Maldon Sea Salt

Great taste, flaked salt, and a crunch you only find with big flake salt. Perfect for soft eggs, salads, candy toppings, and other almost dry to sticky foods.

Fuel Art & Espresso

Great coffee, friendly staff, and uber-cool surroundings. You're gonna be in Mt. Vernon to take in the festivals or antiques, so be sure to stop in to Fuel! They have the gifts and decor that are no where else.

The owner, Tommie, has an incredible sense of style that seems to mix world art, dark humor, and midwest sensibilities into one. She collects amazing stuff from all over, sometimes one of a kind finds, to sell there: dia de los muertos figurines, cast iron animals, fun brightly painted metal work by local artists, Dutch funeral urns, vintage cowboy boots, amazing handmade pieces in wood, paper, and cloth by Central American artists, Tibetan glasswear, Asian cabinets, French toiletries, original art by Tommie herself, and all kinds of new stuff coming in every week!

If that isn't enough, the amazing baked scones, cupcakes, cookies, and brownies are made fresh from scratch daily right in the store!

Violet Jelly from Blue Gate Farm

Oh my gosh. Remember that violet jelly your grandma used to make for the county fair? No, you don't cuz your grandma never made something this awesome like Blue Gate Farm does! Lightly flora, sweet, and GREAT on an english muffin. Blue Gate Farm makes the best!!! Special thanks to Jag's Photo Blog for the image I'm using without permission here.

Small-town Pizza Huts

If you're a person of a certain age, you remember the hey-day of pizza hut when it was actually really really tasty and not a disgusting hole where screaming kids dripping mucus have birthday parties. Want that experience of Pizza Hut being a fun, yummy place from the past? Go to a small town Pizza Hut - a town with less than 5000 people. The people working there are adults, it's clean, it's friendly, and they take their job seriously because running a Pizza Hut is a decent job to have in a small town. That chewy-crunchy-lightly greasy crust and tangy sauce you remember are waiting for you at a small town Pizza Hut.

Maple Butter

If you're a maple fiend like me, this is your crack. It's just maple syrup that's further reduced to the point it starts to make very small crystals of sugar - there's no actual butter in it. Maple butter isn't cheap, like most real maple products, but the impact of the deep maple flavor is intense and great on toast or ice cream. Tastes delicious served on a spoon too.