The best story pitch I've ever gotten might be the hand-drawn invitation that arrived on my desk from Miranda Syp. A note on the back read, "Hello! My name is Miranda Syp of Syp Brand Pierogi, LLC. I'd like to invite you to my next Pierogi Monday."

I'm a sucker for pop-ups and for pierogi, so this one was a no-brainer. As a bonus, these pierogi prices align quite nicely with the parameters of Dining on a Dime.

Syp has been making her "little pockets of love" since 2009, when she was living in Barre and received a grant from the Central Vermont Community Action Council. Working out of the L.A.C.E. community kitchen, Syp made pierogi for pop-up dinners and sold them wholesale and at farmers markets. When she moved to Burlington, Syp continued the business by popping up at the now closed Cobblestone Deli and Café on Battery Street in 2012.

Now, pierogi lovers can find Syp at Barrio Bakery.  Since June, she has been taking over the café on the first Monday of the month — serving potato-cheddar pierogi in place of pastries and cold brew.

At the pop-up, a plate of six pierogi is $9, and a plate with salad is $12. Both options come piled with sour cream, onions and Pitchfork Farm & Pickle sauerkraut.  The salad is dressed with a bright, tangy vinaigrette, which Syp said is an homage to her childhood visits to her Polish grandmother in France.

"My grandmother was a potato farmer in Poland, but she moved to France before the war because of a potato famine," said Syp. "The plate I serve is sort of a French-American-Polish fusion, which really represents who I am."
The pierogi are filled with potato and  Vermont cheddar, instead of the farmers' cheese that Syp's grandmother would have used. More than just fitting into Syp's geographic life story, the sharpness of the cheddar is a perfect complement to the sweetness of the onions and the sour zing from the sauerkraut that tops them.

The salad is worth the extra $3, both to contrast the heartiness of the pierogi and to really understand Syp's culinary point of view. With both on the plate, it's a filling — and delightful — dinner.

People seemed to agree, as there was a steady line all night and Syp had sold out fully by 7:45 p.m. "I felt like I had to educate people about pierogi when I started, but people know about them now," she said.

Syp is looking forward to increasing her pop-up nights at Barrio to include both the first and the third Mondays of the month, from 6 to 8 p.m. starting in October.

Beyond that, she wants to keep things small and stick with pop-ups. A conversation with a customer at the most recent pop-up reinforced her focus on bringing people from the neighborhood together.

The customer mentioned the Polish "bar mleczny," or "milk bars."  These cafeterias are subsidized by the state, offering low-priced menu items that draw in people from every social category for an egalitarian, affordable meal. Now that's dining on a dime.

Dining on a Dime is a weekly series featuring well-made, filling bites (something substantial enough to qualify as a small meal or better) for $12 or less. Know of a tasty dish we should feature? Drop us a line: [email protected].

You don't hear much about "full artists," but after stopping for lunch at South Burlington's Starving Artist Café, I think it may be time to flip the trope.

Starving Artist Café is part of Davis Studio, which was founded in 2003 by director Teresa Davis. Located inside a stately tan house with white columns on Shelburne Road in South Burlington, the studio offers classes and camps focused on the arts for creative folks of all ages, from drawing and painting to jewelry making and fused glass work. On a weekday in August, every room was full of young artists putting the right side of their brains to work.

The café itself has been open for three years, and offers counter service for breakfast and lunch during the week and a full-service weekend brunch. Walking through the front door feels like entering someone's home, with a maze of cozy, art-covered rooms vying for attention.

My dining companions (two writers from the Seven Days arts team, appropriately) and I made a wrong turn trying to find the café's service counter and took a detour through the bustling dining room before spying the "order here" sign — we brushed it off as trying to engage the creative side of our brains, too.

Finally in the right place, we grabbed menus and tried to decide between the aptly named breakfast and lunch offerings. Was I in the mood for Monet's Garden Omelette, Matisse in Morocco, or Vincent Van Goghgurt?

Always pro-breakfast (which is served all day at the Starving Artist), I ordered one of the day's specials: a vegetable-stuffed hash with sunny-side-up eggs and cheddar ($12). One coworker went for a sandwich with bacon, cheddar, maple-and-bourbon onion jam ($10). The other opted for a classic grilled cheese ($6) with a cup of tomato-basil soup ($3.50).

We grabbed water and coffee from the self-service station and headed into the gallery room to find an open table. The walls were covered in food-related art, upon which we feasted our eyes while we waited for our meals to arrive. 

At the far end of the long, open room, young artists returned to their tables. We braced ourselves, ready for the noise level to go way up.

We must have been channelling our own post-lunch behavior back in our school days, though, because this was a quiet, focused group. The instructor told us this was the Advanced Drawing Camp, full of talented, diligent artists in middle and high school. Impressed, we tried to keep our voices down so we wouldn't distract them from their work.

The chef brought our food to the table, and my hash could have been a Cézanne still life. The eggs' bright-yellow yolk and perfectly crisped edges popped on top of a hefty pile of hash, sprinkled with microgreens for color and crunch. The hash was a mix of potatoes, spinach, mushrooms and sweet cherry tomatoes, bound together with Vermont cheddar. I poked the tines of my fork into the yolks, letting them drip down into the crispy hash. We didn't have to worry about keeping our voices down any more; none of us said a word while we chowed down.

Feeling full and inspired, we bussed our dishes and headed toward the door. On the way out, I noticed a group of chefs in a side room. These were slightly smaller than the chef who had prepared our lunch, but decked out in colorfully painted aprons and chef hats. It was the Artsy Chef camp, for 8-12 year olds.

For these campers, food is the medium instead of oils and acrylics. The artists create edible landscapes and fantastical centerpieces like pineapple alligators and eggplant owls, as well as decorative cupcakes and precise bento boxes. If preregistration weren't required (and adults were allowed), I would have stayed there all afternoon.

Dining on a Dime is a weekly series featuring well-made, filling bites (something substantial enough to qualify as a small meal or better) for $12 or less. Know of a tasty dish we should feature? Drop us a line: [email protected].

Ten years ago, when August First Bakery opened on South Champlain Street in Burlington, the café donated its first-day sales — about $300 — to King Street Center, a neighboring nonprofit organization.

On Thursday, to celebrate its 10th anniversary, August First once again donated 100 percent of its sales for the day to the nonprofit that provides programs and services for young people. This time, the restaurant wrote a check for $9,338.57 to King Street, said Jodi Whalen, who owns the restaurant with her husband Phil Merrick.

Whalen explained that, as a child growing up in small-town Pennsylvania, she was “personally touched” by adults who worked at organizations similar to King Street. Their positive influence on Whalen “helped me to become the woman I am personally and professionally,” she told Seven Days.

“We love the work that King Street Center does for children and families in our community,” Whalen added. “And we feel that it is our responsibility as business owners to give back.”

I pitched in a pittance of the total, $12, for a sandwich that served two. I ate half  the sandwich, called the Vermonter, at August First; my daughter took her share to North Beach.  The smoked turkey sandwich with cheddar cheese, apple slices, lettuce and red onion was a hit for both of us.

“It was even good cheese,” said my college-age kid, who routinely removes cheese from her sandwiches. (WTF?!) “I didn’t even take it off!”

My lemonade was free at August First, made by two Burlington middle school students who attend programs at King Street. Bree McDonald and Yusuf Ibrahim, both 12 years old, usually make and serve lemonade at King Street’s stand on the Church Street Marketplace.
Thursday, they squeezed lemons and shook the drink outside August First. It was a steady gig, but the soon-to-be seventh graders took time to tell me about the after-school program at King Street.

“We have a gym, a playground, and we go on different trips,” said Yusuf, who added that he likes to play tennis there. Bree said she especially enjoys playing dodgeball and basketball in the gym.

Both kids ate lunch at August First that day: Yusuf had a turkey BLT; Bree ate the tomato-mozzarella-basil sandwich and gave a shout-out to its pesto.
They also praised the day’s mission of raising money for the center.

“I think it’s pretty nice of them to do that,” Bree said.

Yusuf concurred: “It’s pretty cool,” he said, “cause it’s nice for King Street.”

Dining on a Dime is a weekly series featuring well-made, filling bites (something substantial enough to qualify as a small meal or better) for $12 or less. Know of a tasty dish we should feature? Drop us a line: [email protected].

What’s the going rate for 26 pounds of honey? At the Crooked Ram in Manchester, it’s a whole lot of store credit. And while that’s not how I paid for this Dining on a Dime adventure, if I ever come into a windfall of the sweet stuff, I know where I’ll spend it.

The taproom on Manchester’s main drag is a drinking destination — the only place in town dedicated to craft beer, cider and natural wine — and it doesn’t take much to be a regular.

“Most of our customers are from out of state,” said owner Peter Campbell. I’m no local to southern Vermont, but Campbell remembered me from my first visit a few months before. We’d ranted about the lack of beverage producers in Bennington County while I stood at the bar sipping a glass of Fable Farm Fermentory’s Fluxion III. This time, though, I was focused on eating, not ranting.

The Crooked Ram opened in early 2017 as a bottle shop, but during its annual “Mud Season Break” last year, Campbell renovated the space to offer on-premise consumption and a perfect-for-drinking food menu.

“We have limited room, so we’re just serving what we really love,” he said, pointing to the tiny kitchen hidden behind a stack of kegs. The chalkboard lists a selection of local cheese and charcuterie, classic bar snacks and a few heftier lunch items.

I ordered the housemade cheese scone, paired with smoked ham and fermented garlic honey ($9). The honey made my decision for me, after Campbell poured me a spoonful to taste. “One of the neighboring farmers showed up with 26 pounds of the stuff, all in huge mason jars,” he explained. The farmer meant it as a gift, but Campbell insisted on paying him in IPAs.

Like any good fermentation fanatic, Campbell added garlic and let it bubble away. The result was a savory-sweet shock, all garlic on the nose and mellow honey in the finish. It could have been an at-home cold remedy, and I wanted more of it immediately.

I spotted a sheepskin-laden bench in the open dining area and settled in. My meal arrived on a board; the scone, a hearty pile of ham, and the mystical honey were lined up and ready for me to DIY. As far as scones go, Campbell clarified that “it’s really one foot in scone and one foot in biscuit.”

Semantics aside, it was warm, and a perfectly melty combination of King Arthur Flour, buttermilk and Jasper Hill Farm’s Melting Blend. The ham, sourced from the Vermont Butcher Shop just down the street, was brined for seven days and smoked in-house. It could have passed for brisket with its dark, crispy edges. I slathered the scone with honey, slapped on a piece of ham, and marveled at its power to really make me want a beer. Thankfully, I was in the right place.

Dining on a Dime is a weekly series featuring well-made, filling bites (something substantial enough to qualify as a small meal or better) for $12 or less. Know of a tasty dish we should feature? Drop us a line: [email protected].

A newly minted 21-year-old, I’m still in the honeymoon phase with beer. I love the stuff in all its forms, from overpriced IPA to cheap supermarket six-packs. But last week, I had a hankering for a different kind of brew, the kind that begs to be served with a generous dollop of vanilla ice cream.

So, two friends and I caravanned to the A & W in Middlebury to satisfy our RBF (root beer float) cravings. It was a hot day, so we plopped down under a big shady tree next to the parking lot. A couple of other families ate from their cars, trays clipped to the open windows. If it wasn’t for the beautiful Green Mountain backdrop, we could have been at any one of the chain’s thousands of locations.

The 100-year-old greasy, meaty establishment was an unlikely choice for two of us: I’m a vegetarian, and one companion was trying to limit her caloric intake. Regardless, all of us were determined to get gut-bustingly full.

I had already done the math: a regular-size root beer float was $4, so I had approximately $8 to spend on food to fall within the $12 Dining on a Dime price limit. I was delighted to see a veggie option on the menu, meaning I didn’t have to fall back on my usual fast-food last resort of side dishes.

While I’m sure a large order of cheese curds ($6.95) or onion rings ($3.75) would have made for a filling meal, I opted for the black bean burger and made it a basket, which came with fries and a teeny container of coleslaw for $7.75. Most menu items are priced about the same, each with a cheaper sandwich-only version.

Our smiley waitress, wearing one of the brand’s characteristic orange baseball caps, brought all our food over at once in plastic baskets, the kind that usually house chicken tenders at themed diners. I unwrapped the burger from its foil, and found exactly what I expected: a once-frozen patty, enhanced with a single leaf of lettuce and a slice of tomato, sandwiched in a doughy bun.

It was as all-American as a veggie burger could be. The burger itself tasted familiar, which I later found out was because it’s Morningstar Farms brand; this A & W doesn’t sell the Beyond Burger like some other locations. I found it as tasty as it was predictable (which is to say, very).
The fries were yummy, too — but soggy enough to warrant the use of a fork. The coleslaw unexpectedly contained pineapple, which I kind of liked.

But the main attraction was my RBF, its foam spilling over the top of the tankard. I employed both spoon and straw to tackle the behemoth, alternating bites and slurps until I could see the bottom of the glass. The ice cream was a bit grainy, owing to freezer burn, but it hit the spot just the same. Cold and sugary, like any float should be.
My friends were equally satisfied. One of them, who's trying to increase his caloric intake this summer, ordered the Coney chili dog basket and a vanilla shake, which clocked in at 1,605 calories and $9.20. (The shake had a bad case of freezer burn.) My friend trying to reduce calories got a corn-dog basket with sweet potato fries for 370 calories and $8.50.

Good thing we were eating outside, because that ish was messy. And among the three of us, quite a bit of plastic, paper and styrofoam was left over at the end. That ’50’s feel comes at the price of sustainability.

Lots of leftover fries, too, because the portions were huge. As far as Dining on a Dime is concerned, the A & W's  food-to-price ratio is as good as it comes. I recommend pairing it with a swim at the quarry down the road, though it’s probably best to do the swimming first.

Dining on a Dime is a weekly series featuring well-made, filling bites (something substantial enough to qualify as a small meal or better) for $12 or less. Know of a tasty dish we should feature? Drop us a line: [email protected].