• 1. Where to Stay
• 2. Where to Eat
• 3. What to Do
• 4. Insider’s Tip
• 5. An Oddball Day

La Table Tourigny   (Photo: Guillaume Barré)

Explore Quebec's eastern townships, a sanctuary of Slow Food farmers and restaurants, located less than an hour from Jay. Make sure you've got your passport. Border regulations changed on January 31, 2007, and North Americans now need either a passport or a birth certificate and photo I.D. to reenter the United States. Drive along Route 108 to the low-traffic East Franklin crossing (check border-crossing wait times). At the nineteenth-century town of Frelighsburg, visit the Mulard ducks at La Girondine, a farm that raises the animals for foie gras. Sample their foie gras mousse infused with iced cider. Then follow Route 213 north to Compton for a taste of raw-milk cheese at La Station Fromagerie. Try the Comtomme, a semi-soft rind made from milk provided by the dairy farm's Holsteins. Before the sun sets, pick up a bottle of award-winning namesake dry white wine at Le Cep d'Argent (1257 Chemin de la Riviere; 819-864 4441), a winery outside the lakeside town of Magog. Try not to get sucked into the views of Little Lake Magog, because dinner is a must at La Table Tourigny, fifteen minutes away in Georgeville. This BYOB restaurant inside a 150-year-old converted schoolhouse serves an excellent five-course prix fixe meal—chef François Tourigny curates from a daily rotation of locally sourced dishes like quail consommé or foie gras poêlé topped with the chef's hand-harvested wild mushrooms. Belly full, reenter Vermont via the Derby Line crossing.

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Published on Mar 5, 2008 as a web exclusive.