This “backstory” is a part of a collection of articles that describes some of the obstacles that Seven Days reporters faced while pursuing Vermont news, events and people in 2025.
When I moved to Vermont seven years ago, I was confused by the way people talked about ice cream. My confusion wasn’t just about the word “creemee,” although I was, and remain, irritated by the cuteness of the double double vowels. What baffled me was that everyone seemed to hold the creemee in unshatterable regard, as if no creemee could be a bad creemee — as if creemees were somehow beyond analysis.
“I love creemees,” says almost everybody in Vermont. I find this Chamber of Commerce-ass enthusiasm appalling. I believe that you can’t claim to love anything so categorically unless you’re also capable of talking shit about it when the need arises. In Philly, people don’t go around saying, “I love cheesesteaks.” Someone would throw a traffic cone at you if you did that. People in Philly love or hate particular cheesesteaks, and they talk about them with a fierce pedantry that, in my view, is the mark of real devotion.
At an editorial meeting in the spring, I was running my mouth about all the things that can go wrong with a creemee when I noticed culture coeditor Carolyn Fox giving me a terrifying and specific look, the one that means Can you write 1,200 words about this? I could, as it turned out. But this discussion about creemee worship turned into an even more interesting discussion about other talismanic subjects that might lend themselves to the hater’s guide treatment.
Covered bridges: What if we admitted to ourselves that they’re sometimes underwhelming?
Swimming holes: Some are pristine and yet somehow not excellent, while others are grimy but magical — should we not review works of nature in the same way that we review works of art made by people?
State parks, summits: Like the creemee, these things are basically good, but why should we let their basic goodness stop us from rendering nuanced judgments in print?
Stay tuned for more hater’s guides in 2026, assuming my editors are still convinced that a hater’s guide can, in fact, be an act of love.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Hottest Take”
This article appears in Dec 24 2025 – Jan 6 2026.
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