*We will be rescheduling these on a case by case basis. If you have signed up for one of these classes, please check your email for more information.* 

The perfect place to start exploring honey-sweetened preserves is with a bowl of ripe apricots or plums. V Smiley Preserves specializes in plum jams, spinning Vermont and the Northeast’s three-month season of wild and cultivated plums into more than 12 flavors. Here in Vermont, we don’t always have an apricot season, but you should still have an apricot jam recipe for the August day when you luck into some local apricots. Apricots and plums preserve similarly, showcasing anise hyssop, lemon verbena, and myriad other aromatics from your garden. These minimally sweetened preserves prove themselves invaluable during the colder months for cooking and cheese pairing. You’ll go home with a jar of jam and a recipe for honey-sweetened stone fruit preserves.

Workshop registration fee is $30; please pre-register below.

V Smiley grew up on a vegetable and beef farm in New Haven, Vt. After graduating with a degree in Art History & English in Maryland, V moved to the west coast, spending almost three years in Los Angeles and seven years in the Pacific Northwest split between Whidbey Island and Seattle. Professionally, V bounced between art fabrication and restaurant kitchens, working and collaborating with artist Andrea Zittel and cooking in the opening kitchen crews behind James Beard Award winning restaurants Sitka & Spruce and The Whale Wins in Seattle. Wishing to one day return home and cultivate the family farm in Vermont, V started V Smiley Preserves in 2013 while working full time as a line cook. Sales and production happened in the “off hours” - mornings and weekends away from the restaurant. In 2015, V and partner Amy moved from Seattle to the New Haven farm. Here in Vermont, a slate of special ingredients (readily available currants and gooseberries and homegrown aromatics) and challenges (radically different sales market from the city) have woven together to create a new version of V Smiley Preserves, which are sold in specialty food and cheese shops around the states, from nearby Healthy Living Market to Murray’s Cheese flagship stores in Manhattan. Locally, you always find the widest selection with V at the weekly Burlington Farmers Market and a complete list of stockists on the company website.