barrier. “TEAR DOWN THIS WALL, MR. PANCAKE!!!” Panda declared. Tear it down we did…

With an expanded space and improved performance area, Panda found new life in his residency at the Pancake. He hosted bigger bands. He worked through his own limitations and found comfort in performing alone. We hosted multiple New Year’s Eve crowds together, an infamous Doors cover celebration for Halloween 2015 and many, many more Wednesday nights. For several of us, Wednesday became our weekly routine to get together and catch up.
But like all odysseys, this 5-year collaboration is set to end. And while that’s surely a bittersweet thing for those of us who found weekly comfort in the music and friendship, everything is ultimately impermanent. Moreover, when one door closes another one opens. The Pancake-Panda collaboration is far from over. We’re just moving onto the next chapter.

 

-Benjy Pancake

Who Is Josh Panda?

Posted on January 12, 2017

Ever since the announcement of this show at the Skinny Pancake Hanover, folks all over the Upper Valley have been asking: Who is Josh Panda? 

We here at the Local Music Corner were wondering the same thing, so we dug into this Panda fellow to see what we could find.

It turns out that Joshua Panda, hails from the Southern United States, but ultimately settled in Burlington, VT aiming to be ‘the shot of espresso in the city’s music scene.’ And he’s certainly put his best foot forward in that effort.

Over the years, Josh Panda has tackled pretty much every musical style imaginable, from Tom Waits to Adele:

In addition to these one-off covers he peppers into his shows alongside impressive originals, Mr. Panda knows how to don a musical costume and do a full-length tribute to musical legends. Over the years, he’s channeled, Van Morrison, Bob Marley, Led Zeppelin, the Doors, and relevant to this blog post: The Rolling Stones.

So, to answer the question of, ‘Who is Josh Panda?’ It’s tough to know, really. The man can do anything and be anyone, it just depends on the show you catch.

This Friday, at the Skinny Pancake Hanover, we’ve been assured Josh Panda is bringing his Rolling Stones show, and it’s sure to be a good one. Hope to see you there!

Lots of good music happening across the Upper Valley this week so be sure to give a listen wherever you are. Which shows are YOU most looking forward to this week?

Will Smith and Crepes with Brooke Annibale

Posted on January 5, 2017

Brooke Annibale studied abroad in Paris when she was in college. While her love of songwriting was well established at that point, she gained a new love that summer of 2007: crepes. She may not have seen it coming, but this Saturday at the Skinny Pancake in Hanover she’ll have the opportunity to celebrate both of those loves in the same room.

In advance of the show, I asked Brooke a few questions about her continuing rise as a touring musician. Read below, including a few songs to check out, and come see her for yourself this Saturday night in Hanover.

Local Music Corner: When did you first pick up a guitar? What was the song that made you say, ‘oh, I want to play that?’

Brooke Annibale: I started playing guitar during the summer after my freshman year of high school, when I was 14 going on 15. My grandfather (my mom’s dad) was a guitar player and so is my uncle. That side of my family runs a music shop that sells guitars and other related gear as well as a live sound equipment company here in Pittsburgh. I had started writing lyrics and melodies really young, like in elementary school. When I got a bit older I realized I really wanted to be writing songs. I needed a tool to do that with so the guitar was a natural pick for me, having been around it in some way all my life. I started taking lessons at the family shop that summer and began writing songs a few months later.

LMC: What were the early gigs in Pittsburgh like? What sort of rooms were you playing and what sort of acts were you sharing bills with?

BA: My first live performance was at my high school talent show, which led to my first gig at a local coffee shop. A fellow student had a show booked there and asked me to open. I played that coffee shop frequently and then started playing other coffee shops in surrounding towns. I was mostly sharing the bill with other local acoustic singer-songwriters.

LMC: You graduated with a degree in Music Business. Because of this degree, do you think your approach is more pragmatic than if you were a road warrior during that time?

BA: I’m not sure, because I really think that actual experience within the industry and on the road is just as valuable as studying it. In college, I, fortunately, got a good balance of both of those. I went to Belmont in Nashville and you can really become immersed in the industry while you’re there. I think in some ways the degree gives me a more sensible awareness about the ins & outs of the industry that I might not have gained otherwise. But I also know that I’ve learned just as much from my experiences as I did from my studies.

LMC: How does the production behind this newest release compare to the earlier records? Are there more people involved in the process as you continue to gain a following?

BA: I’ve made my last 2 full-length records and a 6-song EP at the same studio in Nashville. They all have a similar cast of players and people involved because of that, but each are still slightly different. With each release, I’ve gotten more involved in the production process, especially with the dynamics and instrumentation of each song.

LMC: What’s your songwriting process like? Do you start with words or pick out a melody?

BA: The process is always a bit different every time. When I first started writing songs it was definitely the words that came first. Now mostly, it starts with finding something on the guitar that inspires a melody and then sorting out what the song wants to be about from there.

LMC: What are some of your favorite venues you’ve played?

BA: I really like playing house concerts, which if you haven’t heard of, they are exactly what they sound like… concerts in people’s houses. It gives me an opportunity to really connect with people. In Pittsburgh, my favorite place to play is probably the Pittsburgh Winery.

LMC: According to Wikipedia, we were born in the same month (July 87!). Out of curiosity, what were your contemporary influences, musical or otherwise?

BA: Wikipedia is correct on that. Well, the first CD I ever owned was Will Smith, so…

But really, when I first started playing I listened to a lot of John Mayer, and was also pretty into acoustic-based emo music, things that don’t really influence me anymore. I’d say my longest running influence has got to be Elliott Smith and in recent years, songwriters like Glen Hansard (The Swell Season), Lisa Hannigan, and Brandi Carlile have been steady influences in one way or another.

Brooke Annibale: This Saturday at the Skinny Pancake in Hanover – $10 online or at the door.

Lots of good music happening across the Upper Valley this week so be sure to give a listen wherever you are. Which shows are YOU most looking forward to this week?

The Skinny Pancake’s Rockin’ Employees: Chris von Staats, a Man of Many Talents

Posted on December 12, 2016

Each month the Skinny Pancake will give you a behind the scenes look at an employee who embodies the missions and values of the Skinny Pancake. This month, we’re excited to introduce you to Chris von Staats!

Chris von Staats live at Skinny Pancake’s Jazz Night, Tuesday evenings 7-9pm

Chris von Staats, the Skinny Pancake’s Bar Manager, is a man of many talents.

From his creative, locally-inspired prohibition era cocktail creations, to his professional, industrious demeanor managing the Skinny’s bar, and his musical talents (including great vocals and lightning-fast fingers on the guitar), Chris appears able to do it all with relative ease.

When Chris isn’t serving up craft cocktails with a hat tip to drier times, you can find him commanding the stage with an ever-evolving set list at Jazz Night at the Skinny Pancake’s Burlington waterfront location on Tuesday evenings from 7-9pm.

We spoke with Chris on Jazz Night to learn more about what it’s like working for the Skinny Pancake, and what keeps him motivated, movin’ and groovin’.

The Skinny on Chris von Staats and Jazz Night

Chris describes an evening at Jazz Night as a “sophisticated night out on the town,” and a “throwback to an older time.” W ith cocktails from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and von Staats’ group playing Billie Holiday in the background, it’s clear why:

Jazz night special cocktails

Ward 8: rye, lemon juice, orange juice, house-ma de grenadine, homemade maraschino cherry

Casino: Gin, Lemon juice, luxardo maraschino liqueur, housemade orange bitters, lemon, rosemary

SP: It must be interesting pouring drinks one night and playing jazz the next… What’s it like to work at the Skinny Pancake both as an employee and a performer?

CVS: It’s definitely a fun experience. In many ways, it makes me feel so much more connected to the Skinny Pancake. At my place of work, I get to do all the things I want to do. It’s a pretty sweet situation. Also, it’s funny how sometimes the lines are blurred for when one job starts and the other one begins…

On Jazz Night, when I am playing, I’m still coming up with cocktail specials and making sure the bar and everything else is all set. Sometimes, I’ll be playing and one of the staff who knows I’m a manager will come over and say something like, “Hey we need your help! The dishwasher broke!”

And I’ll run back during a set break and go and fix the dishwasher. Or when I am bartending here, if the band is having trouble setting up the sound, I’ll run out and help them set up the sound because I know how to do it.

It’s become where playing here and working here are both a part of my job, and I love it.

Chris von Staats live at skinny pancake’s jazz night, Tuesday evenings 7-9pm

Chris von Staats Mixing up something special

Skinny Pancake (SP): Why do you love working at the Skinny Pancake?

Chris von Staats (CVS): The core values of the company are all things that I love, too. There’s a lot of pride in the stuff that we [Vermonters] make here. For instance, one thing I try to do is make everything in-house. We just started making our own maraschino cherries, our own house grenadine, and our own house bitters—we’re doing everything from scratch.

We’ve also got 10 draught lines of local beer, and plenty of local top-shelf spirits. We’re using local produce and juices when possible in our cocktails, too. I love supporting that and being a part of that, and the Skinny Pancake does too… It’s local from the ground up, and that’s one of the things I love about working at the Skinny.

screen-shot-2016-12-12-at-1-14-13-pm

SP: If you were stranded on a deserted island with a group of people and could only serve one drink, what would it be?

CVS: It would be a “Singapore Sling.” We’ve run it here as a cocktail special before. It’s an old drink from the early 1900s, with a ton of ingredients; it’s a tiki drink. It’s a great example of a well-made, old cocktail that’s still one of the best. And, there are enough ingredients in it, eight in total, to hopefully sustain all of us on that island for a bit.

SP: What’s your favorite crepe and locally-inspired beverage?

CVS: The Jonny crepe, for sure. I order that almost every day. Also, the Crepedilla with the local, braised beef can last me three meals sometimes. I love that as well.

In terms of a beverage, when I started as the Bar Manager, of course, I was all about cocktails, and rarely thought about beers. And now, lately, I’ve really been loving beer. I’ve become somewhat of a beer snob [laughs]. I’m always trying to bring in new, different local producers, and experimenting with flavors and styles.

SP: If you were going to talk with someone who didn’t know much about the Skinny Pancake, what would you tell them?

CVS: I’d want them to know the Skinny Pancake is so much more than just a restaurant. The Skinny’s connections and roots run deep. We support so many local producers, and we support programs and initiatives that are something to be proud of as well, like 1% for the Planet and Green Drinks.

Also, Skinny Pancake has an incredible connection to the town [of Burlington], and Vermont as a whole. There’s a huge number of employees that work here, with all of the different branches throughout Vermont, and now Hanover. I can’t go anywhere in town without running into one of us!

Come on down to Jazz Night Tuesdays from 7-9pm at the Skinny’s Burlington waterfront location to see Chris von Staats throwing it back to an earlier time.

Thanks to Chris for having this interview, and for being such a rockin’ employee of the Skinny Pancake!

Masefield, Perkins and Bolles – Legends in the UV

Posted on December 9, 2016

Check out some Musical Legends this Weekend!

Music in the Upper Valley

Friday, December 9, 2016 by Michael Cyr

 

While we often spend our time taking a broad look at the shows all around the Upper Valley, there is a show happening this weekend with such an impressive collection of musicians that it deserves a deeper dive.

Swinging by the Skinny Pancake Hanover this Saturday are three of the finest musicians in Vermont, if not the entirety of New England: Jamie Masefield, Doug Perkins and Tyler Bolles. Each of these musicians has a colorful career in their own right, which I dig into below. But the key to understanding their genius as a group is to hear them together: their performance together harkens the collective consciousness of tight-knit groups like Hall & Oates, Crosby, Stills & Nash or the Grateful Dead. After numerous gigs playing together, their intuitive understanding of each other’s musical trajectory is undeniable. They finish each other’s musical sentences, embellish each others’ phrasings, grow and quiet their dynamics with the coordination of two legs walking from the same torso. Their combined style is perhaps best described as jazzgrass…influences of Django Rheinhart, David Grisman and Doc Watson litter their shows.

Let’s take a minute to look under the hood of these individual players…

Tyler Bolles is an absolute dynamo of a bass player, but you wouldn’t know it when you met this humble dude. While he’ll be playing the upright variety this Saturday, he can also rock out with strapped up, bass hung low, as he so often does with Vermont act Swale. That band’s 2014 album The Next Instead, stands right up there with any other rock album that’s come out of Vermont according to my ears. You can see Swale on full display in an early filming of Vermont Public Radio’s Live from the Fort series (Quick aside: every video in this series is well worth your time). When he is not playing loud and fast with Swale, Mr. Bolles is also well known for his bluegrass frolicking in a thousand bands around Burlington as well as a stint with Patrick Ross‘ group, Hot Flannel.

Which brings us to our next player, Doug Perkins. Whoa. What a talent. Hailing from Washington, Vermont, Doug made a splash in the ‘90s and early in the ‘oughts with his driving bluegrass get-up, “Smokin’ Grass.” These days, he can be found playing with various groups including Hot Flannel. He also released a standout album in 2012: Music for Flat-Top Guitar. That instrument, the steel string acoustic guitar, looks like a wand in Mr. Perkins’ palms as he plays it like a wizard. No matter what group he’s playing with, watching a Doug Perkins solo will usually leave you with a jaw on the floor.

Speaking of jaws on the floor, enter Jamie Masefield. While he continues to call Vermont home, Jamie has made his mark on the national scene. His early career included a role as banjo player for the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. But  Masefield gained independent notoriety for leading the Jazz Mandolin Project, when he caught the attention of Jon Fishman, drummer and namesake of the legendary jammers Phish. Additionally, here in a public radio loving region, he’s one of only a handful of Vermonters (pre-Bernie Sanders of course), to make his mark on the National Public Radio, having been featured on a Weekend Edition earlier this year talking about the intersection of his work as a stone mason and a mandolin player.

While each of these musicians stands tall in their own right, the sum of the parts is even greater than the whole. Trust me. So come on out this Saturday, December 10th at the Skinny Pancake Hanover, 8pm. Check out more info here.

Lots of good music happening across the Upper Valley this week so be sure to give a listen wherever you are. Which shows are YOU most looking forward to this week?

A Long, Strange Trip for Zach Nugent

Posted on November 30, 2016

Zach Nugent has had quite a run, a long strange trip you might say. And most of that run has been soundtracked by Jerry Garcia’s guitar. He says he first heard Grateful Dead music at the age of 3 or 4. “Music was the Grateful Dead and the Grateful Dead was music. That’s all I knew,” he told me.

At the age of 12, when Zach picked up a guitar, “Ripple” was the first song he learned. “Or at least, what I thought sounded like ‘Ripple’,” he says with a chuckle.

Over a decade later, Nugent is still playing “Ripple,” but instead of in his bedroom in Royalton, VT,  he’s playing in front of thousands of people at the Capitol Theater in New York with Melvin Seals and JGB, in the same spot and alongside the same keyboardist that Jerry played with years ago.

While his home is currently in Burlington, he was raised in Royalton and attended The Sharon Academy. Before Zach returns to the Upper Valley with his own Dead Set crew at the Skinny Pancake in Hanover on 11/26, I caught up with him in Washington, DC. Nugent has been on the road since September playing across the country and is excited to get back to his home base in Vermont. “I hopped immediately on the road when Melvin asked me to join the band and I think I’ve slept in my bed twice since.”

When asked how he found himself to be filling Jerry’s musical shoes, he points to the formation of an informal, weekly, Grateful Dead jam at Burlington’s Nectar’s. What began four years ago with a few Deadheads noodling on couches quickly took on a life of its own. Every Tuesday since then Zach has helped guide a tour de force of special guests from all over the musical map to play tunes from the Grateful Dead songbook. Usual suspects include members of jam bands like Phish, Moe., Turkuaz and  Melvin Seals himself. But there’s also been less likely folks on stage, such as musicians from Lady Gaga’s touring band (yep…that Lady Gaga).

“The unifying power of Grateful Dead music is incredible” we both agreed.

While always a worthwhile evening, the one catch of the weekly Dead Sets has been that the fun didn’t start until 10pm on a Tuesday night. The necessity of hitting the road to play out of town venues on the weekends has unfortunately led to alienating would-be fans who simply can’t stay out after hours on a school night.

“Lots of people have been telling me for years, ‘I’d love to see you play, but I can’t stay up that late,'” Zach relays. Lucky for the Upper Valley, the show next Saturday starts at 9 and is on a weekend. Zach’s stoked because that means everyone can come: friends from back home, folks that have heard about him as a local legend, and even his parents – “Oh, they’ll definitely be there,” he says.

Local Food Audit

Posted on November 21, 2016

“Audit”…it’s not a particularly inviting word. The taxman has put a real damper on the concept. So, when we tell you we’re not only excited, but thrilled by the idea of self-auditing ourselves, try to stick with us for a moment. We’ll do our best to keep it interesting…

It turns out this is our 9th annual local food audit. When we first started this, we bought just over 50% of our food locally. Over the years, we’ve proudly been able to increase that number through more direct planning with farmers as they start to plant, while finding affordable and scalable local products to replace conventional options.

We’re happy to report that this year, we’ve bested all of our previous years’ performance. We’re also stoked to have run the numbers of Montpelier, Burlington Waterfront, and our new Hanover, NH outpost separately. Topping the list, the Montpelier Mini-Skinny clocked in with a hefty 76.27% of local food purchases, which just so happens to be a record for all of Pancakia. At 74%, our newest location in Hanover also outperformed any previous year’s records. And, just barely edging out their own performance from 2015, our original restaurant on the Burlington waterfront weighed in with a respectable 71.78% of our food for the month having been bought locally.

And now, how about a round of “perhaps you’re asking?!?”

Perhaps you’re asking: “how do you define ‘local’?” Good question! Transparency is so important especially when there is no official definition of ‘local food’ and no certifying agency. For example, “Vermont plus 35 miles” is pretty broad for Burlington when Montreal is closer to it than Brattleboro. Also, we all certainly love our craft beers, but few of their ingredients are sourced locally. Is that local? At the Skinny, we use the acronym “S.C.E.N.E.” (Security, Community, Economy, Nutrition and Environment) to identify five primary benefits of buying local. When in doubt about whether an ingredient counts as ‘local’, we measure said ingredient against this acronym “S.C.E.N.E.” Of course, mesclun mix from a farm up the road is local. But we also count locally brewed beers, roasted coffee beans and other value added products produced in the region too all of which contribute to the local economy, community, perhaps security and environment too.

Perhaps you’re asking: “why do some of our locations perform better than others?” It turns out different folks from different towns have slightly different tastes. We may sell more of one product in one town and another in the next. As a result, our “product mix” is different each month. As some crepes are more locally-sourced than others, that alone will lead to a difference between locations. Especially as we extend to regions a bit further away, the availability of local products is constantly changing based on who’s growing it and weather patterns.

Perhaps you’re asking: “why aren’t 100% of your purchases local?” Our goal has never been to be 100% local. Our goal is to buy as much local food as possible. In order to do that, we need to keep the volume UP, which means we need to keep the food affordable enough for folks to eat on a regular basis, which means we need to occasionally source ingredients that aren’t local. Also, people really like Nutella, strawberries, bananas and avocados.

Perhaps you’re asking: “who cares”? We do. Were we to maintain this average throughout the year, it means we spend over $2,000,000 a year into the local food economy, about 8x as much as we bought locally when we first started. In an era where a butterfly bats its economic wings in China and everyone’s pensions plummet, we take comfort and pride in keeping our cash right here in Vermont.

Getting To Know Bow Thayer

Posted on September 14, 2016

3513157Bow Thayer is no stranger to the Vermont music scene.

What started out as small “picking parties” with friends in the backyard of his house in the late 90s evolved gradually into the Tweed River Music Festival, of which Bow was the founder. His love of the region is extremely apparent in both the depth of his music’s natural and homey tones, and the poetry of his lyrics.

 

Thayer is known for his musical inventiveness, and the blending of different genres such as classic rock, punk rock, singer/songwriter, jam band, jazz, bluegrass, and old-time music. Additionally, and perhaps most notably, Bow is known for the creation of the Bojotar—a blend between a banjo, an electric guitar, and the Dobro—essentially, in Bow’s words, “a banjo with an extra low string, or a guitar with the low E taken off and a banjo string added.”

 

3513151In Bow’s latest album, Sundowser (2015), the magic of the Bojotar is on full display. Adding a new, yet eerily familiar twang, the hybrid instrument perfectly compliments the earthy, warm, atmospheric, and toe-tapping vibes of Thayer’s rich melodies. It’s a cool instrument whose popularity seems destined to increase—Bow joked, if you come and see him play the Bojotar at the Skinny Pancake Hanover soon, a few years from now, “when this thing really blows up, you can say you saw it first!”

 

American Songwriter describes Bow as the “best artist to come from New England in recent years.” From the first time we saw Bow play (at an event at the King Arthur Flour headquarters in Norwich, VT, while serving up crepes from our mobile station) we could clearly see why.

 

Bow has graced the stage with artists such as John Hiatt, Richard Thompson, David Lindley, Edgar Winters, Joe Walsh, Booker T. Jones, Levon Helms and more… Although, he notes, quite humbly, he was “just the opening act” for most of them.

 

3513153Bow is based out of a recording studio he built out of hemlock trees he harvested off of his own property and timber-framed himself, spending money only on the metal roofing covering the structure. The studio is appropriately fashioned with solar panels for all of Bow’s musical energy needs to boot.

 

It was from this remote studio along the White River that we had the chance to catch up with Bow, and chat with him about his residency at the Skinny Pancake Hanover:

Skinny Pancake (SP): Given all the entertainment distractions of the modern digital world, how important do you think it is for people to go out and see live music these days?

 

Bow Thayer (BT): It’s really hard to try and keep live music going, and there’s probably many factors to that… One being that there’s so much entertainment right in your house, and even now in your pocket on your phone. There are things that are distracting people these days from going out and committing to seeing live music. Most people would agree it’s very, very important to have live music, but it’s not on people’s priority list, and there’s just so many other things in competition with it. That’s why I think it’s so cool to have a company like the Skinny Pancake that’s actually going the extra mile to bring live music out to the community.

 

SP: How do you think food and music work together?

 

BT: They’ve gone hand-in-hand since the beginning of time. There’s always been that correlation; look at BBQ and the blues… I think you’re really onto something here… I could go on and on about certain metaphors and all this stuff, you know? Music is food for the mind, and blending the two just go hand-in-hand. Feed the body and the mind at the same time!

 

SP: What do you hope to get out of your residency at the Skinny Pancake Hanover?

 

BT: The whole reason I want to do a residency is so I can go work my music out in front of people! I could sit here [in my studio] for 14 hours a day, figuring it out here and recording it, but it doesn’t mean anything unless it’s in front of people.

It gets back to the whole thing of live music, you have to see what works. You can’t see what works by just bouncing it off the wall, you’ve got to bounce it off of other people. You’ve got to get feedback.

 

The people who have been coming to the shows so far sit right down in front and listen… And I don’t care if there’s 2,000 or two people there, I’m going to do the same thing. It’s just so important to have a live audience that you can, on a regular basis, go and work stuff out in front of.

 

So, I’m already getting everything out of this residency with the Skinny that I could want, and that’s a consistent place to work on my musical ideas, in a live format!

 

SP: You’ve played at a lot of different places throughout your musical career. What makes playing at the Skinny Pancake special?

 

BT: I feel really comfortable advertising to my people who have enjoyed my music over the years to come down to the Skinny Pancake. It’s cool. It’s a young, energetic staff, it’s friendly, the food’s good, it’s comfortable, there’s a great selection of drinks, and it SOUNDS GOOD. Honestly, I can’t say that about a lot of the places I’ve played. I’ve got people who like to come up from CT, NY, and MA, and it’s so important to have a place that is quality. If I am going to put my name out there and inviting people up, it’s got to have quality, and the Skinny Pancake is just the right blend of all of it.

 

SP: What’s your go-to crepe and drink of choice at the Skinny?

 

BT: Anything with a buckwheat crepe shell! I’ve had most of the food on the menu, and it’s all wonderful. I’m one of those dudes who can’t really eat wheat anymore, so the menu is perfect for me… And the local ciders, particularly the Eden Cider, I’m addicted to! You’ve got food I can eat, it’s healthy, and the staff is awesome! It’s totally cool.

 

Catch Bow Thayer’s residency at the Skinny Pancake Hanover live every Wednesday evening from 7:30-9:30pm for a night of great tunes, great food, great people, and great fun!

It’s a bird…it’s a plane…it’s a crepe?

Posted on August 10, 2016

Howdy Folks,

It’s a big weekend here at the Burlington Waterfront! A couple months ago when someone said to me, ‘Hey! Have you heard about the Vermont Air Show?” I thought, “Hm, that sounds rad.” Upon further inspection: Wow what a ‘Fluffin awesome Air Show this is!

How awesome is this? Well, for starters, this event is to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the remarkable Vermont Air National Guard. For those of you who don’t know, the story of Vermont’s National Guard begins in 1775 when Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys led the attack on Fort Ticonderoga. In the spirit of Vermont’s future progressivism, this attack was the very first victory of the American Revolution. Like many of Vermont’s firsts, this victory led to many additional great things for our nation.

USAFWhat else we got? Well, we have a serious of flying air demonstrations with all sorts of jets, parachutes, and someone called a ‘Wingwalker.’ I’m not sure exactly what this fellow will be doing but I’m sure it’ll be mighty impressive.

The event is expected to attract up to 40,000 folks a day (wow!), so there’s plenty on the schedule to attract anyone who likes looking up at the sky and listening to a lot of ‘oh’s’ and ‘ah’s’. Event runs from 9-4 each day so be sure to stop by for a truly unique experience on our beautiful waterfront. I’ve also heard there’s a great crepe place nearby with lots of live music and tasty food specials ; ).

New Food Specials

The 99% Burger

This burger is packed local and housemade ingredients. A 6 ounce VT Beef patty, topped with Cabot cheddar cheese, housemade 1000 Island dressing, housemade Bread & Butter pickles, and Jericho Settlers Farms romaine lettuce. Served with a side of fires and a pickle…12.95

Summer Melon Salad

Pitchfork Farms arugula tossed in honey lemon vinaigrette topped with Norris Berry Farm cantaloupe, local cucumbers, crispy prosciutto, and Hi Land Farms chèvre…10.95

The Taco The Town

Local chorizo sausage, VT Bean Crafters black beans, Champlain Creamery queso fresco, fire roasted Pitchfork Farms bell peppers and roasted onions inside a cumin cilantro crepe shell. Served with a side of local greens and housemate tomatillo salsa…12.95