Breakfast and More
You will be full and smiling after our delicious two-course breakfast, but don’t forget about all the other homemade baked goods and local treats during your vacation at our Vermont Country Inn!
If the summer afternoons are hot enough, we may serve “Haymaker’s Punch,” a ginger-honey lemonade traditionally enjoyed during haying season to fight allergies and boost energy while in the field. (Never fear, you can also enjoy it by our pool, where the most work you’ll do is kick up your feet or perhaps go for a dip!) Winter afternoons are perfect for our hot apple cider, mulled for hours with oranges and spices, and best enjoyed while reading by the fireside.
Rise and Shine with a Golden Breakfast!
As Innkeepers of a Vermont bed and breakfast, we take our morning routine pretty seriously. You’ve got a full day ahead of you and we want to be sure you have the energy to fully enjoy your time in Vermont. We partner nutrition with indulgence, and familiar with unique. In this way, we strive to please even the pickiest palate.
Dining is private, with individual seating times, at your own table. Tables are spaced so that parties will be at least 6′ apart from one another.
Your breakfast starts with a visit to the self-serve coffee & tea station where freshly brewed locally roasted Mocha Joe’s coffee awaits you. After you’re seated, we’ll offer you a selection of juices and then deliver your starter course. A typical first course would include a bit of yogurt with fresh fruit and drizzled with our very own honey, often served alongside a freshly-baked good. Crumb coffee cake, berry muffins, and candied ginger scones are just a few of our recurring favorites. The entree of the chef’s selection is then served. Some of our more popular offerings include:
- Buttermilk pancakes drizzled with local syrup
- Maple caramelized apples on homemade bread with gruyere cheese
- Spinach, tomato, and goat-cheese frittata
- Baked eggs from our own free-range hens in a maple bread basket
- Cranberry-walnut, whole-wheat pancakes
- Breakfast burrito with herbed cheddar and roasted tomato egg scramble
When is breakfast served?
Most of the year, we serve breakfast between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m., but we often make early exceptions by request and on winter weekends. On winter weekends, when the slopes open at 8:00 a.m., we begin offering breakfast at 7:00 a.m. to ensure you don’t miss any of the freshly groomed trails. You’ll also always have access to our Keurig brewing machine for extra cups throughout the day.
Afternoon Treats
Cookies and Chocolate Cake
The smell of cookies permeates the house, as we’re consistently filling the bottomless cookie jar with different varieties. More-frequent choices include Toll House Chocolate Chip, Chewy Oatmeal Craisin, and Molasses Crinkles. If it’s Saturday, be sure to leave room for dessert because this is when Michael serves his signature “Saturday Night Chocolate Cake.” Moist and rich, this cake is the perfect conclusion to a full day.
Winter afternoons bring Homemade Soup and Hot Apple Cider
From early January through the end of March, we offer complimentary homemade soup and Vermont mulled cider every afternoon. It’s sort of like Happy Hour – but maybe happier!
“BYOB”
We do not sell beer or wine at the Inn, instead you are welcome to bring your favorite beverages with you. We have a refrigerator for guest use and we also provide openers and glasses. We recommend the following places for great selections: Wine and Cheese Depot (affordable wines and great cheese & crackers, in Ludlow) the Brewfest Beverage Co. (giant beer selection, in Ludlow), Meditrina (wine and local specialty items, in Chester) or Singleton’s General Store (liquor, beer, wine, and any other food or supply item you need, here in Proctorsville). Many of these stores close earlier than you might expect, so be sure to plan accordingly.
Special Diets, Allergies, and Picky Eaters
Whether it’s due to an allergy, a commitment to a certain way of eating, or maybe just “plain vanilla” preferences, the idea of a single entree selection can be daunting. At Golden Stage Inn, we are happy to accommodate your dietary requests: please let us know of your special requests when you make your reservation so we can take care of your needs. While here, you don’t have to worry about unknown ingredients; virtually everything is made from scratch so we know exactly what is in our meals. If you are gluten-free, lactose intolerant, vegetarian, vegan, or just plain old picky, you should not leave our table dissatisfied. (We can also recommend restaurants to accommodate your dinnertime meals.)
Local Foods and Ingredients
“Eating’s not a bad way to get to know a place.”
― Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
We think Michael Pollan is right on point with this idea. There may be no better way to experience a region than by tasting the foods grown and raised in that region.
We take great pride in the food we serve at Golden Stage Inn, but take only a little credit for how great it tastes. We acknowledge that it is the wholesome ingredients and, similarly, the ‘from scratch’ recipes we use that make our breakfasts, soups, and cookies so flavorful.
A key way to achieve wholesome ingredients is to rely, as much as seasonally possible, on local ingredients. Local ingredients typically ensure higher quality care for the plants, animals, and the land on which they’re raised — and even for the community in which the farm exists. And then, there’s also the diminished impact on the environment of having minimal transportation involved in delivering the food, which of course also allows the food to arrive at its destination that much fresher.
Local foods (and their respective sources – some are from our own backyard) that you are likely to encounter at our inn include:
Eggs: A mainstay for breakfasts and baking at the Inn, our eggs come from our own backyard chickens, or when they’re not laying enough, we buy eggs from a local guy with local chickens. They’re happy chickens!
Honey: We have up to three beehives on the property from which we extract honey at least once per year (typically late summer, early fall). When we run out, we purchase honey from a fellow beekeeper who operates Winter View Farm in Springfield, VT.
Herbs & Produce: Many herbs (mint, basil, rosemary) and much of the produce (tomatoes, rhubarb, kale, spinach) that we use in our breakfasts come from our own gardens. When we need greater volume or variety, we purchase from local farmers at the Friday afternoon Ludlow Farmers’ Market.
Butter: We purchase only Cabot Creamery butter. Cabot Creamery is a cooperatively-owned creamery with approximately 1200 farmer members from New England and New York.
Cheese: Our “go to” cheese is Vermont Farmstead Cheddar, but we try to shop only Vermont cheeses when buying our goat cheese and cottage cheese too.
Yogurt: Green Mountain Creamery Greek yogurt is our favorite. It’s made in Vermont, with Vermont milk, and it does not use High Fructose Corn Syrup. And they have an entire page on their website devoted to Community. THIS is why we love doing business locally.
Sausage and Bacon: We open up the word “local” to include all of New England when purchasing our breakfast meats. Our beef sausage is from Winter View Farm in Springfield, VT, while our chicken sausage is from one of the last family owned smokehouses in the country, North Country Smokehouse in Claremont, NH. Our pork sausage is New England sourced and is processed by Black River Produce in Springfield, VT. Our bacon is locally smoked just down the street at Singletons General Store and it’s to die for!
Coffee: We’re excited to offer fresh brewed Mocha Joe’s coffee every morning. A highly acclaimed coffee roaster and an “industry leader in social responsibility,” Mocha Joe’s is based in Brattleboro, VT. The Cameroon variety we’ve selected is “direct trade,” which means Mocha Joe’s buys directly from the farmer, removing the middle man and increasing the financial stability for the farmer.