Staff Picks

Only You Can Stop the Loneliness

Look at him. Just … look.

He was destined to be a good batch of guacamole. Instead, he’s a lonely green island by a puddle in a sea of muted March greys. He’s sharp, he’s focused, he’s dark green and nutritionally sound, and he’s wondering where it all went wrong.

A Cry for Help

We can’t give you this specific avocado we found in the Lebanon store parking lot (the health department has “feelings” about parking lot produce), but do have hundreds of his cousins inside our stores, longing for a good home.

The Adopt-an-Avocado Program

You have the power to stop the loneliness. For a small, one-time adoption fee (okay, it’s just the retail price), you can take one home.

Benefits of Adoption

• A Sense of Purpose: You’re providing a safe, dark paper bag for them to ripen in.
• Nutritional Karma: Good for your heart, better for your toast.
• Crisis Aversion: Every avocado sold is one less avocado destined for the “Tale of the Lonely Asphalt.”

Hurry in. Before they start writing emo poetry.

Fun fact: The anonymous medieval author of Beowulf famously loved mead! That’s why a mead hall plays such a prominent role in the poem. (Or maybe we made that up. We weren’t there. Whatever.)

Regardless, our friends at Golden Rule Mead in Middlebury, Vermont, are equally obsessed with this wonderful and sadly underappreciated beverage. If mead doesn’t sound appealing to you yet, let us help you see the golden, wild-fermented light:

The Specs

Vibe: Smooth and surprisingly potent. Perfect for those who want to feel like a Scandinavian deity on a Tuesday.

Honey Source: 100% happy, Vermont bees. (They have tiny dental plans.)

Additives: None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Fermentation Style: Wild—like a mythical monster’s mother.

Grendel Compatibility: Highly incompatible. Keep away from intemperate swamp-dwelling creatures of all sorts, actually.

Shield Rating: 0/10. (Actually quite fragile; do not use to block incoming axes.)

What is Mead, anyway?

Mead is an ancestral beverage made by fermenting honey and water—essentially “honey wine.” Unlike beer, which relies on the starches in malted grains, mead is built on the complex sugars and floral aromatics of honey.

While beer often hits you with the bitterness of hops, Golden Rule offers a cleaner, crisper profile that highlights the specific terroir of the Vermont wildflowers the bees visited. It’s a distinct category of craft that sits somewhere between a dry cider and a crisp white wine.

Why We Love Golden Rule

Golden Rule isn’t just a name; it’s a commitment to not ruining the planet. They call it “Brew Unto Others”—a philosophy centered on 100% local Vermont honey and a deep respect for the bees who do all the heavy lifting. In short, this isn’t just a drink—it’s an invitation to be legendary (or at least moderately more interesting at parties).

Find it at our WRJ store.

Because apparently, good pizza has to impress people from New Jersey.

Listen, we know your freezer is currently a desolate graveyard of vast, unidentified leftovers and a single, frost-bitten pea. You deserve better. You deserve Goodman’s American Pie!

FEATURES

The Local Pedigree: Handmade with love in small batches by great people in Vermont. So local you can actually taste the lack of “Big Pizza” corporate bureaucracy.

Dough with Gravitas: A crust that actually has the strength, taste, and texture of a great pizza crust. In fact, someone on our staff said it was so good that it even tasted like pizza in New Jersey. Yes, she’s from New Jersey. (We get it, Erika. The Parkway has really great pizza.)

The 0% Science Fiction Label: Made with real ingredients you can actually pronounce, sourced locally whenever possible. (No AI-developed, lab-grown chemicals here.) It’s basically a salad, if you squint and ignore the delicious, bubbling cheese.

Co-op Staff Approved: Rigorously tested by our team during “break times” that definitely lasted longer than 15 minutes. We’ve done the heavy lifting so you don’t have to.

Find it in Lebanon and WRJ and tell us what you think!

Based out of Quechee, Vermont, Woodland Fairy is a bakery that specializes in handcrafted bagels, NY style, boiled and baked and frankly, adored. If you want to take a drive out to their lovely store in Quechee, you’ll also find breakfast sandwiches, cinnamon rolls, and cider donuts, too. Woot!

The Bagel Breakdown

• The Store: 130 Quechee Gorge Village Dr., Quechee, VT. Go there. Find bliss.
• The Method: Hand-rolled, boiled, baked New York Style bagels. No shortcuts. (No AI bagels here.)
• Varieties: Classics, Everything, and Cheddar Jalapeño (for when you want your breakfast to fight back a little).
• GF Delights: They also have Gluten-Free bagels that actually taste like delicious bagels. Plain, Everything, Cinnamon Sugar.
• The Lore: They leveled up from a home-based operation to a full-blown storefront. A local success story!