Celebrate the state’s vegetable

NEWFANE- On Tuesday, December 4, the Four Columns Artisan Restaurant and the Friends of the Wardsboro Library invite everyone to celebrate the season of the Gilfeather turnip, Vermont’s state vegetable, with a special menu created by chef Erin Bevan.
The dishes to be featured all include the same special ingredient-- Gilfeather turnips grown locally by Dutton’s Farm. For starters, a gilfeather bisque with shiitake and truffle mascarpone, served with gilfeather biscuits and herb butter; for an entrée, braised beef short rib with gilfeather-apple hash, kale and gilfeather gremolata; and to finish, a gilfeather and maple gelato, with thyme-vanilla bean tuile, flax-graham crumb, and espresso drizzle. Choose the prix-fixe menu as a three course meal for $40, not including tax and gratuity, or order a Gilfeather turnip course or two separately.
The Gilfeather turnip has a creamy texture, and because it stays in the ground until after a series of hard frosts, it is sweet and mild, without the typical bitter turnip flavor. Chef Bevan has used this sweetness to its best advantage in each of the dishes she has created.
The dinner is in part, a benefit for the Friends of the Wardsboro Library, recent hosts of the Gilfeather Turnip Festival. There is a suggested donation of $5 per table, which the Four Columns Inn has generously offered to match. The funds raised will go to support the cost of lighting, heating, maintaining, and insuring the 1840s farmhouse and barn which house the Wardsboro Public Library, a central community space for the small town of Wardsboro.
The Four Columns Artisan Restaurant is at 21 West Street. Dinner hours are 5:30 to 8:30 pm. For reservations for the Gilfeather menu dinner call (802) 365-7713 or visit www. fourcolumnsvt.com/reservations.