Don’t you sit around eating lobster rolls and chowder all day?” a friend from New York asked me in November of 2020. I had just returned from Beetlebung Farm in Chilmark where I had picked up beets and tie-dyed radicchio to accompany a chicken from North Tabor Farm, also in Chilmark, for our Sunday roast. My husband and I had moved to West Tisbury from Brooklyn earlier that summer, and while I Instagrammed the pretty-in-pink leaves and salted the chicken, I smiled to myself and thought: I should tell my friend that Vineyard food isn’t just one thing.
My husband grew up visiting the Cape and, as a sailor, having access to the water was one of the reasons he wanted to move here. But it was dining at Seaweed’s (now Aalia’s) on Kennebec Avenue in Oak Bluffs in early 2020 that sealed the deal for me. As someone who had worked behind the scenes in the food world for more than fifteen years, most recently running marketing for New York City’s legendary Fulton Fish Market, the second largest fish market in the world, and regularly rubbing shoulders with the world’s top chefs, Seaweed’s was, to me, “The Perfect Restaurant.” The cooking was intentional, local, and supremely delicious; the team was a family; and their ethos was a proud proclamation of inclusivity. It was a menu with a real sense of place – and I felt an instant connection to the Island.
That connection only grew as we settled into full-time Island life. My American-Guyanese-Australian-Ukrainian family was heartened to find yucca, plantain, and okra alongside potatoes, corn, and beans in supermarket bushels. In Oak Bluffs, Vineyard Caribbean Cuisine’s Jamaican fried chicken, made and served with love by Newton and Stacy Waite, became a taste of home. Our fridge is never without Jeisook Thayer’s MV Kimchee. It is a joy to see Naji Boustany’s colorful Lebanese mezze from Catboat Coffee Co. in Vineyard Haven taking pride of place at potlucks. And pão de queijo (a Brazilian cheese bread) and flan are as easy to find as fries or fudge thanks to Sweet Bites and Vineyard Grocer, both in Vineyard Haven. For a small Island, we are blessed with the United Nations of cultures, accents, and flavors.
It was that spirit that prompted me in late 2022 to capture some of these flavors in a cookbook. I collated dozens of interviews with various Island chefs, bakers, farmers, fishermen, and food artisans, along with their recipes, into The Martha’s Vineyard Cookbook (Rizzoli), published in March of this year. In one hundred recipes, I aimed to strengthen the connection between readers and their food purveyors, to encourage them to scratch below the surface, and to explore the Island with curiosity. While it is not an exhaustive list of all the Vineyard has to offer, it is a taste of the talent and creativity that makes this a world-class culinary destination.
As evidenced throughout the cookbook, and highlighted in the four recipes that follow, Vineyard food isn’t just a cliche of lobster rolls and chowder and summer’s holy trinity of corn-tomatoes-strawberries, as glorious as they are. It is native beach plums that melt into a jam to become a marinade for venison, as charter fisherman Buddy Vanderhoop likes to make in the off-season while daydreaming of childhood foraging trips. There is Allen Farm lamb, raised organically on fields in Chilmark infused with salt spray from the ocean, which seasons the meat similarly to the prized salt marsh lamb of Brittany and Wales. It is a hunk of buttercup-yellow cheese from the Grey Barn & Farm in Chilmark, which changes flavor and hue with the seasons and pastures. It is local honey from Black Brook’s bees, or single-sourced from the Island’s six towns, each with their own distinct profiles, from Island Bee Company at their West Tisbury Farmers’ Market stand.
Lobster rolls are still an annual treat reserved for visitors who ask where the wineries are and if the ferries run all year. But now that I live here year-round, I’m fortunate enough to see the other layers of the Island food scene. After a day of sightseeing, we’ll serve brigadeiros (Brazilian chocolate truffles) with locally roasted coffee to our guests, raising our cups to this special place with something new and exciting to discover around every corner.
The following recipes were originally published along with this article:
Farro Salad with Cherry Tomatoes, Spinach & Pesto
