>> NARRATOR: Come along for a once-in-a-lifetime journey through New England as you've never experienced it before.

A true insider's guide from the editors of Yankee magazine.

Join explorer, adventurer, and traveler Richard Wiese and his co-host, Yankee senior food editor Amy Traverso, for behind-the-scenes access to the unique attractions that define this region as they uncover the hidden New England that only locals know.

It's the ultimate travel guide from the people who know it best.

>> TRAVERSO: That's beautiful.

>> NARRATOR: Coming up on Weekends With Yankee: >> So we put one tablespoon of wine.

(Amy laughs) >> NARRATOR: Amy visits with legendary chef Jacques Pépin at his home in Connecticut.

>> A couple of oysters, a couple of clam for you.

>> NARRATOR: And cooks up a couple of his favorite New England fusion dishes.

>> TRAVERSO: That is delicious.

>> Happy cooking.

>> TRAVERSO: Thank you so much.

>> NARRATOR: Next we travel to the most-climbed mountain in New England, and learn what makes Mount Monadnock so special.

>> You get 360 views when you're up at the summit, and on clear days you can see all of New England.

♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: Then Richard gets a firsthand look at custom Ducati motorcycles, made in New England and shipped to some of Hollywood's biggest stars.

>> Making motorcycles is not only creating something that one can use to go from A to B, but for me it's also an outlet for my creative vision.

>> NARRATOR: Then it's off to Vermont for a look at two world-famous craftsmen, Simon and Andrew Pearce, a father-son team whose glassblowing and wood-turning talents have built an international brand.

>> It's a beautiful material to work with.

And the glass and wood really complement each other on the table.

>> NARRATOR: That's all coming up next, on Weekends With Yankee.

>> TRAVERSO: This is such a beautiful property.

>> I did a lot of work myself.

>> TRAVERSO: Yeah.

>> It was very ambitious.

>> NARRATOR: Jacques Pepin.

This beloved chef, author, and artist has been at the forefront of the American culinary scene since emigrating from France over 50 years ago.

>> Raining.

>> TRAVERSO: Is it raining a little bit?

>> It's good for mushrooms.

>> TRAVERSO: Yeah.

>> NARRATOR: Amy was lucky enough to spend a day with him at his Connecticut home.

>> TRAVERSO: Oh, look at this.

>> NARRATOR: First foraging around his property.

Mmm, that is delicious.

>> NARRATOR: Then cooking a couple of French classics with a New England twist.

>> My name is "Hak-wes Pepino."

No, it goes from Jacques Pépin to "Hak-wes Pepino" here.

We're in Connecticut, here, at my house.

You can recognize my Yankee drawl, I'm sure.

>> TRAVERSO: I'm afraid to step anywhere, because they're... >> Yeah.

>> TRAVERSO: They're easy to miss.

>> Yeah, you don't see them.

The black chanterelle.

>> TRAVERSO: Oh, my gosh, there they are.

>> I pick them up this way.

In French is called trompette de mort.

Horn of death.

>> TRAVERSO: Horn of death.

But they're not poisonous?

>> Oh, no, no, no.

>> TRAVERSO: What's that?

>> Those are Lactarius.

>> TRAVERSO: Oh.

>> So this I don't eat.

>> TRAVERSO: Mm-hmm.

♪ ♪ Now, that is a gnarly looking guy there.

>> This is part of the Boletus family.

It's what they call tube, tube mushroom.

It's like a sponge.

>> TRAVERSO: Right.

>> This is called the old man of the wood.

>> TRAVERSO: It looks... that makes sense.

>> The stem is really tough.

>> TRAVERSO: That's beautiful.

♪ ♪ Oh, wow!

>> That's a Boletus.

I'm sure by the color that it is a bitter Boletus.

Yes.

It's not poisonous at all, but you taste it a little bit.

>> TRAVERSO: Okay.

>> It's not poisonous, don't worry.

You'll see... spit it out.

Do you see how bitter it is?

>> TRAVERSO: Mmm, yeah.

>> Extremely bitter.

>> TRAVERSO: Ooh.

>> That's why the animals don't attack it.

>> TRAVERSO: Mm-hmm.

(laughs) If I start to hallucinate, I know who to blame.

(laughs) >> You know, after 70-more years of cooking professionally, I still love to cook, because I'm kind of a glutton.

I like to eat.

Look at those... this is a regular, beautiful chanterelle.

>> TRAVERSO: Beautiful.

>> See that?

On the internet that costs $48 a pound.

See, this is a gilled mushroom.

>> TRAVERSO: Beautiful.

>> It's got gills underneath.

>> TRAVERSO: Wow, that is a beautiful mushroom.

And can't get it fresher than here.

♪ ♪ >> I love Connecticut.

I love the weather here.

I like being able to go rummaging in the wood.

So I have a good garden.

It's a good life.

>> TRAVERSO: So is it boule or pétanque?

>> Both, it's called boule de pétanque.

>> TRAVERSO: Yeah, I grew up with bocce.

>> Yeah, that's better.

(Traverso laughs) All right, so here we put our foot in there.

>> TRAVERSO: Our foot in there, okay.

>> And you have to throw that between ten and 20 meter.

>> TRAVERSO: Okay.

>> Let's see.

This would be about fine.

♪ ♪ Okay, that's pretty good.

>> TRAVERSO: Oh, I'm playing with a master.

I'm just going to... >> You're not supposed to stay right there.

All right.

>> TRAVERSO: Okay.

>> Too long, too long.

>> TRAVERSO: Too long!

Okay.

Nope.

>> Too short (inaudible).

>> TRAVERSO: Ah!

>> Wow!

All right.

>> TRAVERSO: I think I'll stop while I'm ahead.

>> You did good too.

>> TRAVERSO: Are you ready to do some cooking?

>> Great.

>> TRAVERSO: Okay.

>> NARRATOR: On the menu today are mussels two ways.

First a mussels gratiné, broiled with breadcrumbs, hazelnuts, and garlic butter.

And second, a mussel soup that Jacques calls Billi Bi.

Then it's Jacques's New England clam chowder with oysters, clams, and corn.

>> So, we put one tablespoon of wine.

(Traverso laughing) >> All you want to do here is to open them.

The very classic recipe, in France... (voiceover): You give a lot of yourself when you cook.

You cannot cook indifferently.

You have to give some of yourself.

So there is a great amount of love in what you do.

It is just plain giving pleasure to people.

So people are happy to see you.

It's a nice way of spending your life.

>> TRAVERSO: So now you have Maine mussels and a French technique.

>> Yeah, I guess so.

>> TRAVERSO: And I'm thinking this is sort of a New England fusion dish a little bit.

(blender whirring) >> Fresh bread crumbs.

I don't think you've ever seen mussel as beautiful as this.

>> TRAVERSO: Oh, those are huge!

>> The juice, we're doing a soup.

So here we have the juice of the mussel, white wine, and about half a cup of cream.

>> TRAVERSO: Okay.

>> Okay, you want to taste this?

>> TRAVERSO: Yes, thank you.

>> Now, I don't know whether it may need a bit of salt or... >> TRAVERSO: Mmm, mmm, it's perfect.

>> Maybe a bit of Tabasco.

>> TRAVERSO: Yeah.

>> Now, that's going to go into the oven, you know, so.

>> TRAVERSO: Okay.

>> You'll be doing this.

We're doing a persillade.

In French the mixture of parsley, which is persil.

>> TRAVERSO: Mm-hmm.

And garlic, which is ail, is persillade.

(blender whirring) Miracle machine, no?

You know?

>> TRAVERSO: I just have to say, I just have this moment, I can't believe I'm cooking with Jacques Pépin.

This is a real highlight of my cooking career.

>> I can't believe I'm cooking with Amy Traverso.

(Traverso laughs) ♪ ♪ >> TRAVERSO: How did you go from cooking in the top kitchens in Paris and cooking for Charles de Gaulle and a bunch of French dignitaries, to working at Howard Johnson's?

How did you choose that?

>> In the spring of 1960 I was offered a job for Kennedy at the White House.

And... and I was offered a job at Howard Johnson's.

I went to Howard Johnson's.

(voiceover): I decided to go to Howard Johnson's because I really had no inkling of the potential for publicity at the White House.

Howard Johnson's, on the other hand, I would learn about American eating habit, I would learn about mass production, I would learn about chemistry of food.

I would learn about many, many things that I had no, no idea of.

>> TRAVERSO: That's beautiful.

Good.

>> Okay.

To here.

All right.

>> TRAVERSO: Mmm.

The hot sauce made a nice little... beautiful.

Like an oyster?

♪ ♪ >> To you.

>> TRAVERSO: That is delicious.

>> Happy cooking.

>> TRAVERSO: Thank you so much.

So, Howard Johnson was famous for its clam chowder.

Did you develop that recipe?

>> No, we didn't really develop the recipe.

It was there when we came.

But it was quite different.

They used margarine to do the, the roux; we used butter.

They had dehydrated onion, fresh onion.

No, we changed a great deal of things to make it differently, Pierre Franey and I.

So this is the base, okay?

>> TRAVERSO: Okay.

>> So here is fresh corn, and here I have oyster, and here I have clam.

I'll put a little bit of the chanterelle that you picked before.

>> TRAVERSO: Okay.

>> That should be beautiful in there, right?

>> TRAVERSO: Beautiful, look at that.

Look at the colors.

>> I will have a couple of oyster, a couple of clam for you.

Look at that.

>> TRAVERSO: That's beautiful.

>> Yeah, this is not exactly Howard Johnson's.

This is a more modern way.

>> TRAVERSO: Mmm.

It's sweet and salty and creamy.

And I love the, the earthy notes of the mushrooms.

>> Good.

>> TRAVERSO: Mm-hmm.

>> NARRATOR: The highlight of Amy's visit was seeing Jacques's collection of culinary scrapbooks, in which he has recorded all the important meals of his life for the past 50 years.

They now span 12 volumes and are hand-illustrated by Jacques himself.

>> See, this one is empty, so why don't we write the menu we're going to have tonight?

"For Amy, la moule au gratin, Billi Bi, clam, oyster, corn... >> TRAVERSO: Corn and mushroom.

>> Corn and wild mushroom chowder, okay.

(voiceover): I've cooked for many, many people, but, I mean, the greatest pleasure is really to cook for your, your friends, dear friend or your family or your lover or your wife or your mother or your kid.

And so the guests sign here, and we write the menu on the other side.

>> TRAVERSO: Oh, that's so beautiful.

>> Cooking is... yes, cooking is cooking, and it's great, you do it with love.

But the sharing of food, after it, is very important.

I will sign it.

I have a chicken, >> TRAVERSO: Beautiful.

>> I will use the chicken.

>> "To Amy, happy memories."

>> TRAVERSO: This is amazing.

I will fill this with happy memories.

>> Okay.

>> TRAVERSO: Thank you.

>> So thank you, thank you for coming.

>> TRAVERSO: All right, I'm going to have a little more chowder.

>> Yeah, me too.

♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: New Hampshire's Mount Monadnock is one of the most popular hikes in New England.

Though smaller than many of its famous neighbors in the White Mountains, at nearly 3,200 feet, it's the highest peak in southern New Hampshire.

>> The word Monadnock, translated from Chippewa Algonquin Native languages, means, "a mountain that stands alone."

And so, the fact that we do just have this one mountain jutting out in the area makes it a staple for the region, because we wouldn't be the Monadnock region without it.

♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: This majestic mountain offers trail options for all hiking levels and is rivaled in popularity only by Japan's Mount Fuji.

>> Every season we get about 130,000 visitors to the park.

There's a variety of trails that you can access from some that are more difficult and really short and popular, whereas there are other trails that you can hike up, and you won't see a soul all day, that are much longer.

♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: This mountain has been popular for more than 120 years and appears in literature by the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

>> Mount Monadnock is a natural national landmark.

Mark Twain was known to camp out in summer here up on the mountain back when we used to have the halfway house on the other side of the old toll road.

♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: Mount Monadnock's views extend as far south as Boston and north to Mount Washington.

>> You get 360 views when you're up at the summit, and on clear days, you can see about all of New England, six New England states up there.

>> NARRATOR: The mountain is open to hikers year-round.

♪ ♪ Just next door to Mount Monadnock is Harrisville, a small New Hampshire town centered around a beautifully preserved, 19th-century textile mill.

Located in the heart of the region, Harrisville is one of New England's most tranquil and picturesque villages, with historic buildings, scenic lakes, and the award-winning Harrisville General Store.

♪ ♪ (engine revs) It's also home to motorcycle designer Walt Siegl, an Austrian native who makes high-end Ducati motorcycles, the kind that famous actors-- who we can't name-- special-order from Hollywood.

Working out of one of the town's iconic mill buildings, Siegl has built one of the top custom motorcycle shops in the country.

>> WIESE: So, the Walt Siegl story starts in Austria.

Do you remember your first motorcycle?

>> I was exposed to motorcycles all my life, through my grandfathers and my father, they all had bikes.

So bikes were just part of me growing up.

♪ ♪ >> All right.

>> So as you can see here, Richard, this is an extremely nice cut.

It needs fairly little cleanup job.

It's ready to be bent and shaped and then bolted onto the bike.

♪ ♪ The secret to the success of my company is that we allow each client a big word in how the motorcycles are built.

All the ergonomics, the style, the geometries, are usually geared towards how the client is using their bike.

So it's one of the big secrets.

This is one of our four models.

It's based on the Ducati engine.

We give each client the possibility to... expansion components.

Pick brake components, wheels, color, and to a certain extent, even finishes on the bodywork.

In this case for example, this is an aluminum tank.

The client really wanted to show the aluminum feature through his graphics.

The bodywork is Kevlar and carbon fiber.

Although it's part of an overall series motorcycle, each bike still looks significantly different from, from each other.

♪ ♪ This is our latest model, which is a true superbike.

It is significantly lighter than any stock motorcycle.

Therefore the bike also handles much easier.

So it is a high-tech marvel.

Motorcycle design and motorcycle technology has made leaps and bounds over the last 15 to 20 years by using high-tech mechanical programs, using the latest computer programs for traction control.

A.B.S., the clutch, the shifting, so on and so forth.

>> WIESE: This one is still being born.

>> So this one is just about finished.

It still looks disassembled.

But it only takes very little to actually complete this bike.

>> WIESE: I mean, I'm just looking at the forks on this.

It, it looks so much different.

>> Yeah.

It's extraordinarily expensive.

It's a $15,000 set of forks.

But this is the absolute best that we can offer to a client that goes on a racetrack with.

>> WIESE: What is this going to cost finished?

>> In this case it's going to be $84,000.

♪ ♪ >> WIESE: So when did Walt Siegl decide that he could become a world-class motorcycle designer?

>> It just so happened.

I worked on, on motorcycles all my life... as a hobby, then as a racer.

I raced for many years, so I had no choice but to work on my own bikes.

Just through racing bikes, building my own components, I was able to come up with some answers that people that don't race bikes don't have that opportunity.

Plus, I'm a trained technician and know everything about how to run a lathe, a mill, and actually build components.

Making motorcycles, for me, is not only creating something that one can use to go to... from A to B, or to go to the racetrack, but for me it's also an outlet for my creative visions of what a mechanical component should look like.

>> WIESE: So what stage is this one in?

>> So the next step would be... in order to, to put the fairing on, I would need to put the fairing stay on.

So why don't we just do that, and I'll show you how this part looks.

>> WIESE: Yeah, absolutely.

>> And we'll go from there.

>> WIESE: Yeah.

You know, looking at your bikes, they're beautiful.

I know that they run well, but they're physically beautiful bikes.

Where did you get your art sensibilities?

>> Um, I guess having an artist as a grandfather, for example.

Um... And I always wanted to, somehow, do something with art.

I went to art school in Austria.

♪ ♪ >> WIESE: This is a very quaint, lovely town.

You walk in here, it's pretty.

>> Yeah.

>> WIESE: How does that lend itself to the business you're in?

>> Well, it just adds romance to what I'm doing here.

It's an old mill complex that was restored, painstakingly, over the years.

The environment that the mill complex is in is romantic.

It's beautiful.

It's got lots of historic structures.

It just really helps to somehow connect the craft that goes into building these machines to the environment that they come out of.

♪ ♪ Motorcycles bring you away from your daily responsibilities.

They demand focus in order to be safe and also to have fun.

So we can really leave all your peripheral world behind you and just be with yourself.

That is... that's what I truly love about riding bikes.

♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: More than 30 years ago, Simon Pearce moved from Ireland to the small town of Quechee, Vermont, where he bought a former woolen mill dating back to the 1820s.

There he established the Simon Pearce Company, one of the few large-scale glassware operations in the U.S., where every piece is still made by hand.

The company is now known worldwide, and has spawned a thriving retail business, a beautiful restaurant, and a new woodworking offshoot run by one of Simon's sons, Andrew.

♪ ♪ >> My father started the business in Ireland and ran it there for ten years, and then eventually moved to Vermont and bought this building, which we call "the mill."

It was an old woolen mill.

And our family lived upstairs in an apartment for the first four years while we were getting things off the ground.

So we have this really fun family tradition in our family of working for our fathers and then going off and finding our own way.

My father grew up working for his father, Philip, at Shanagarry Pottery.

I spent ten years working for my dad at Simon Pearce and then eventually went off and started a woodworking business where we make hand-turned wooden bowls.

♪ ♪ It's a beautiful material to work with, and the glass and wood really compliment each other on the table.

♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: Employing 40-plus glassmakers, Simon Pearce's studio is one of the last large-scale handblown glass producers in the country.

>> This is eventually going to be the, the rim of the glass that I'm squeezing down.

>> NARRATOR: The company uses the same glassblowing techniques that have been used for thousands of years.

Here in Quechee, they make glasses, vases, and many other kinds of glassware, each piece one of a kind.

>> We eyeball all of our measurements there, so there is going to be a little bit of variety, one glass to another.

But when we are doing our job well, they should all match up very closely.

Each one is a, an individual glass, so if you buy yourself a full set, you'll definitely have your favorite in the set.

But hopefully, it's something that only you are going to recognize, that's going to maintain it your favorite.

>> There's a lot of similarities in glassmaking and woodworking.

The raw material is incredibly important in both situations.

Simon Pearce uses only the finest raw materials to get a really beautiful silver color in the glass.

In the woodworking that we do, we use a Grade-B veneer log.

So we take pretty much the nicest-quality log that you can get.

♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: Andrew Pearce has a shop in Hartland, Vermont, just down the road from his father's shop in Quechee.

>> My dad and I have a wonderful working relationship, and he does come to my shop very often, and we talk about designs and machinery and work on things together.

♪ ♪ It's a really great feeling to be able to take a raw material like wood, which is a renewable resource, and make it into something that's really beautiful.

>> NARRATOR: Most of the bowls that he makes are made out of cherry or walnut, trees grown in the Northeast.

♪ ♪ >> There is something mesmerizing about cutting through wood on a bowl lathe.

>> NARRATOR: Andrew created a rough-out lathe, which allows his woodworkers to cut several bowls from a single block of wood, then finish the bowls by hand for a more distinctive look and feel.

>> When you are doing it properly, and you have a really sharp tool, and the RPMs of the machine are spinning correctly, and the wood is perfect, you're peeling the shavings away, it peels through the wood as it goes around the corner.

And when you do it right, it is so, so satisfying.

♪ ♪ We have people with their actual hands making things every day.

And we don't just print things off on a machine, the way a lot of society is going toward.

Watching people make things and having that talent and that skill is super important, and that's something that we shouldn't ever forget.

>> All right.

>> TRAVERSO (laughs): Okay.

♪ ♪ Ah!

>> Too long, too long.

♪ ♪ >> Too short.

>> TRAVERSO: Ah!

>> Wow.

(Traverso laughing) ♪ ♪