History of Bon Temps Gourmet

Gretchen founded Bon Temps Gourmet in 1990. Though she loved her newly adopted home in central Vermont, she knew that it would be tough to live here without the ethnic food that she had grown accustomed to. She built a street cart to serve as advertising for the catering business, and parked it in front of the Episcopal Church in Montpelier, which was a thriving cultural community (despite its diminutive size) but lacking in ethnic food options at that time. The people of Central Vermont were eager to eat global food, so the cart and the catering business became a thriving success.

Gretchen hired Greg as the grill guy, and during the summers they traveled the world on their street cart, changing countries once a week. The cart became a wonderful testing ground for new recipes and flavors. They tried everything from Pad Thai noodles to soft shell crabs on the streets - turns out they had a pretty adventurous audience.

The catering business served as a means for them to shop in the markets they love - Jean-Talon and Atwater Markets in Montreal, and Chinatown and ethnic markets on Jackson Blvd. in New York - as well as supporting our local farmers and cheese makers here in Vermont.

Over the years Bon Temps Gourmet has functioned as both a full-time and part-time job for Greg and Gretchen (they like to say that the business got moved to the back burner for a few years). Greg realized that he wanted cooking to be his career, and earned a culinary degree from New England Culinary Institute. He completed his internship in NECI's meat fabrication kitchen (learning the art of curing and smoking meat and fish), and then worked at A Single Pebble as sous chef and chef de cuisine for a few years (learning Chinese cuisine). Gretchen returned to her political roots and joined Senator Patrick Leahy's staff for over a decade focusing on community and economic development issues in Vermont. A few years ago they moved the business back to the front burner.

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Our food is casual, fun and flavorful, and always influenced by our travels. We like to think of our trips as "research and development." Our food flavors our life and our life flavors our food.

When we aren't catering, we enjoy traveling, gardening and playing in the Worcester woods, as well as hosting events and gatherings on our property for friends and clients.

Gretchen Saries
  and Greg Labarthe