Hardwick is the little town that could. This scrappy little place — a dot on a map overrun with winding roads — has reinvented itself as an innovator in local, sustainable food systems.

On the surface, and in more than a few other ways, Hardwick and the northern Berkshires are similar. To be sure, they are different in many ways, too. But it is the similarities that interest me. I left Hardwick last fall wondering, first, how they managed to do it; second, who “they” were; and, third, whether a steady, meaningful, and lasting change of this nature could be possible in North Adams and the northern Berkshires.

An October, 2008 article in Gourmet touches on some of my questions. And as it turns out, the author of this piece has written a book on the same topic, to be released in March: The Town That Food Saved: How One Community Found Vitality in Local Food.

From the book’s blurb:

Over the past 3 years, Hardwick, Vermont, a typical hardscrabble farming community of 3,000 residents, has jump-started its economy and redefined its self-image through a local, self-sustaining food system unlike anything else in America. Even as the recent financial downturn threatens to cripple small businesses and privately owned farms, a stunning number of food-based businesses have grown in the region—Vermont Soy, Jasper Hill Farm, Pete’s Greens, Patchwork Farm & Bakery, Apple Cheek Farm, Claire’s Restaurant and Bar, and Bonnieview Farm, to name only a few. The mostly young entrepreneurs have created a network of community support; they meet regularly to share advice, equipment, and business plans, and to loan each other capital. Hardwick is fast becoming a model for other communities to replicate its success. The captivating story of a small town coming back to life, The Town That Food Saved is narrative nonfiction at its best: full of colorful characters and grounded in an idea that will revolutionize the way we eat.

What I want to know is: Can Hardwick be a model for economic growth and change in the northern Berkshires?

Via the Claire’s blog, New Vermont Cooking. You can pre-order the book through the Galaxy Bookshop, in Hardwick.

Last weekend we went up to the very tip-top of Vermont, the beautiful and majestically named Northeast Kingdom. Why is it called that? I don’t know. I found it very silly when I first heard the term — probably uttered by my my mother and father in law, who used to live there — but I’ve now come to realize that the place is so spectacularly beautiful that the description is apt. Kingdom, indeed.

There were two reasons for making the trek north: to visit some family friends Dan hadn’t seen in nearly a decade (and whom I’d never even met), and to eat dinner at Claire’s, the locavore dining darling, in Hardwick.

Yes, we drove straight to Claire’s.

What I want to say about Claire’s has less to do with the food and more to do with the experience. (Though I will say that they offer up some of the best bread Dan and I have ever had in a restaurant — possibly some of the best bread we’ve ever had ever. They don’t make it in-house, but kudos to the buyer who nabbed the loaves that graced our table last Friday.) At the risk of sounding like a Birkenstock-wearing, deodorant-shunning hippie — or, better yet former Top Chef contestant Carla Hall — there’s really a lot of love put into the food there. It feels right when you’re eating there, and I don’t mean righteous, or self-congratulatory, or smug, or anything like that. Unlike a lot of places that have jumped into the rushing river of local-sustainable-farm-to-table-ism, at Claire’s you feel very much at home. Eating acorn squash from two miles down the road is completely normal, not some saintly act to be exulted with dressy letterpressed italics on a menu that reads more like the acknowledgments in the back of a book than an uncomplicated presentation of something soulful and nourishing.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the food is really good: well-prepared and warming, unpretentious, and deeply satisfying. Also, the night we were there, they had on the dessert menu a dish that featured maple flavored marshmallow fluff. Seriously, people.

And what trip to Vermont would be complete without several food-related pit stops? The trunk of our car was stockpiled with maple syrup, cheese, apples, and winter squash. We can’t wait to go back.