Interested in making your space a haven for wildlife?
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. On it everyone you love .” –Carl Sagan
President Victoria Riskin
CEO Raymond Pearce
Join the Natural Neighbors Network
We will visit and give you site specific recommendations to provide food, water, and shelter for pollinators, birds, and other wildlife. Small changes in your landscape will benefit the island’s biodiversity, your yard, and your wallet.
Site visits are free, and recommendations are made to fit your interests and resources. Participants who implement three recommendations earn a free yard sign!
Bluedot Living: At Home on Earth is printed on recycled material, using soy-based ink, in the U.S.
Bluedot Living magazine is published quarterly and is available at newsstands, select retail locations, inns, hotels, and bookstores, free of charge. Please write us if you’d like to stock Bluedot Living at your business. Editor@bluedotliving.com
Sign up for the Martha’s Vineyard Bluedot Living newsletter, along with any of our others: the BuyBetter Marketplace, our national ‘Hub” newsletter, and our soon-to-be-launched Bluedot Kitchenr: bit.ly/MV-NEWSLETTER
Subscribe! Get Bluedot Living Martha’s Vineyard and our annual Bluedot GreenGuide mailed to your address. It’s $24.95 a year for all four issues plus the Green Guide, and as a bonus, we’ll email you a collection of Bluedot Kitchen recipes. marthasvineyard.bluedotliving.com/magazine-subscriptions/
Read stories from this magazine and more at marthasvineyard.bluedotliving.com
Find Bluedot Living on Threads, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube @bluedotliving
Hello Readers!
First of all, thank you for picking up this magazine. We hope it was the silvery-blue river herring on the cover that helped draw you in. That photo was taken by Island photographer Lisa Vanderhoop, wife of Captain Buddy Vanderhoop, a Tribal member who ran a thriving business on the Island selling river herring caught from the Herring Creek in Aquinnah, a once-prolific run that has consistently dwindled since 2020, much to the concern of members of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), who’ve relied on it to feed themselves and their families for the last 10,000 years.
This late-summer issue is all about food, and our Bluedot team wants to acknowledge the foodways of people who were here first. River herring, as you’ll read about on Page 40, were an original source of sustenance for the Aquinnah Tribe, long before they were sold commercially. Alongside state and federal environmentalists, the Tribe is figuring out how to restore the historic run. Cranberries have also always been an important food source on the Island, and every second Tuesday of October, the Tribe celebrates Cranberry Day — their last major gathering of the year, marking the beginning of the harvest season. The Island’s wild cranberry bogs continue to feed and nourish us today, if you know where to look. Our story on page 22 will likely give you some hints.
When it comes to the Island’s original foodways, “you grew it or you got it out of the ocean, really,” Tribal member Bettina Washington tells us. We see more and more Islanders returning
Some of the seasonal farm-grown herbs you can find at Beetlebung Farmstand.
to these ways, and the stories you’ll find in this magazine highlight many of those efforts.
Speaking of Island bounties — the annual Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass & Bluefish Derby begins on September 15 and runs for six weeks. Morning Glory Farm hosts its annual Pumpkin Festival on October 19. The Ag Society’s annual Harvest Festival is on October 20.
Another thing to keep an eye out in the months ahead is Bluedot’s off-season issue, which is all about green projects. Do you or any friends have a sustainable winter project you’re excited to start? Write to us at editor@bluedotliving.com. We’d love to learn more.
Thanks again for reading, and happy harvesting!
– Britt Bowker
PHOTO BY SHENY LEON
By Britt Bowker
By Lucas Thors
Annabelle
photo:
by Lisa Vanderhoop
Sheny Leon
Summer is my least favorite season — I prefer a fluffy snowfall to muggy heat any day. When I sat down to chat with the folks behind Yommi Frozen Superfood Bars, I forgot all of my sweaty seasonal gripes. I made quick work of a Blueberry Lemon Bliss bar as Caroline Harris and Ryan Gussen, owners of Yommi, joined me on the shady porch of the Model Deli. Caroline and Ryan bought the Yommi business (and its signature Boler trailer) in 2022 from Nicole Corbo and
Yommi Frozen Superfood Bars: Healthy Snacks Made Cool
YOMMI’S LOCAL, HAND-CRAFTED POPSICLES ARE A DELICIOUS GUILT-FREE TREAT.
Story by Julia Cooper
Adrian Johnson, who started Yommi in 2017 with the mission of making a nutrient-dense alternative to the typical summer sweet treats you can find all over the Island. “The Vineyard in the on-season becomes the island of dessert,” Caroline jokes. “Fudge, donuts, cake, ice cream — there are so many delicious sweet options. The missing link was something that was just as tasty, but also nutritious.” She also hopes that Yommi can be a summertime sweet treat option for folks who are diabetic, gluten- or
Yommi Frozen Superfood Bars have found their audience on the Island — during peak popsicle season they’re hand-making and wrapping nearly 2,000 popsicles a week.
dairy-intolerant. They also confirmed that the coconut milk they use to make the bars is free of carrageenan, a seaweed-derived emulsifier that folks with tick-borne illnesses, especially alpha-gal syndrome, can become sensitive to. Yommi Frozen Superfood Bars have found their audience on the Island — during peak popsicle season they’re hand-making and wrapping nearly 2,000 popsicles a week.
Since taking over Yommi, Caroline and Ryan continue to follow Nicole and Adrian’s mission. They’ve kept all of their original recipes so that customers who return to the Island after several years find their favorite flavors exactly how they remembered. When working on new recipes, Caroline and Ryan keep seasonal produce in mind as well as customer requests. Some flavors they’re
Kids love these superfood-packed pops.
Caroline Harris and Gabe Wengler at the West Tisbury Farmers Market.
dreaming up for the future include matcha, apple cider, pumpkin spice, creamsicle, and key lime pie.
“I enjoy helping people and doing something good for the world,” says Gabe Wengler, Caroline’s cousin and the newest addition to Yommi’s small crew. “We’re making something delicious with organic, locallygrown, locally-sourced ingredients.” Purchasing produce from local farms whenever possible is one of Yommi’s top priorities, and they work closely with Fire Cat Farm and Radio Farm. They source ingredients that can’t be grown on the Vineyard, like avocados, through Cronig’s.
Staying small and staying local is both a blessing and a curse. “This year it was hard to coordinate with farmers on strawberries to meet our demand without exhausting their entire stock,” Ryan says. “And it’s great to consistently support the Island Bee Company and MV Sea Salt, which are the lifeblood of all
Ocean Breeze Bedding
Yommi pops.” In peak season, Yommi uses nearly 10 gallons of honey every couple of days.
Yommi’s operations are very low-waste. “Everything we have can be blended and put into popsicles,” Ryan explains. “All of our food scraps, like strawberry tops, are used to feed chickens. Some people will make dye out of our avocado pits. All of our other production waste is recycled — it’s paper and cardboard.” While Ryan acknowledges that their operation still has an impact on the environment, they’re always looking for innovative ways to stay sustainable. Their current paper popsicle wrapping is a better option than plastic, and they’re hoping to upgrade to natural resin-based packaging in the future.
Caroline and Ryan light up when talking about the support they’ve received from the Vineyard community. “We love getting to know other small businesses on
Yommi Tip: To remove turmeric stains from clothes, apply hydrogen peroxide before washing.
RANDI BAIRD
Golden Goodness pop.
“We
community.” – Caroline Harris
the Island and doing anything we can to collaborate,” says Caroline. “It feels like there are a handful of names buying everything on the Island, so it feels good to be a small fish supporting other small fish,” Ryan adds. They also love interacting with the community at markets, from converting superfood skeptics with their spinach-packed Mint
Chip Magic pop to watching the surprise from parents when their children declare the turmeric-rich Golden Goodness their new favorite dessert. Caroline, Ryan, and Gabe all agree that the best review they can get is when enthusiastic kids end up with more popsicle on their hands and face than in their mouth.
“We really pour our heart and soul
into this. We’re not just a couple of guys coming in from off-Island to make a quick buck and turn it over,” says Caroline, "We live here full-time and we feel very, very lucky to be able to be doing this and to be a part of the Island community.”
As they continue growing Yommi, Caroline and Ryan hope to find a larger kitchen with more storage space. Their current kitchen, located in the basement of the Model Deli (where the Larder used to be off State Road), is roughly the same size as my Subaru Crosstrek and is becoming bottlenecked as they make pops at maximum capacity. They’re also always looking for ways to make Yommi Frozen Superfood Bars more affordable and hope to eventually have enough space to safely produce nut-free options.
Yommi Frozen Superfood Bars are available at 13 locations across the Island, and they offer free home delivery for any order of 10 or more pops. You can also find them at First Fridays in Vineyard Haven and at the West Tisbury Farmers Market.
What's the Future of
COMPOSTING on Martha's Vineyard?
WASTE EXPERTS EYE A PERMANENT HOME FOR A NEW FACILITY.
Story by Lucas Thors
The Martha’s Vineyard community needs a new long-term composting solution, as Island Grown Initiative’s drum composter will cease operating in September, and Islanders will no longer be able to drop off food scraps at town transfer stations or bring them directly to IGI’s Thimble Farm for composting.
Over the past eight years, IGI has collected more than three million pounds of food waste from households, farms, and local businesses, and turned it into compost that has helped enrich the soils on IGI’s farm. The program, which has been the only commercial composting operation on-Island, was created after the MV Organics Recovery Committee, under the leadership of Sophie Mazza, received a Vineyard Vision Fellowship grant to purchase a drum composter and install it at the IGI farm.
Now that the drum composting machine has reached the end of its useful life and must be decommissioned, the committee is working on a permanent commercial composting solution. First, they need to secure a location, then they’re hoping to get started as soon as possible. According to IGI co-executive director Noli Taylor, the drum composting at the farm was intended to serve as a pilot program for food waste processing, not a long-term solution. “To me, this is a municipal responsibility, like other solid waste handling, and we need our towns to move into this role,” Taylor said.
For Taylor, the first step toward reducing the amount of food waste shipped off-Island is keeping it out of the trash. She said that her ideal vision for the future of composting on the Vineyard would include both centralized and dispersed
processing, where people can conveniently bring scraps to be turned into compost for local farms and gardens.
Woody Filley, who helped found the Island’s first recycling program in the ‘80s, is now leading the Organics Recovery Committee in their search for a long-term composting location. Filley said he’s grateful to IGI for initially volunteering to be the project site for the composting pilot, but now it’s time to create
Filley said the committee has located a prospective site, but the process is still in its very early stages. Filley is working with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) to bring a food waste consultant to the Island to create a plan that will fit the community’s needs. “Normally, the consultant looks at improving systems that are already up and running, but the state is looking to help us however they
“We are hoping to have something that can handle between 3,000 to 4,000 tons of food waste annually. That’s a significant amount of compost that would be kept on-Island and used to benefit our soils, our farms, and our economy,”
–Woody Filley, head of the Organics Recovery Committee
a dedicated facility that can handle the bulk of the community’s food waste. “We need a piece of land that’s large enough to handle a covered, in-building operation with enough space for trucks to come and go [as they transport food waste], and it needs to be far enough away from neighbors,” Filley said. “That was one of the main challenges for the IGI operation — they have a lot of neighbors, and people were concerned about smells and vectors for rodents and things like that — that’s why we did drum composting, because it was contained.”
can,” Filley said. According to Filley, Vineyard Vision’s food waste reclamation project was originally created to address the 2014 MassDEP commercial food waste ban, which said that if businesses or organizations create more than a ton of food waste per week, they must find an alternative way of disposing of it. Now, that state regulation is down to a half-ton of food waste, so even more local establishments are being required to divert their food waste away from the garbage. Filley said the situation is desperate for businesses that don’t have their own
Garden Angels
“To me, this is a municipal responsibility, like other solid waste handling, and we need our towns to move into this role.” –Noli Taylor, Island Grown Initiative co-executive director
composting operations, as they could soon be in violation of state regulations.
Currently, in agrarian towns like West Tisbury, commercial food waste composting is only permitted in light industrial districts. Filley said that’s a problem, as there are very few locations that are properly zoned for this type of use. “This just speaks to the fact that we don’t have enough commercial space to do the types of activities we need to do, but that’s a whole other conversation,” he said. Despite the immediate composting challenges, Filley is optimistic that the Vineyard will eventually come to view food waste as a commodity, instead of a burden, and composting as a necessity, instead of an option. “We are hoping to have something that can handle between 3,000 to 4,000 tons of food waste annually. That’s a significant amount of compost that would be kept on-Island and used to benefit our soils, our farms, and our economy,” Filley said.
Each year, 33% of the overall waste stream on Martha’s Vineyard consists of food waste — that means around 6,500 tons of food waste is shipped off-Island as garbage annually. Meredith Danberg-Ficarelli, co-owner of Catboat Coffee Co. in Vineyard Haven and co-founder of waste reduction platform WATS (Waste Administration+Tracking Software), has been working on composting efforts on Martha’s Vineyard and nationally. Danberg-Ficarelli said her ideal vision for waste infrastructure on the Island involves activity at every scale — people composting at home, in their neighborhoods, in their schools, in each Island town, and a more Islandwide solution at the top of the hierarchy. “I think we need to decentralize in some areas. We need to scale down our idea of solutions; that would mean smaller-scale mechanical preprocessing of food waste to make it dry and inert, then collecting that material and composting it,” Danberg-Ficarelli said.
For Danberg-Ficarelli, keeping the composting conversation alive is most essential if the Island wants to progress toward a permanent remedy to the food waste problem. “Talk to your neighbors about composting, talk to your coworkers,” Danberg-Ficarelli said. “Try to think about what would tie this issue to the thing you care about most — is it agriculture and soil health, is it economics and efficiency? Whatever allows us to bring more community members into this really important discussion.”
Bluedot will regularly report composting updates.
Webster’s Dictionary defines “cooperation” as: “operating together to one end; joint operation; concurrent effort or labor.’’ This accurately describes VINEYARD HOME IMPROVEMENTS’ culture and approach to every project. Our staff recognize the importance of partnership, and the ability to work as a team, as well as the necessity of being fair and flexible.
• Experienced in all phases of residential and commercial building construction.
• Skilled Craftsmen
• Design & Value Engineering
• Team Approach
Equipped to handle the more complex multi-story/multi-unit new projects, yet agile enough to execute the smaller jobs with the same degree of professionalism.
Founded by Gustavo M. Lioncio Over 20 years of experience
FIELDNote
To: Bluedot Living
From: Amanda Cutler, Ocean Program Fellow at The Nature Conservancy in Massachusetts
Subject: Farming Oysters and Restoring Reefs Go Hand-in-Hand
It’s 7 am on a Friday morning in May. An oyster grower on Martha’s Vineyard shows up in a pickup truck to Wilson’s Landing on Meshacket Cove with 16,000 oysters, another with 11,000 oysters, a third with 9,000 oysters, and one last grower with 5,000 oysters. It’s not a novel sight to see these growers hauling adult oysters in large totes this early in the morning, but if you look in the totes, these aren’t the smooth two-and-a-half inch shells that you would find at open bars and restaurants. These are rugged, oversized shells going to an oyster reef restoration site in Edgartown Great Pond.
Shellfish, and in particular reef-forming species such as oysters, are foundation species in critical coastal areas that provide benefits to the estuary environment and the other plants and animals living there. Yet over 85 percent of oyster reefs worldwide have disappeared due to overharvest, disease, pollution, and climate change. With the loss of oyster habitat comes the loss
A MARTHA’S VINEYARD PUBLIC GARDEN
of the ecosystem services they provide, including filtering water, removing excess nitrogen, and providing habitat for other marine
life. Impaired ecosystem function can then have ripple effects that impact larger ecological, cultural, and economic systems.
There are currently two oyster reef restoration sites on Martha’s Vineyard: in Edgartown Great Pond and Tisbury Great Pond. Each restoration site consists of a layer of cultch, or fragmented shell, underneath several layers of single adult oversize oysters that are dropped onto the sites each fall and spring to promote oyster population growth and mimic the benefits of a natural oyster reef.
Oyster habitat restoration is one naturebased solution that The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is exploring to improve the health and climate resilience of coastal ecosystems while supporting sustainable blue economies and communities. Supporting the aquaculture industry has been shown to increase the scale at which coastal habitat is restored, while also contributing to the economy and much-needed sustainable food production. There is strong evidence that shellfish aquaculture farms, when sited and managed appropriately, provide similar benefits to the environment as wild oyster habitat, including improving water quality and providing food and habitat for other species. It’s a reciprocity of benefits for the farms and reef ecosystem.
To support the aquaculture industry in being active partners in oyster restoration, TNC and Pew Charitable Trust initiated the Supporting Oyster Aquaculture and Restoration (SOAR) program during the Covid-19 pandemic as a response to restaurant closures that eliminated the market for shellfish. Participating oyster farmers across the United States were paid to supply their unmarketable product to TNC for enhancing and creating oyster reef habitat. Since 2020, the program has supported 125 shellfish farming companies across seven states, and in Massachusetts, purchased about 460,000 mature oysters
The Nature Conservancy at work restoring oyster reefs in Edgartown.
ENJOY MORE TIME OUTSIDE!
from 10 growers along the south coast, Cape Cod, and Martha’s Vineyard, who received nearly $250,000. The program continues today and is currently funded until 2026.
The SOAR program provides growers with an additional income stream while aiding reef recovery — a win for people and the planet. In addition to dropping excess adult oysters onto the restoration sites, growers have been recently exploring the option of growing oysters specifically for restoration purposes through a “spat-on-shell” pilot. Oysters are grown from seed in a nursery, where they latch onto a shell that is then transported to the restoration sites where they continue to grow. TNC is continuing to collaborate with the local aquaculture community to shape the future of the SOAR program and a farmer-based restoration market in Massachusetts.
• AN EFFECTIVE ‘GREEN’ ALTERNATIVE TO PESTICIDES & CHEMICALS
• KILLS TICKS & MOSQUITOS ON CONTACT.
• AN EFFECTIVE ‘GREEN’ ALTERNATIVE TO PESTICIDES & CHEMICALS
ohDEER offers you and your family a proven and safe solution to control ticks and mosquitoes so that you can enjoy your yard. Our products are true all-natural repellents that contain no pesticides or chemicals of any kind.
ohDEER offers you and your family a proven and safe solution to control ticks and mosquitoes so that you can enjoy your yard. Our products are true all-natural repellents that contain no pesticides or chemicals of any kind.
Implementation of the program on the Vineyard has been largely supported by key project partners Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group (MVSG). In addition to running their own hatchery and shell recycling program, they oversee oyster dropoffs, data collection, and monitoring of the restoration sites. They also act as a liaison with individual growers in the community.
"The SOAR program has been great for MVSG, the growers, and the Edgartown Great Pond ecosystem,” says Emma GreenBeach, Executive Director and Shellfish Biologist at MVSG.
“The program has added a new aspect to the oyster restoration we do, as well as a new way to collaborate with local growers. We are thrilled for the opportunity to work with the amazing staff of TNC and I hope the program can continue for many seasons, perhaps at additional sites on the Vineyard.”
Green-Beach helped lead the oyster drop-off this spring with a team of MVSG staff, who are sometimes accompanied by the Edgartown Shellfish Department to transfer the oysters to a boat to carry to the restoration site.
TNC and MVSG have already begun planning for the next round of oyster purchases and drop-offs in the fall. Thus far, the SOAR program has been successful in ensuring a healthier coast and increasing oyster habitat to provide a sustainable source of food and income for generations to come. TNC looks forward to building this into a long-term program and increasing opportunities for the aquaculture industry to be active in oyster restoration.
THE PAWNEE HOUSE
THE PAWNEE HOUSE
THE PAWNEE HOUSE
THE PAWNEE HOUSE
Collect These Cookbooks by Island Chefs
Written by Islanders, these cookbooks celebrate the spirit and heritage of Martha’s Vineyard.
Story by Julia Cooper
THE BEETLEBUNG
FARM COOKBOOK: A Year of Cooking on Martha's Vineyard
By Chris Fischer
Chris Fischer’s family cultivated Beetlebung Farm for several generations, from 1961 through 2018. This James Beard Awardwinning cookbook is a celebration of Fischer’s Island heritage and is packed with beautiful photographs, thoughtful personal essays, and seasonal recipes that showcase the amazing ingredients available from local farms and fisheries. “This book does what so many attempt and subsequently fail at: celebrating seasonal, fresh, local food in a way that's simple and elegant and realistic for home cooks,” a review in Bon Appétit raves.
THE MARTHA'S VINEYARD COOKBOOK: Over 250 Recipes And Lore From A Bountiful Island
By Louise Tate King and Jean Stewart Wexler
This updated edition of The Martha’s Vineyard Cookbook: A Diverse Sampler from a Bountiful Island includes all-new chapters featuring recipes from the Island’s African American and Brazilian communities, in addition to the original chapters that highlight cuisines from the Wampanoag tribe, English and Scottish whaling families, and Portuguese fishermen. Photography, illustrations, and sidebars throughout the book place the wide variety of recipes in the context of Vineyard folklore and natural history.
Make inspiration a REALITY
Specializing in “Island Style” design and build, Donaroma’s offers a full range of services from awardwinning new construction, including thoughtfully sculpted hardscapes and irrigation & lighting systems, to well-coordinated garden and maintenance services.
MORNING GLORY'S FARM
FOOD: Stories from the Fields, Recipes from the Kitchen
By Gabrielle
Redner
Photography by Alison Shaw brings Morning Glory Farm to life in the pages of this cookbook. This follow up to Morning Glory Farm: And the Family That Feeds an Island features recipes from Morning Glory’s Chef Robert Lionette and favorite recipes from home cooks around the Island. The stories that accompany the recipes reflect the care that the Ahearn family and the farm’s extended family of employees put into cultivating Morning Glory Farm.
THE BLACK DOG SUMMER ON THE VINEYARD COOKBOOK
By
Joseph Hall and Elaine Sullivan
The Black Dog is an iconic Vineyard establishment. This whimsically illustrated cookbook includes recipes from the Tavern’s summer menu so you can skip the crowds and enjoy your favorite dishes at home.
THE MARTHA’S VINEYARD TABLE
By Jessica B. Harris
Jessica B. Harris’ background in writing about food traditions from the African diaspora allow her a unique lens through which to explore Martha’s Vineyard’s food landscape. Her recipes and short essays paint a picture of colorful diversity, incorporating recipes from a variety of culinary cultures, like Jamaican Red Pea Soup with Spinners, Portuguese Kale Soup with Chorizo, Southern African-American Corn Fritters, and New England Smoked Bluefish Salad. She also includes tips on Island spots to visit for classic summer pies, fresh loaves of bread, seasonal produce, and fabulous artisan fudge.
VINEYARD HARVEST:
A Year of Good Food on Martha's Vineyard
By Tina Miller
Tina Miller grew up on the Vineyard as the daughter of one of the Black Dog Tavern founders and became a star Island chef in her own right. Vineyard Harvest celebrates simplicity and seasonality, highlighting local produce and freshcaught fish. Recipes include Grilled Bluefish with Lemons and Parsley Mayo, Crispy Slow-Cooked Duck with Beach Plum Glaze, Roasted September Peaches with Walnut Crust and Sweet Cream, and so much more.
Find more favorite MV cookbooks in our fall/winter issue, out in November. Read the full story online at bit.ly/MVCookbooks.
Serving the Community of Martha’s Vineyard
Solar System & Battery Installation
Commercial & Residential Canopies & Pergolas
On Martha’s Vineyard and across Massachusetts, we are working to ensure nature and people thrive.
Learn more at nature.org/mass
VINEYARD POWER Seeks to Energize Young Islanders
Educational programs get kids and adults involved in the energy transition movement.
BY LUCAS THORS
Vineyard Power is working with Island schools and organizations to create a pathway for long-term learning and highlight career opportunities in the growing renewable energy industry.
“We are continuing to build our education curriculum, which spans from fifth grade through the end of high school and beyond,” Vineyard Power Program Analyst Sophie Pittaluga said of the Energy Transition Program. Students participate in hands-on activities such as building wind turbines and solar cars, and eventually engage in complex problem solving and critical thinking, such as evaluating the trade-offs regarding the development of renewable energy projects. Vineyard Power hopes to expand the program to other Island schools this fall. “It’s meant to be easy for teachers. Our team schedules a time to come into the classroom and co-teach the material,” Pittaluga said. “We want to expand this program to include as many students as we can.”
This past year, Pittaluga and Vineyard Wind Manager of Education Initiatives
Jeannine Louro taught fifth graders at the West Tisbury School about offshore wind energy. The Kid Wind Program challenges students to think about how they might approach developing a wind farm, and introduces them to the engineering concepts to construct an actual turbine. “These activities are hands-on, engaging, and fun,” Pittaluga said, “so students connect more with the material.”
At the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, the Vineyard Power team meets with every 11th grader as a part of the Junior Career Pathways class. This portion of the curriculum encourages high schoolers to consider careers in fields such as offshore wind, the mariner trades, HVAC installation, engineering, and protected species monitoring.
High schoolers, recent graduates, and adult relearners on the Island can eventually enroll in certification programs that open doors to a number of lucrative green jobs. Vineyard Power collaborates with Adult and Community Education of Martha’s Vineyard (ACE MV) to offer courses that allow more people to make a career out of the transition to clean energy. “This transition is already well underway on the Island, which is all about reducing fossil fuel use in our homes and in our means of transportation. There is a need for a local workforce in renewables, energy efficiency, and electrification to help us make this transition possible — the next generation will have new opportunities and become part of the solution,” said Richard Andre, President and Director of Vineyard Power.
Two years later, seventh graders participate in the solar car race, which first began in 2007, and teaches students about solar energy by having them build solarpowered cars. In the upcoming years, Vineyard Power hopes to host an Island-wide solar car race. “The wind turbine design is perfect for younger kids because it builds a foundation of knowledge and awareness, and the solar car race gives older kids a little more latitude in their creative process,” Vineyard Power Controller and Renewable Development Manager Luke Lefeber said.
One exciting initiative that Vineyard Power is proudly supporting is Spark MV, an event hosted by the MV Builders Association to ignite interest in the trades. Spark MV will be held for the first time at the MV Agricultural Hall on October 26. “This event invites different contractors and tradespeople to present their craft through engaging and participatory activities,” Pittaluga said.
Vineyard Power also runs an internship program that introduces students to the energy transition workforce. Summer intern Hollis Kelly, a recent environmental studies college graduate and MVRHS alumnus, said it’s impossible to ignore the natural world as a kid on the Vineyard. “I would always go swimming at the beach, hiking up-Island, and fishing with my grandpa on his boat,” Kelly said. “I want to preserve
Students at the West Tisbury School build solar-powered cars to learn about renewable energy.
PHOTO COURTESY VINEYARD POWER
this place and pass it on to future Islanders.” As clean energy technologies become more prevalent here, Kelly said he wants to bolster his resume and enter the environmental and energy transition workforce.
“I’m really interested in coastal ecosystems and how humans interact with them and occupy them,” Kelly said. “That involves sea level rise, coastal erosion, wildlife preservation and conservation, and tidal and offshore wind energy.”
Another summer intern, Huck Moore, said growing up on the Island he was always surrounded by people who cared about the natural world, and wanted to protect it. Moore has been in the Boy Scouts almost his whole life — now he’s an Eagle Scout, so he has a deep connection with the outdoors. Moore also led the Protect Your Environment Club at MVRHS, which, with the help of the MV Vision Fellowship, put him on the path to joining Vineyard Power.
Moore is heading to college this year, and considering a major in engineering. “I’m very passionate about the technological side of renewable energy. Vineyard Power is great because I get to be at the forefront of these developing technologies.”
Even though it’s a small community, Moore said the Vineyard is leading the charge in a number of clean energy developments, and Vineyard Power is encouraging young people to get in at the ground level. “This community can serve as a model across
“It’s meant to be easy for teachers. Our team schedules a time to come into the classroom and co-teach the material. We want to expand this program to as many students as we can.”
– Sophie Pittaluga on Vineyard Power’s Energy Transition Program
the country, and even the world, for places that want to shift toward 100 percent renewables and give the public tools to live more sustainably,” Moore said.
Through comprehensive education initiatives, handson activities, and strong community partnerships, Vineyard Power is not only equipping the next generation with the skills needed for the renewable energy sector, but also positioning the Island as a leader of sustainable development and environmental stewardship.
Dot Does a Rapid-fire Round of Your Most Common Questions
Dear Reader,
I don’t know where you are, Reader, but it has been hot this summer where Dot lives. In the interest of saving energy (my own), Dot is going to present some rapid-fire answers to some of your most often-asked questions: hand wash or dishwasher?, recycle (greasy) pizza boxes?, flush expired medications?, and more. Taken together, perhaps these answers will serve as a reminder that the small actions that make up our lives can add up to big change. Let’s go!
Which is better for the environment — to hand wash my dishes or use a dishwasher?
A reader named Maria asked this question and Dot answered. If you don’t want to read the whole answer, here’s the tl;dr version: A dishwasher (loaded properly) is your most water-friendly option.
Is a greasy pizza box garbage? Or recycling?
Dot had long believed that even the teensiest bit of grease rendered a pizza box undesirable in the recycling bin — even though landfilling paper is an eco-sin — because I was under the impression that greasy paper would contaminate
and render the entire batch unrecyclable. But my worry was needless. According to The Washington Post’s Climate Coach, citing advice from the Environmental Protection Agency, “you should put them in the bin even if they’re stained with grease. But before you do, make sure to remove any food scraps and flatten the box.”
I know I shouldn’t throw old medications away, so can I flush them instead?
No! On behalf of the fish who don’t want your expired birth control and the dolphins who are anti antidepressants and antibiotics, no! Bluedot’s How to Get Rid of (Almost) Anything reminds us that “October 29 is Take Back Day — when the DEA urges all of us to get rid of no-longer-needed prescription medications to help avoid misuse or overdoses.” And, it says, “Do not flush or dump medications down the sink, where they find their way into waterways and, potentially, harm water creatures. If you miss Take Back Day, ask at your local pharmacy, or visit this site for other disposal locations.”
Do eco cleaning products work as well as conventional ones? Dot has long been a fan of DIY cleaning products — my favorite all-purpose scrub (counters, sinks, microwave, stovetop, shower, tub) is a combination of baking soda and dish soap — just enough to make a paste. Follow by wiping with a clean, damp cloth.
And to those who argue that my home mustn’t be as dirty as theirs, mine includes two extra-large Dot Canines and two Dot Felines. Oh … and occasionally, three Dot (Young Adult) Offspring. It is possible that I set the “cleanliness” bar a little lower than some. It’s not worth it to me to pollute the indoor air with the VOCs released by many conventional cleaning products in order to get my house “clean.”
That being said, I have long heard the complaint that “green” cleaning products don’t do the job. So I was delighted recently to note that the Washington Post’s Climate Coach put that assertion to the test, concluding, thanks to Jason Marshall, who tested the products at the laboratory of the Toxics Use Reduction Institute (TURI) at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, “Green products can and do perform as effectively as traditional cleaning products.” Further, Climate Coach reports, “even the toughest household jobs, such as sanitizing surfaces of E. coli, can be done as effectively without toxic chemicals.”
Perhaps, Dot wonders, there’s a disconnect between what is actually clean and what our marketing culture has told us clean looks and smells like.
Check out our Daily Dot newsletter and get a Climate Quick Tip each weekday, and an answer from Dot each Saturday. On Sunday, Dot rests. Sign up here: bit.ly/BDLnewsletters
Grown pizza since 2011. 100% of profits from our new Island Grown baseball cap are donated to Island Grown Initiative.
THE ISLAND’S Discovering
Cranberry Culture
“They’ve always been here, and they’ve always grown just as they are. We’ve always been thankful for them. We don’t tinker too much with it.” –Bettina Washington
Since long before anyone can remember, cranberries were a gift of sustenance on Martha’s Vineyard.
Story by Britt Bowker
Aquinnah Tribe members James Cooper and Rachel Ryan harvesting cranberries in the Lobsterville bog in 1928. Oxen were used for transport.
Ihad no idea there were cranberry bogs on Martha’s Vineyard, and there used to be a lot more, before hurricanes and rising seas began changing the landscape, making it harder for them to grow. Cranberries used to be part of a thriving industry here. There’s always been a Tribal holiday that honors them.
Cranberries are typically harvested in the fall, and every second Tuesday in October, members of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) celebrate the harvest on Cranberry Day, when folks from the Tribe head to the wild bogs near Lobsterville Road, just up from Menemsha Pond. Kids are excused from school. Everyone spends the day harvesting, grilling food, and hanging out. By nighttime, it’s a party open to the town, where everyone shares food. There’s drumming and singing. It’s one of the Tribe’s most important holidays, and it’s not celebrated anywhere else but on the Island.
“It’s something we’ve done continuously,” Bettina Washington, the Tribe’s Historic Preservation Officer told me recently. “It’s a time for really giving back to the land, being on the land, understanding that while you’re harvesting, you’re also giving thanks for the gifts that you’re being given.”
more than a one-day harvest,” Bettina says of Cranberry Day. “It was at least a couple of weeks, and they would barter and sell the cranberries. It was a pretty big industry.”
Similar to how the Cape and other parts of Massachusetts are today (Ocean Spray is headquartered in LakevilleMiddleborough), the Island was once
Cranberry Day is one of the Aquinnah Tribe’s most important holidays, and it’s not celebrated anywhere else but on the Island.
Cranberries grow on low-lying vines in natural depressions carved by the ice age, filled in with silt. They grow wild in wetlands and swamps, with a unique environment of water, sand, and mud. Their leaves are small and oval, their flowers bell-shaped, and the fruits turn a crimson red when they start to ripen in September. Some vines on the Island are more than 100 years old and still bearing fruit.
“When you talk about my great-great grandparents and beyond that, it was
a prominent producer of commercial cranberries. The heartland for bogs was off Lambert’s Cove Road, where there was a cluster of small-scale active cranberry operations owned by various members of the Look, Bodfish, Howland, and other Island families. There were operations in West Tisbury, too, one owned by Antone Alley, and another owned by Marshall Norton and Jimmy Green. There was a bog in Chilmark owned by Everett A. Poole, and one near Sengekontacket Pond called Kidder’s
Bog. The Martha’s Vineyard Museum let me look at an unpublished map that Oral History Curator Linsey Lee created highlighting where many of the active pre-1950’s bogs were and who owned them. Little dots Lee drew in red marker represent each bog she traced, relative to its size. There are dozens. The largest red spot on the map is near Lobsterville, “the main bog,” Bettina says it’s called.
Tribal member June Manning wrote in a 1999 Vineyard Gazette article: “We have always shared our harvested bounty with extended family, and what we can sell to others is sold. During the turn of the century there were cranberry bogs owned by families. The berries were harvested and then taken to New Bedford to be sold or traded for groceries. It was easier to travel to New Bedford by boat rather than by ox carts or horse and buggy down-Island.”
Many Tribal elders still talk about how exciting it was as kids taking ox carts down to the bogs on Cranberry Day, Bettina tells me. “Everyone had a pair of oxen because those were tractors of the day,” she says.
Cranberries were also a reliable source of sustenance that would last through the winter — they preserve well when kept cold, which was easy enough to do before there was electricity.
“In the house I grew up in there was a little alcove, and I remember my father saying that they’d put a board across the opening, and they’d dump the cranberries that they picked in that alcove, and they would eat them throughout the winter,” Bettina says. “They’re a great source of Vitamin C.”
The Tribe also used cranberries to make dyes and medicine, and dried and pounded them with venison to make pemmican, a type of jerky fishermen and hunters carried with them.
When it comes to harvesting the berries: “Most of us pick them by hand, but some folks have cranberry scoops,” Bettina says. “My aunt had a longhandled scoop. Obviously, if you’re older, you might not be able to bend over.
Bettina Washington dances at the Aquinnah Powwow, another traditional Tribal holiday, which takes place every September.
PHOTO BY LISA VANDERHOOP
With the long handle, you just stand and scoop them up. It also helps if there’s a lot of water.”
Sometimes the soggy bogs are wetter and sometimes they’re drier. Unlike the commercial bogs today that are flooded to assist with production, “we don’t do anything to the bogs,” Bettina says. “We don’t flood, we don’t sand, we don’t fertilize them. They just grow.”
The Tribe’s Natural Resources Department occasionally goes in to remove weeds and invasives “so there’s room for the cranberries to thrive,” Bettina says. “They’ve always been here, and they’ve always grown just as they are. We’ve always been thankful for them. We don’t tinker too much with it.”
According to sustenance rights established in 1987 when the Aquinnah Tribe achieved federal acknowledgement from the U.S. government, the bogs on Aquinnah Tribal lands can only be harvested by Tribal members. That goes for clay and beach plums, too.
“Tribal members can take things on Tribal land,” Bettina says, adding that Cranberry Day includes Tribal households. “There are a lot of non-Tribal members in our households, but because they’re in our household, they’re included. It’s a Tribal
family, so they’re included.”
The bogs that aren’t on Tribal land or private land can be harvested by anyone. At 572 Lambert’s Cove Road, there’s Cranberry Acres, which is run by the Vineyard Open Land Foundation (VOLF), where people can pick cranberries for about $10, usually starting around mid-October. (Email them first at office@volfmv.org). VOLF first harvests the half-acre bog themselves using a cranberry-picking machine. Then they sort and winnow the cranberries, also using machines, and sell them to local markets like Morning Glory, Cronig’s, and Ghost Island Farm. After that, they let people come in and pick their own. Hours are typically between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., but it varies, and people are only
Continued on page 24
allowed on the bog if a staff member is there. Cranberry Acres is a certified organic bog, and they flood the grounds twice a year like many of the other large commercial operations on the Cape and southeastern Massachusetts. It usually yields about 2,000 pounds of cranberries every year, said Carol Magee, VOLF's Cranberry Bog Project Manager.
After the 1938 hurricane, the Island’s commercial cranberry industry dwindled. “The salt water came all the way over the dunes and of course it killed all the vines,” Charlie Vanderhoop told Linsey Lee in an interview from 2000. Bettina tells me the hurricane was “an all hands on deck type thing. Everyone had to run down and harvest the cranberries.” Some bogs have grown back, but the industry never returned. The decline also coincided with the end of World War II. Small-scale growers here couldn’t keep up with the big operations on the Cape who could undercut their prices because they had lower operating costs and economies of scale.
Today, some seasons yield better than others. Cranberries grow best with “enough rain, but not too much rain,” Bettina says. “Some years there aren’t that many cranberries. Okay. So chances are we’ve had a good beach plum season, or something else has been plentiful.”
Bettina told me about some of her favorite ways to eat cranberries, besides
Continued on page 74
When it comes to harvesting, "good cranberries bounce," Bettina Washington says.
Islanders were hired to harvest cranberries in many of the active commercial bogs off Lambert’s Cove Road.
PHOTO BY SUZAN BELLINCAMPI
Creating A Closed-Loop Culture At Grey Barn
A small Island farm known for its cheese uses regenerative agriculture to ‘do no harm.’
Story by Lucas Thors Pictures by Molly Glasgow
Alot has changed at the Grey Barn and Farm since the Glasgow family moved to the Island in 2009 and raised their first livestock: three cows, three calves, and seven piglets. Now, with around 50 dual-purpose (milk and beef) cows, dozens of pigs, an award-winning dairy, a state-of-the-art bakery, and a five-acre organic garden, the family farm has grown into a major agricultural hub.
“We really have relied on that same objective we began with; let’s give the community the opportunity to experience local agriculture, local food, in a way that is environmentally, socially, and fiscally responsible,” Eric Glasgow, who owns Grey Barn alongside his wife, Molly Glasgow, told Bluedot Living.
“Sustainability can often be a loaded term, because it means a lot of things to different people, but for us, it has always meant that the enterprise is conceived of and operated on the notion that we want to leave the world a better place — land, animals, people — or at least do no harm to those things.”
The farm conducted an environmental report during the final year of the Covid pandemic to find out how much of an impact they were having on the farm’s soil, water, and air. It turned out that Grey Barn was offsetting almost all of their greenhouse gas emissions through carbon sequestration and solar energy generation. And by instituting regenerative farming practices like silvopasture (that combines trees, livestock, and forage production on the same land) and rotational grazing along with soil amendments, the
Grey Barn is working toward a totally closed-loop system by minimizing the amount of waste that leaves the farm. With such a large dairy and cheesemaking operation, there is often leftover food and dairy waste. But that protein-rich waste has a practical use — the pigs think it’s delicious.
report showed that the farm was slowly building a healthier soil microbiome.
There’s a concept in agriculture, most closely connected to beef farming, that Glasgow referred to as “holistic land management” — the idea that farmers look at their entire operation and figure out how well it’s working financially, socially, and environmentally. He said every decision made at the Grey Barn is
Cheesemakers fill hoop trays with curd.
Cheesemaker Rachel starts her day with fresh curd.
Grey Barn livestock manager Justin cleans up.
The cows are up early at Grey Barn.
Pigs at the farm are fed leftover food scraps to add to the closed-loop culture.
The number of smaller dairy farms in the United States declines relentlessly each year, even as the total number of dairy cows rises with the growing prevalence of industrial farming. As family farms continue to disappear, Glasgow said he is proud to maintain a community-oriented approach, and to run his business at a scale that is closer to what the original mom-and-pop farms looked like.
“informed by what the overall impact will be on the world now, and a generation from now.”
The agricultural practices used on the farm property prior to the Glasgows taking over were more conventional and didn’t consider long-term soil health. Before the Grey Barn reworked the property, the pH was low, there was too much magnesium, and there wasn’t enough calcium or phosphorus — a “typical Vineyard hayfield,” as Glasgow put it. “We put a lot of effort — time and money — into putting the fields back on a more sustainable path,” Glasgow said. “We introduced a lot of soil amendments to rebalance everything, and did a ton of cover cropping to get our fields to a good place.”
For Grey Barn, one of the most important aspects of their farm is the health of their fields. Healthy grazing for the cows means better meat, milk, and cheese. Each year, Grey Barn’s cows produce hundreds of yards of manure and compost. About a third of that (around 130 cubic yards) is heated, refined (to comply with regulatory standards), and used to enrich the certified organic vegetable garden, while the rest is spread on the pasturelands.
“During the grazing season, the cows are in the barn for about half a day usually, then later in the day and at night they go out to graze,” Glasgow explained. Inside the dairy barn is a massive open area where straw and sawdust is laid. When it is mixed with manure, it creates what is known as a pack. As the cows produce manure and trample the ground, farm workers bring in a rototiller to aerate the pack and foster oxidation. For the past several years, that compost has been applied to the Grey Barn fields, and although it’s a gradual process, the organic and chemical makeup of their soil has improved. Glasgow said the farm continues to periodically test their soil to make sure it is heading in the right direction.
Apart from a little diesel fuel for their tractors and some propane to run the forklift, Grey Barn runs entirely off electricity. And with every available
roofline that has good southern exposure covered in solar panels, the farm is considered net-neutral in its electricity consumption. “Other than some of our machinery and the occasional supplemental heating for the pigs if they are going to have babies in the dead of winter, everything is electric, including HVAC and hot water,” Glasgow said. State agricultural preservation restrictions prevent management from installing ground-based solar arrays on the property, something Glasgow said he agrees with. “The state wants farmland to be used for farms, not solar farms,” he said, although any additional construction on the property in the future will involve solar. “Our solar array has been online for almost twelve years, so the system has long ago paid for itself.”
There are several terms that describe the approach Grey Barn is taking regarding grazing and managing their herd: rotational grazing, management intensive grazing — it all refers to shifting cows to different areas of pasture each day, and being aware of the condition of both the animals and the land. Glasgow said they have been using this practice for a decade, and now have it down to a science. “We used to put the cows out for one hundred percent of the time during the grazing season, but it’s really hard to have the cows out in the middle of the day when it’s really hot,” Glasgow said. “It’s hard on the animals, and it’s even harder on the fields.”
Creating a mutually beneficial relationship between grazing cows and the fields that grow the grass they eat is at the center of effective and sustainable rotational grazing. According to Glasgow, farmers strategically put the cows out in an open area of field that has had enough time to grow. After the cows have eaten almost all the grass in that area, they are transferred to a new area. This adds longevity to the fields, and by constraining cows to a smaller area, they trample the grass by bending it and crushing it with their hooves. “That is essentially how you are building the soil. The cows are releasing organic matter, and trampling it into the ground, and
creating a soil microbiome that is actually sequestering carbon,” Glasgow said. “If you increase your organic matter from three percent to four percent, it’s actually many tons of carbon you are sequestering. I won’t be so bold as to say we are netremoving carbon, but I do feel strongly that we are essentially net-neutral. That puts us well ahead of the vast majority of dairy farms, let alone small farm enterprises.” Part of this intensive grazing approach involves multi-species pasture rotation, which brings Grey Barn sheep and chickens out into the fields to aid in soil microbiome development, which further reduces the need to till.
According to the environmental report, Grey Barn sequestered 667 tons of CO2 equivalent between the summer of 2018 and the summer of 2020 — about 330 tons per year, which is equivalent to 44 households worth of emissions.
Grey Barn is working toward a totally closed-loop system by minimizing the amount of waste that leaves the farm. With such a large dairy and cheesemaking operation, there is often leftover food and dairy waste. But that protein-rich waste has a practical use — the pigs think it’s delicious. “We feed our pigs all the leftover stuff from our dairy operations, and that gives our pork a really nice and rich taste, and it ensures that we aren’t throwing a whole bunch of dairy in the garbage,” Glasgow said.
Islanders (and mainlanders) who buy food from Grey Barn can rest assured, knowing it’s all certified organic by the USDA. That means it’s completely free of synthetic fertilizers, GMOs, growth hormones, herbicides, or pesticides. Instead, Grey Barn uses their own manure and compost, rotational grazing, hand-weeding, and only certified organic pest deterrents.
To accompany the smart business and environmental efforts at the farm, Grey Barn also offers a community supported bread program. Paying customers can sign up for a share, which provides ten weeks of bread (two loaves per week) along with a little surprise from the bakery or dairy in each pickup; the profits from this program allow the farm to offer what
they call a “neighborhood loaf” to the food pantry and other Island benevolent community organizations. “Each time we bake two loaves for a community supported bread program customer, proceeds from that go toward baking the neighborhood loaf,” Glasgow said.
On days when the bakery doesn’t completely clear their shelves, any leftover bread, pastries, and more that won’t be repurposed are donated to local charities. Also as part of their charitable work, Grey Barn provides discounted products to schools on a regular basis. Outside funding sources help subsidize this program, so the schools are paying commodity prices for artisanal, locallymade, certified organic food.
The number of smaller dairy farms in the United States declines relentlessly each year, even as the total number of dairy cows rises with the growing prevalence of industrial farming. As family farms continue to disappear, Glasgow said he is proud to maintain a community-oriented approach, and to run his business at a scale that is
Mmmmm-mmmm: Grey Barn bread.
closer to what the original mom-andpop farms looked like, as opposed to what “small farms” are these days. “The sustainability report really reaffirmed our commitment to these values,” Glasgow said. “Going forward we will continue testing our soil, and keep learning and
coming up with new ways to strengthen our connection with the land we live on and steward.”
Head to thegreybarnandfarm.com/ourenvironmental-footprint to read the entire sustainability report.
“Sustainability can often be a loaded term, because it means a lot of things to different people, but for us, it has always meant that the enterprise is conceived of and operated on the notion that we want to leave the world a better place — land, animals, people — or at least do no harm to those things.” – Eric Glasgow
MARTHA’S VINEYARD RESTAURANTS: Who’s Cooking What
Local chefs share their favorite in-season recipes.
Story and photos by Marnely Murray
Chef: Naji Boustany,
Catboat Coffee Company, Vineyard Haven
It’s interesting how we all arrive on Martha’s Vineyard. Whether drawn by family, love, work, or play, everyone has an interesting story of how they came to the Island, and Chef Naji’s is no exception — he arrived on the Island thanks to his wife’s Island family roots. From Lebanon to New York City, with the TV series “Chopped” and a gig as a chef at the renowned Danish restaurant Noma in between, his way of cooking and running a business reflects his love of diversity. His staff comes from all backgrounds and cultures and they speak many languages.
"Catboat Coffee Co. is a unique creation that combines our family's passions under one roof,” he tells me. “We decided to combine the fantastic flavors of Lebanese cuisine with the rich nautical history of catboats.” Drawing from his experience as a chef in Beirut, Naji curated the menu of Manousheh (Lebanese flatbreads), housemade dips, chicken shawarma, and beef kafta, alongside the classic American offerings such as breakfast sandwiches. “We're encouraged to see other Boston-area brands, like Tatte and Sofra, incorporating similar flavors in their menus,” Naji adds. “It makes it clear: New Englanders are definitely on board with our flavors!"
Catboat Coffee Co. is also the first Vineyard restaurant to participate in the “Too Good To Go” app, a service with a mobile application that connects consumers and guests to restaurants and stores that have surplus unsold food. With the tap of a finger, the app enables restaurants to sell surplus food items at a discounted price, both benefiting consumers and helping to avoid food waste.
ASPARAGUS AND CHICKPEA FATTEH
Serves 1
INGREDIENTS:
6 asparagus spears
1/4 cup yogurt
1/3 cup tahini paste
1 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp lemon juice
One piece, 2-inch stalk garlic scapes
2 cloves garlic
¼ cup chickpeas, boiled or canned
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp each: cumin, Aleppo pepper, kosher salt
Pita chips for serving, if desired
Optional: 1 tablespoon butter, 1/2 cup pecans, walnuts, or pistachios
DIRECTIONS
1. Blanch the asparagus in 2 inches of boiling water with 1 teaspoon of salt for 3–4 minutes.
2. Drain and immediately submerge in an ice bath until cooled. Set aside.
3. Make the tahini-yogurt base: Mix together the tahini, yogurt, water, salt, lemon juice, half of the cumin, and half of the olive oil. Set aside.
4. Briefly char the garlic scapes (on a grill, under the broiler, or over a flame burner). This will give them a smoky flavor. Mash them in a mortar and pestle with the garlic cloves and add to the tahini yogurt mixture. Set aside.
5. If using nuts, melt the 1 tablespoon of butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add the nuts and stir until golden brown.
6. To serve, lay the asparagus on a plate and top with the tahini yogurt sauce. Sprinkle it with pita chips and chickpeas. If using nuts, pour toasted nuts and butter over the dish.
7. Garnish with the remaining olive oil, cumin, and Aleppo pepper.
Chef: Deborrah Cohen, The Pawnee House, Oak Bluffs
“When we first put up the list of local farms and makers, we beamed with pride,” Deborrah says. “One night, the Vineyard Cash and Carry guys came in and wondered why they weren’t on the list, since we source some things from them. And you know what? They were right! Because sustainability isn’t just about locally grown produce; it also takes into account carbon footprint and locally owned businesses like VCC. So, of course, now they are on the list, and we both couldn’t be happier!” Sustainability isn’t just about big initiatives; it also means making choices in everyday life, such as sourcing from local grocery stores.
Deborrah’s recipe has a great blend of locally-sourced products: fluke from the fishing vessel Gloria Jean in Menemsha; collard greens from Morning Glory Farm; radishes and spring onions from Beetlebung Farm; and okra and tomatoes from Norton Farms. When thinking about your next dinner menu, consider challenging yourself to source as many ingredients as possible from the Island — and see how far you can take it!
BLACKENED FLUKE
WITH RED BEANS, RICE, SPICY COLLARD GREENS, AND FRIED OKRA
By Deborrah Cohen
Serves 4 to 6
INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 lbs fresh asparagus
1 cup cooked Carolina Gold Rice
For the Red Beans
1 1/2 lbs fresh asparagus
16 oz dried red beans
2 bay leaves
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsps kosher salt
2 Tbps smoked paprika
1 tsp red chili flakes
1/2 onion, diced
1 jalapeno, sliced into thin rounds
4 radishes, sliced into thin rounds
32-40 oz. water
For Spicy Collard Greens
1-1 1/2 lbs. collard greens
1/2 onion, diced
2 Tbsps white vinegar
1 tsp cane sugar
2 tsps coarse Kosher salt
1 Tbsp red chili flakes
1 Tbsp smoked paprika
For the Fried Okra and Roasted Tomatoes
12–16 oz. okra
3 Tbsps cornmeal
4 of any type of small round tomatoes (not halved)
DIRECTIONS
For Spicy Collard Greens
1. Combine all ingredients in a pressure cooker.
2. Cook on the stew setting for 30 minutes.
For the Red Beans
1. Combine all ingredients in a pressure cooker.
2. Cook on the bean setting for 30 minutes.
3. Check beans for taste and add 1/4 cup of your favorite hot sauce.
4. Pressure cook for an additional 30 minutes.
5. Lightly smash the beans to thicken the texture.
NOTES: Beans reach their peak flavor 48 hours after cooking.
For the Fried Okra
1. Lightly coat okra with yellow cornmeal.
2. Deep fry okra in 2 inches of neutral oil until golden brown.
3. Salt to taste.
For the Roasted Tomatoes
1. Season cut tomatoes with salt, pepper, and olive oil.
2. Roast at 400 degrees F for about five minutes.
Assemble
1. Put a layer of rice on the bottom (5 ounces)
2. Add 10–12 ounces of beans on top of that, leaving some rice showing
3. Place the fish on a diagonal on top Garnish to taste with sliced jalapeños, green onions, and radishes cut on a bias.
Chef: Zach Prifti, The Terrace at the Charlotte Inn, Edgartown
“Being a part of an organization such as Relais & Châteaux makes you think about every ingredient and how it is sourced,” Chef Zach Prifti says. “It makes you think about your menus in a way I’ve never thought about menus before.”
A newcomer to the Island, Chef Prifti has quickly developed deep relationships with local farmers such as Eric Glasgow from The Grey Barn and Farm, as well as local food artisans such as Katie Kidder of The Chappy Kitchen and Uncle Neil’s Mustard. Showcasing local foods in his menus, Prifti tells the culinary story of the Island in a captivating — and delicious — way.
LOCAL EGGS WITH POTATO SALAD AND CAVIAR
Serves 2
INGREDIENTS:
3-4 large eggs
Salt for curing yolks
5 grams of Beluga caviar
4-5 large Idaho potatoes, diced and blanched until fork-tender
1 1/2 cups mayonnaise
1/2 cup mustard
1 scallion, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
Local microgreens for garnishing
DIRECTIONS
1. Boil eggs for 8‒10 minutes, drain, and place immediately in an ice bath for 30‒45 minutes.
2. Peel eggs, and set one aside. Remove yolks from the remaining eggs.
3. Place yolks in a sealable container. Cover them with salt to cure them for zesting.
4. Combine potatoes, mayonnaise, mustard, scallion, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Mix well and set aside in the refrigerator.
5. To plate, place ¾ cup potato salad on a plate.
6. Slice the reserved hard-boiled egg in half lengthwise and place one of the halves on top of the potato salad.
7. Top with 5 grams of Beluga caviar.
8. Zest half a cured egg yolk over the dish, and reserve the rest for future recipes. Finish with a sprinkling of local microgreens.
Chef: Susanna Herlitz-Ferguson, MV Salads, Oak Bluffs
“The joy we get from showcasing local farms on our menu, and being able to tell that story to everyone who walks through our doors, is truly the most special part of this job,” Susanna Herlitz-Ferguson says as she sprinkles fresh mint on the salad I’m photographing. Storytelling is a common denominator — she’s just recently published her first storybook with recipes, one that showcases her deep love for Martha’s Vineyard, its local farms, and the people that make up the fabric of the Island. Her book, titled Made with Kindness: Tales and Tastes from MV Salads on Martha's Vineyard, (available on Amazon and locally) shares 18 recipes from Susanna’s life, from childhood to salad shop owner, and that’s what gets our conversation going. “When you think of New England coastal food, you think of fried scallops, stuffed quahogs, and creamy chowder. I wanted to offer something lighter, with a freshness that was unbeatable, while still focusing on local. After creating MV The Dressing, I knew I needed a space to share my love for fresh food, and that’s when MV Salads was born.”
When you walk into the space, you’re met with eclecticism — there’s the Rock Wall, the Kindness Box, and the salad line; there are offerings of fresh, batch-made drinks; and there’s the staff, a team composed entirely of people originally from somewhere else. This variety keeps the beat of the MV Salads heart thumping — and the staff thrives on it. The batched drinks (Watermelon Cooler, Mint Lime Faux-jito, and Hibiscus Ginger Tea) are also environmentally friendly; making drinks in bulk batches reduces the need for single-use containers.
On a hot summer day, consider grabbing a delicious drink and a fresh salad in an Island Eats bowl from MV Salads, and smile at the Earth — you’ll be doing a great job of supporting it!
PURPLE SUMMER DREAM SALAD WITH
FETA AND
BLUEBERRIES
Serves 4 to 6
INGREDIENTS:
For the Green Goddess
Dressing:
1 bottle MV The Dressing
1/2 medium avocado
5 Tbsps vegan mayonnaise
1 Tbsp lime juice
For the Salad:
Salanova greens
Feta cheese
Fresh blueberries
Sliced cucumbers
Fresh mint
Blueberry sea salt
Emperor nasturtiums
DIRECTIONS
1. Make the dressing. Pour the MV The Dressing into a blender. Add the avocado, mayonnaise, and lime juice, and blend until smooth. Set aside.
2. Place the greens, feta, blueberries, cucumbers, and mint in a bowl. Pour the salad dressing on top and toss.
3. Serve immediately.
Chef: Jimmy Alvarado, On Time Catering
“As a caterer, I’m connecting with clients months, sometimes a year in advance of their event, and this is the moment when we discuss the storytelling of the event, through food,” Chef Jimmy Alvarado says. “And every story begins and ends with developing a menu that will align not only with the client, but also with our brand at On Time Catering, which focuses on chef-driven, diverse flavors delivered in a sustainable way.”
Alvarado is also the owner and chef at TigerHawk Sandwich Company in Oak Bluffs, and notes that sustainability for events, large or small, can be achieved by first getting clients to agree to sustainable choices, and then executing those choices with precision. He sources ingredients from area farms, and is always looking out for ways he can promote locally sourced foods while maintaining a profitable catering business on Martha’s Vineyard.
When deciding which recipe to offer Bluedot Living readers, Alvarado wanted something that was approachable and local, but which also gave a nod to the chef's life and career. Because he survives on grilled cheese sandwiches eaten at midnight after cooking seven-course meals for clients, he decided on a gussied-up grilled cheese. This grilled cheese uses a technique we haven’t seen too often: slathering a blend of parmesan and butter on the Morning Glory Farm bread slices to create a golden crust. Inside, you’ll find melting Eidolon cheese from Grey Barn, locally-grown tomatoes and basil, and a drizzle of honey from the Island Bee Company. Yum!
EIDOLON GRILLED CHEESE WITH PARMESAN CRUST AND LOCAL HONEY
Makes 1 sandwich
INGREDIENTS:
2 slices Parmesan sourdough bread from Morning Glory Farm loaf
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 stick butter, at room temperature
1/2 heirloom tomato
2 good-size slides of Grey Barn Eidolon cheese Fresh basil
Island Bee Company honey for drizzling
DIRECTIONS
1. Make the Parmesan butter spread: In a bowl, whisk towgether butter and Parmesan cheese until well combined. Set aside.
2. Layer two slices of sourdough bread with cheese, tomato, and basil.
3. Spread Parmesan butter on one side of the sandwich.
4. Cook in a skillet on medium heat for about 2 minutes, pressing down to form a crust.
5. Spread Parmesan butter on the top side and flip.
6. Press down again to create an even crust.
7. Once the Eidolon cheese is melted, remove the sandwich from the heat and let it rest for 1‒2 minutes.
8. Slice the sandwich with a serrated knife and put it on a plate. Drizzle with Island Bee honey and garnish with chopped fresh basil.
Chef: Augustus Paquet-Whall,
Morning Glory Farm, Edgartown
“When I think back to my upbringing and where I am now in life, it all makes sense,” Augustus Paquet-Whall says. “My mother raised us alongside raising a garden — you can say she was a ‘hippie’ mom, to say the least, and eating garden-fresh produce was a common denominator in most meals. Mom had sustainable rules even before sustainability became a thing — so much so that things such as recycling became ingrained in my life early on, as my mom was quite serious about it and would dump my trash to check if I had commingled any recyclable containers with it. I’m not kidding. She was serious about the environment, and as a result, so am I, so working at Morning Glory Farm truly aligns with my ethos and how I view life.”
One might think that being a chef at a local farm is a dream job, since you have access to the most gorgeous produce to use in creating delicious meals. But the reality is otherwise. The gorgeous produce — the most perfect tomatoes, the perfect looking basil — all goes to the farmstand for retail sales. What Chef gets are all the seconds — the bruised tomatoes, the basil with black spots, and the rest of the imperfect produce, which he nonetheless magically turns into delicious meals. “Shoppers, myself included of course at times, will always look for the prettiest produce, so that’s not what the kitchen is getting. Our work is to avoid food waste by turning the not-so-perfect seconds into meals that we sell from the farmstand fridges. From making stocks and soups, to sauces and herb starters, everything is used in the kitchen. And everything that isn’t? It’s either compost or fed to the pigs. Nothing is wasted at Morning Glory Farm, and I’m very proud of our team for that.”
This Chef also focuses as much as possible on making plant-based meals, not only for carbon footprint reduction reasons, but also because increasing numbers of Islanders are affected by the Alpha-gal allergy and can’t consume animal products. Considerations like these are what make him the great chef he is!
1. Make the pesto: place all ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth. Set aside in the refrigerator.
2. In a large bowl, combine tomatoes and mozzarella. Pour on the pesto and the additional olive oil, and toss until the salad is evenly coated.
3. Add salt and pepper to taste, as desired.
Chef: Richard Doucette,
The Dunes at the Winnetu Oceanside Resort, Katama
In terms of sustainable seafood, bluefin tuna has seen one of the biggest comebacks in the fishing industry, going from being overfished to being plentiful enough for sustainable harvesting. “The recovery of Pacific bluefin tuna has achieved a major milestone — the species exceeded international targets a decade ahead of schedule. The rebuilding of Pacific bluefin tuna reflects a fisheries management success. International organizations cooperated across the Pacific to reverse decades of overfishing for the prized species,” states the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This is happy news for Chef Doucette, who has put tuna back on his menus.
Doucette also cares about supporting farmers and sourcing his produce and meats locally, and he’s a forager. “You’ll find me hand-foraging watercress across the Island, and when you forage produce from these lands, which are fertilized with little stress, litter, and pollution, plus the added bonus of the lack of predators, that watercress is the most flavorful, most delicious leaf you’ll ever try in a dish.”
At the Winnetu Oceanside Resort, sustainability is behind everything from its menu that focuses on cross-utilization, its traditional scratch kitchen approach that helps keep food costs low, its sourcing of Katama oysters harvested daily just a quarter mile from the resort’s kitchen, and its production of honey on site, with the resort’s bees pollinating the surrounding beach plums. It’s a full ecosystem that contributes to the overall health of the restaurant, the Island, and the clientele.
From left: Andrew Karlinsky, Bret Stearns, Maria Abate, Marcella Andrews, and Andrew Jacobs of the Wampanoag Environmental Laboratory.
PHOTO BY GRAHAM STEARNS
‘We need
Fish Back’
Our
What will it take for the river herring to return to Aquinnah?
Story by Lucas Thors
When river herring scouts arrived in Squibnocket Pond in March 15 years ago, the natal herring population in Aquinnah was estimated to be more than 750,000. Scientists at the Wampanoag Environmental Laboratory recently counted fewer than 12,000 herring entering their age-old spawning grounds.
In the early spring each year, mature river herring travel from the Atlantic Ocean into Menemsha Pond, pass through the Aquinnah herring run, and end their long trek in Squibnocket Pond where they eventually spawn. The small creek that has carried generations of fish into and out of the pond each year was at one time so productive that it sustained all the osprey, cormorants, otters, and even local fishermen that drew from it. But the herring run in Aquinnah is no longer bursting with fish.
“It’s a shockingly low number,” Bret Stearns, Natural Resources Director for the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), told Bluedot Living. Although Stearns said this year’s herring numbers were particularly diminished, Aquinnah river herring populations have declined consistently each season since 2020. Stearns recalled a time when the run was bustling with social and economic activity. Trucks loaded with barrels of silvery-blue fish came and went, and clouds of seabirds swarmed the torrent of scales that flooded into the pond on a daily basis. “Before the moratorium in 2005, the fish came in so thick they would essentially knock you down if you were standing in the run; they’d be losing oxygen because there were so many coming through at once,” Stearns recounted. “When we
would sit there at the side of the creek at 5 am with nets in our hands, we never thought it would end.”
The Wampanoag Tribe has historically harvested herring from the run to use as a staple in daily life. Herring were eaten, and used as bait and fertilizer. Herring were also commercially harvested from the run and sold — at times, literal tons of fish and cut roe (fish eggs) would be distributed, most commonly for food, or as lobster bait. Buddy Vanderhoop, a Wampanoag tribal elder whose family has been catching river herring for generations, said that even before he could walk he would go down to the run with his father to fish. “And later, when I was about six,” Vanderhoop said, “I’d come back home covered in scales and mud, carrying a string with about ten herring tied on — I was proud because I caught them by hand.”
Each year, when the shadbush would begin to bloom on the Vineyard, Vanderhoop prepared his net and headed down to the run. In the early ‘70s he made
River herring are anadromous fish, meaning they can survive in both freshwater and saltwater environments.
a business of fishing for herring, and pulled 2,000 to 4,000 pounds of fish every couple of days. “We would start pursing the net around the pool, and the fish would charge to the other side — there were so many that they would lift the net,” he said. Even after hauling such a massive amount of fish, Vanderhoop let tens of thousands swim upstream. For generations, herring constituted much of Vanderhoop’s livelihood. He cut hundreds of pounds of herring roe each week and sold it to markets or directly to customers for six or seven dollars a pound. “That would be good money today, but it was even better money back then,” Vanderhoop said. After he cut the roe away, he took the fish and fileted them, then cut them into bite-size pieces for pickling.
Aquinnah Wampanoag elder Kristina Hook said that river herring were used as a food source long before they were commercially sold. Aquinnah had no electricity until 1951 — it was the last town in the state to tie into the power
“Before the moratorium in 2005, the fish came in so thick they would essentially knock you down if you were standing in the run; they’d be losing oxygen because there were so many coming through at once.” –Bret Stearns, Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head Natural Resources Director
grid. “So salting and drying the fish was imperative, because there were no freezers,” Hook said. When Hook was a little girl she would go down with her brothers and dip her net into the run. She pulled in as many herring as she could carry while her mother waited at home with plenty of salt and a brown paper bag. “Mother would gut them, pack them in layer after layer of salt, and wrap them up,” Hook said. The fish cured in the salt until spring rain washed it off, then the summer sun arrived to fully preserve them. The Aquinnah Wampanoag have harvested herring for thousands of years, Hook said, with the understanding that they would never take any more than they needed.
Vanderhoop’s herring business was in full swing shortly before the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries placed a moratorium on the commercial harvest of river herring in 2005 in an effort to restore the population. He was making tens of thousands of dollars selling roe and pickled herring, and even more money selling the fresh fish. Vanderhoop said he believes the ebbing herring population in Aquinnah is largely due to midwater trawlers and seine boats from Gloucester, New Bedford, coastal Maine, and New Hampshire taking what’s known as a bycatch, when fishermen unintentionally catch fish species while fishing for other species or sizes. “It’s a sad thing that’s happening,” Vanderhoop said. “Even if I was to fish the run, I would hardly fill more than a barrel as it is right now. Meanwhile these big companies offshore are filling boats with [sea and river] herring and making boatloads of money.” Fishing vessels are allowed to sell their limited bycatch.
“Even if I was to fish the run, I would hardly fill more than a barrel as it is right now. Meanwhile these big companies offshore are filling boats with herring and making boatloads of money.” –Buddy Vanderhoop, fisherman and Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head member
Vanderhoop was recently elected to the New England Fishery Management Council to support the river herring fishery. He just proposed an amendment to the council that would move midwater trawlers
Chip Vanderhoop's catch.
PHOTO BY LISA VANDERHOOP
and seiners 20 to 25 miles off the coast of the Vineyard during spawning times. “Now that I am on the commission, I am trying to turn things around here,” Vanderhoop said. “At this point I haven’t had herring roe in three years. The tribe isn’t even touching them. Everyone just wants to leave them be and let their stocks replenish.”
Once Stearns and the team at the Wampanoag Environmental Laboratory, led by lab manager Andrew Jacobs, recognized the drastic dip in the herring population, they started looking at the physical aspects of the run. They realized the run was becoming extremely shallow in certain places, so they dredged it in 2020.
“The swamp at Squibnocket used to be a place where you could gather cats of nine tails — it was bountiful. Now you can’t even put your foot in the swamp.” –Kristina Hook, Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head Member
For Stearns, organizations like the Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) have the opportunity to enact the greatest positive change by establishing stricter enforcement procedures to limit commercial bycatch. “I think people really care about these resources, but right now we are heading down a bad road,” Stearns said. “Why is Cape Cod called Cape Cod? It used to be a place where cod were everywhere, but now that’s just a name. If we don’t stop what’s happening with Herring Creek, soon it could be just another creek.”
“We opened up the stream so it was wider and deeper — we were concerned that the narrowing was allowing for increased predation,” Stearns explained. Although clearing out the run didn’t immediately improve fish numbers, it allowed the fish to more easily pass through.
Scientists at the lab are looking at other local factors that might be contributing to the problem at the creek, such as water quality and environmental changes that are enabling predators to gain access to the herring. “We don’t have the ability to control a lot of what happens out in the
ocean, but we can try to create the most accommodating ecosystem for our fish right here,” Stearns said. “Because at this point every fish counts, and we need our fish back.” Water quality plays into the overall health of the pond and the potential for herring to spawn successfully. The Tribe has been testing the water in the pond for more than 25 years, looking at salinity, nitrogen levels, sedimentation, and more. As of now, scientists haven’t identified any major changes in water quality that might impede the fish’s ability to proliferate.
Seasonal storms cause massive amounts of sediment to wash into the pond each year, creating eutrophication (excessive richness of nutrients). Now dense patches of phragmites and a sheen of algae cover the shallow areas of the pond. Water quality tests indicate a change in nutrient load over the years, but Jacobs said there is no clear correlation between diminishing water quality and herring spawn rates. Squibnocket Pond has been under an algae bloom advisory for years, but areas deeper in the pond where river herring normally spawn are clearer.
As more opulent summer homes are constructed in Aquinnah, and people continue to lose sight of humanity’s oneness with the natural world, Hook said the essential fabric of the Indigenous community that has existed here for 10,000 years will continue to erode. “The swamp at Squibnocket used to be a place where you could gather cat-o-nine tails — it was bountiful. Now you can’t even put your foot in the swamp,” Hook said. “The herring are warning us — things need to change, and quickly.”
In 2015, the lab worked with DMF to install an advanced underwater fish camera that is now capable of counting how many fish are coming and going throughout the season. Jacobs and his team worked for years to fine-tune the tracking program so it could accommodate such a unique waterway and species. “Our system here is semi-tidal, it’s semi-saline, there are multiple species coming and going, and water clarity is definitely an issue [when it comes to tracking fish],” Jacobs said.
Lab scientists this year discovered a new dynamic that could be affecting
“At
this point I haven’t had herring roe in three years. The tribe isn’t even touching them. Everyone just wants to leave them be and let their stocks replenish.”
–Buddy Vanderhoop
Seine fishing.
Juvenile river herring.
herring spawning times and reproduction rates. Early in the season, before the first schoolie striped bass was caught in Vineyard waters, the fish tracker picked up a parade of striped bass exiting the Squibnocket Pond system. The presumption at the time was that these bass were foregoing migration and wintering in the pond so they could intercept the arriving herring. Generally, when striped bass stay in an estuary, marsh, or salt pond, it’s because they are trapped. But the pond system in Aquinnah is almost constantly flowing, meaning that the fish aren’t stuck — they are purposefully sticking around. “And we aren’t seeing just one or two striped bass holding over. We saw more than 100 fish leave all in one burst just this year,” Jacobs said. According to Jacobs, it was one of the first times this behavior has been documented by scientists.
In order to confirm this novel behavior, Jacobs and the lab team partnered with the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory to insert acoustic trackers in 20 bass that were captured in the pond. They placed three receivers in the pond to detect where the fish were, and one directly outside the pond to determine when they were coming and going. Jacobs anticipated that at least one or two would hold over in the pond. “We wanted to prove that, without a doubt, these fish were doing this — 19 out of the 20 that we tagged stayed in the pond throughout the winter,” Jacobs said. Although this was a profound discovery, Jacobs said bass are likely not decimating the returning herring population as much as offshore fishing operations are with bycatch. “This might be a piece of the puzzle that was missing for us, and it might be the most significant local impact,” Jacobs said. By referencing new genetic studies that are able to pinpoint where different populations of river herring originate from, scientists have determined that about 50 percent of the river herring bycatch in the New England region is coming from waters in between Nantucket Sound and Long Island Sound, according to Jacobs. “So at this point it’s pretty clear that bycatch is disproportionately affecting us,” Jacobs said.
According to Massachusetts Environmental Police Colonel Patrick Moran, it’s impossible for officers who enforce bycatch limits to determine how much river herring is in a net versus sea herring. “You just can’t do it. Sure, you could take a few totes of fish and test them, but unless you sample the whole catch, how are you going to know?” Moran said. Sea herring grow larger than river herring, and while river herring return to freshwater systems to spawn, sea herring spend their entire lives in the ocean.
Although officials acknowledge the importance of reducing bycatch, Division of Marine Fisheries Diadromous Fisheries Project Leader Brad Chase said there are many complex dynamics at play. Over the past 15 years following the moratorium, Chase said state and regional groups are looking to reduce total bycatch, and limit the interactions between commercial fishing vessels and river herring. “The New England Fishery Management Councils are working on this, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is working on this — right now river herring bycatch is limited to 5 percent of each total sea herring catch, and there are lots of policies being created to reduce that impact,” Chase said.
The only way to reduce river herring bycatch is by making regulations more strict. But stricter regulations are only effective if they’re enforced and followed, which is hard to do with a net filled with a football field worth of fish.
Two traditional river herring waterways have been reopened in Massachusetts in the past few years, giving experts hope that other runs across the Commonwealth will once again flow with fish. The Nemasket River in Middleborough and the Herring River in Harwich have both been reactivated and are open for harvest, and Tribal people and members of the public can celebrate that traditional harvest. “But for many of these runs that are so depleted, I think we should hold the course, protect them, and look for ways to restore them,” Chase said.
In April, the Tribe submitted a letter to the New England Fishery Management Council urging them to consider measures to ensure river herring can return home to repopulate. Jacobs pointed to other similar-size runs, such as one in Maine, where the river herring population has rebounded. He is optimistic that, once the fish reintegrate with the ecosystem, the Tribe will create a responsible management plan and the species will once again proliferate.
But for that to happen, Jacobs said the state needs to push mass-catch fishing practices like midwater trawlers away from Vineyard waters. The Tribe also encouraged the Council to create more stringent bycatch limits, require onboard and portside observers who monitor bycatch, and use genotyping to avoid disproportionately affecting certain herring populations.
Andrews said the Tribe has always harvested traditional cultural resources in a responsible way — “there has historically been a clear understanding of what is utilization, and what is exploitation,” he said. “Eventually we would like to serve as an example for other communities that want to implement local practices to safeguard their herring. We’re ready. The only thing we’re missing is our fish.”
Scientists tag and track river herring.
COURTESY WAMPANOAG ENVIRONMENTAL LABORATORY
Frankie Drogin, legendary among her Vineyard friends for the adventuresome and exceptionally delicious foods that come out of her kitchen, didn’t start cooking until she was nearly 40 years old. The closest she came was a cooking class she took in high school — a Catholic school in Manila run by Maryknoll nuns and attended by girls from upper middle class Filipino families. “They made us kill and dress a chicken,” she recalls, “something none of us were ever likely to have to do.”
Early in the semester, the nuns took the girls to the wet market, where they all picked out their chickens. “Then we had to feed and raise the chickens, so of course we grew attached to them like pets,” she remembers. “And when it came time to off them, none of us were strong enough to cleanly slit their necks, so there were girls crying and screaming while these chickens were running around bleeding.”
The point of this exercise, Frankie says, was to reinforce the connection between the living animal and the food on one’s plate. “In Tagalog,” she says, “we use the same word for both the animal and the food. We don’t say we’re eating pork; we say we’re eating pig.”
And in the Philippines, Frankie adds, they eat the entire pig — the entirety of nearly everything, in fact. “Filipino cooking often involves the whole animal,” Frankie says. She mentions sisig, a popular bar food eaten with beer, in which assorted pig parts (ears, snouts…) are chopped into little pieces, fried with spices, and served sizzling. (Frankie’s sisig recipe, below, substitutes mushrooms for the pig parts.)
“Also,” Frankie says, “we cook things with their heads on. You don’t see fish filets.” Frankie’s favorite way to cook a fish is to steam it whole — heads, tails, and fins included. Early in her marriage to newsman and author Bob Drogin, she says, “when Bob went out fishing, I’d have to remind him: ‘Bring home the whole damn fish!’” Filipinos also cook shrimp with the head on. “You suck the head,” Frankie says. “When I
IN THE BLUEDOT KITCHEN:
Story By Laura D. Roosevelt
No-Waste Cuisine
The flavors and food culture of the Philippines inform Frankie Drogin’s cooking. Plus, recipes!
Photos By Randi Baird
Frankie Drogin at her home in West Tisbury.
“And when it came time to off them, none of us were strong enough to cleanly slit their necks, so there were girls crying and screaming while these chickens were running around bleeding.” – Frankie Drogin
eat a lobster at a restaurant, sometimes the waiters stop and watch me. I get in there and suck the hell out of it.”
The Philippines, a country with high levels of poverty, has by necessity developed a culture that abhors food waste.
“When I was growing up,” Frankie says, “I’d watch my mom throw out just a tiny bag of trash every day” (she cups her hands to create a shape the size of a navel orange), “and that was because she used everything when she cooked.” Dumpster diving is a way of life for some of the poorest Filipinos, and Frankie remembers watching a documentary on the topic that urged people to wrap their food
waste carefully, to make it more sanitary for those who would later eat it. “They scavenge to find bits of food, mostly pork and chicken,” Frankie says, “and then they fry them over and over again to kill
the bacteria. There’s a term for it — ‘pagpag.’”
When Frankie’s stepfather first visited Martha’s Vineyard, she took him to Menemsha, and they watched some fishermen who’d just docked fileting their catch.
“They were dumping the rest of the fish into a bucket, and my step-father was completely befuddled,” Frankie recalls.
“He said, ‘What are they doing with the rest of the fish?’ I said they would probably use it for chum. He said, ‘Can we come back for it?’ He wanted to salvage it.” One of Frankie’s recipes, below, is a version of ceviche that is common in the Philippines and can be made with fish scraps.
Frankie preps, and below, cooks the Sisig (with mushrooms instead of pig face).
Though she came late to cooking, Frankie was always interested in food. “My mother was a flamboyant cook,” she recalls. “She had maybe a dozen good dishes that she made over and over again, but she had a really good sense of taste and presentation; she’d serve things in coconuts and pineapples, and it was beautiful — a joy to look at.” Curiously, when teenaged Frankie managed to burn down her mother and step-father’s house after having a forbidden party while her parents were away (“The terror of all parents, right?” she says. “Well, that happened.”), she remembers that they were able to save from the fire a few “ridiculous things, like cookbooks.”
As a young journalist, Frankie never cooked. “In the Philippines,” she explains, “at almost any level of society except for the poorest, one had help.” During her first marriage, to a Canadian priest, her husband was posted to one of the country’s wealthiest neighborhoods, and they had staff, including cooks. “I had an interest in food — certainly an interest in eating,” Frankie says, “and I would occasionally go into the kitchen just to watch.” She also liked to read about cooking and enjoyed TV cooking shows. Later, when she was single again for 10 years after the death of her husband, she ate dinner out most nights. During that time, she developed an appreciation for good food and an awareness of what one might aim for in the kitchen. For a while, she lived with a couple of male friends, one of whom liked to cook. “He was ambitious,” she says. “He went to sushi class. I liked to watch him work.” A few of the recipes she makes now came from him.
Frankie’s favorite steamed fish recipe comes from the wife of the then Speaker of the House of the Philippines. One day in the mid-1990s, when Frankie was working for the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the wife of the Speaker of the House showed up bearing an elaborate meal for the publication’s editors, which she laid out in the editors’ lounge. “She put out a huge feast, but I especially liked her steamed fish,” Frankie says.
Frankie met Bob in the late 1980s, when most of the American journalists
in the Philippines were based in the Manila Hotel. Frankie’s office at ABC News was across the hall from the office of the LA Times, for which Bob was then the Manila bureau chief. The two were friends, and Frankie recalls that they played Scrabble from time to time, but it took another decade for their relationship to turn romantic. (“He batted his beautiful blue eyes at me,”
nationalities, including her own. Her adobo (chicken stewed in vinegar, the national dish of the Philippines) is exceptional. “Every household in the Philippines has its own way of doing it,” Frankie says. “Some people would call mine bastardized, because I add coconut milk. I just like the taste. And also, the American palate is not used to that very sharp taste of just vinegar.”
Frankie’s favorite way to cook a fish is to steam it whole — heads, tails, and fins included. Early in her marriage to newsman and author Bob Drogin, she says, “when Bob went out fishing, I’d have to remind him: ‘Bring home the whole damn fish!’”
Frankie says.) When they married in 2002 and Frankie moved to the States, she found herself with a husband and two step-children to feed, and no cook in sight. So she jumped right in. “I knew what things should taste like, and I could read and follow instructions,” she says. “Over time, I learned that my true talent was to be able to read a recipe and know what it should taste like, and whether it would be good.”
Now, Frankie is a prodigious home cook who makes foods of many
The recipes below are examples of ways in which Filipino cooking eschews food waste, and they showcase many of the traditional components of Filipino flavoring, including vinegar, soy sauce, and calamansi. Not included is bagoong, a staple of Filipino cooking, which is a dense, anchovy-like fish sauce. One version of bagoong looks like mud, Frankie says, “and it stinks. When I married Bob, he made me promise that I would never bring bagoong into the house.”
Frankie and Bob on their porch.
SISIG
Recipes By Frankie Drogin
Serves 4 as an appetizer
What to do with pig face, you've probably never wondered. Sisig is one of the stars of a class of Filipino food known as pulutan — snacks made to accompany beer or alcohol. Pork sisig is a hot, chewy, cartilaginous mess of chopped snout, cheeks, ears, and pork belly, fried with garlic, onions and chilies, and served steaming on a sizzling platter. The late Anthony Bourdain rhapsodized over it, acalling it "a divine mosaic of pig parts." There are other versions, including seafood and vegetarian iterations. Since I didn't have a pig head lying around, I turned to a mix of wild mushrooms to mimic the look and texture of pork sisig, and served it stove-to-table in a cast-iron pan.
INGREDIENTS
4—6 Tbsps of butter
1 head of garlic, cloves peeled and minced
1 1-inch piece of ginger, minced
8 cups of mushrooms (like shiitake, maitake, or oyster), diced small
1—3 Thai red chilis (also called bird’s eye chilis), sliced thinly (for less spiciness, remove the seeds and membrane)
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/8 cup cane, coconut or rice vinegar
2 tsps sugar
1 Tbsp (heaping) mayonnaise
1 small red onion, minced
6—8 calamansi (Philippine limes) or 1 regular lime
3—4 scallions, sliced in small rounds
1 egg yolk (reserve white for another purpose)
DIRECTIONS
1. Heat a cast-iron pan on high heat. When hot, add 4 tablespoons of butter.
2. When the butter has melted, add the garlic and ginger, and saute for 30 seconds to a minute. Add mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally to prevent burning, until they are dark brown. Add more butter (or olive oil) if dry.
3. Mix in the chilies, soy sauce, vinegar and sugar. Saute until well mixed. Add mayo and mix well.
4. Lower heat, and add red onions. Mix and warm through. The red onions should remain crunchy.
5. Squeeze a lime (or calamansi limes) over the mushroom mixture, and sprinkle sliced green onion over everything.
6. Add an uncooked egg yolk to the middle of the pan, turn off the heat, and serve immediately in the skillet, mixing the yolk into the hot mushrooms at the table.
PHOTOS BY RANDI BAIRD
INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cup cane or coconut vinegar (or rice vinegar if need be)
1 small red onion, minced
1 2-inch piece of ginger, minced
1 small green bell pepper, diced
1 small red bell pepper, diced
1 Thai red chili, seeds removed, sliced thin (optional)
Juice of several calamansi or 1 lime
Salt and black pepper to taste
1 pound very fresh fluke or other white fish, or yellowfin tuna, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
INGREDIENTS
4 cups day-old (or older) jasmine rice
4—5 Tbsps canola or other neutral oil
Half a head of garlic, peeled and sliced
An additional 15—20 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
Kosher salt to taste
KINILAW NA ISDA
An older cousin of ceviche, kinilaw is very fresh raw fish bathed in vinegar rather than citrus. Because kinilaw originated as a quick meal for fishermen while at sea, it is marinated for a shorter time than ceviche and is ready to eat after 15 minutes (though marinating for longer is also okay). Ideally, one should use Filipino cane vinegar (Datu Puti brand) or coconut vinegar, but in a pinch, rice vinegar will do (despite the withering contempt of purists). A mellower version of this dish, Kinilaw na isda sa gata, incorporates coconut milk and omits the sweet and hot peppers and the lime juice. Serves 4
DIRECTIONS
1. Combine 1 cup of vinegar, the onion, ginger, green and red peppers, sliced chili, and lime juice in a non-reactive bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.
2. In another non-reactive bowl, combine the fish cubes with the remaining ½ cup of vinegar to "wash" them. Let sit for a couple of minutes, then squeeze out the fish and remove it. Discard the liquid.
3. Add the fish to the first vinegar mixture. Mix well. Cover and chill for at least 15 minutes and up to 4 hours. Serve very cold.
RECIPE VARIATION:
Kinilaw na isda sa gata (with coconut milk) Serves 4.
INGREDIENTS
1 cup cane or coconut vinegar
1 cup coconut milk
1 small red onion, sliced thinly 2-inch piece of ginger, sliced into matchsticks Salt to taste
1 pound very fresh yellowfin tuna, cut in ½-inch cubes
Extra virgin olive oil for drizzling
DIRECTIONS
1. Combine 1/2 cup of vinegar, coconut milk, red onion, ginger and salt to taste in a non-reactive bowl.
2. Put the fish into another bowl with the remaining vinegar to "wash" it. Squeeze and remove it after a couple of minutes and discard the liquid.
3. Add the fish to the vinegar-coconut milk mixture. Mix well. Cover and chill for at least 15 minutes and up to 4 hours. Drizzle with olive oil when ready to eat. Serve very cold.
SINANGAG
Serves 4
In a Filipino home, leftover rice frequently finds a second life as sinangag, a straightforward garlic fried rice. It can show up at any meal but is especially ubiquitous at breakfast, beside a fried egg and a protein like marinated beef, caramelized cured pork, a chorizo-like sausage, or fried butterflied milkfish.
DIRECTIONS
1. Separate grains from any clumps of rice with clean hands rubbed with oil. Wash hands.
2. Place the oil and the sliced garlic into a cold sauté pan or wok, and turn on the heat. Cook on low to medium heat until the garlic slices are golden brown. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside on a paper towel-lined plate.
3. Add the minced garlic to the oil remaining in the pan and cook on low to medium heat until lightly toasted.
4. Add rice. Salt like you mean it. Stir fry rice for three or four minutes. Transfer to a serving dish and scatter garlic chips all over. Serve hot.
“That’s
the part I love — the whole idea of perennial. Instead of starting from scratch every year, these things are going to pop up every year.”
Roxanne Kapitan and a sea kale leaf.
The Garden of the Future: Food From Your Backyard
Roxanne Kapitan’s
come true.
What would a garden of the future look like? In a future clouded by climate concerns (that could be now), how might our vegetable gardens look different?
Professional gardener Roxanne Kapitan had a chance to ponder this basic question while planting just such a garden. In her future garden, edible fruits and vegetables grow back every year without sowing seeds or planting seedlings each spring — a garden of all edible perennials rather than annuals. After the application of an initial layer of live compost, this garden avoids trucking in plastic-bound seedlings and bags of compost or fertilizer each season, saving resources, materials, and energy (and your own energy).
Roxanne has been heading in this direction for a number of years. Building on her expertise as Garden Manager at Oakleaf Landscape for the past 13 years and her longtime local advocacy of organic gardens and local composting, Roxanne spent her Covid year getting a certificate in permaculture. Permaculture is the harmonious integration of plants,
animals, and human systems in a closedloop system with little off-the-farm inputs. “You start noting how you can use everything on your property to your advantage,” Roxanne explains. “If you cut a tree, you use the wood chips; if it rains, you collect the rainwater.” Out of permaculture comes examples like food forests — seven layers or heights of recurring edible plants, from fruit trees and bushes to herbs and greens — and Roxanne’s perennial garden idea, adapting about five of those layers.
One day about three years ago, out of the blue, a supportive client asked
Roxanne, “How would you like to create a garden that is your garden? Any garden — I trust you.” The client then gave her the resources and land to do this.
This was her chance to put her ideas into practice, without worrying about the immediate outcome or whether a client would be satisfied. She called the offer “a dream come true.”
“I immediately thought, I want it to be all edible, I want it to be a source of food for pollinators, and I also want it to be like a medicine chest with herbs I could use,” Roxanne says. “I knew I wasn’t going to be growing tomatoes, for
“I want a garden where I’m not going to labor so hard,” Roxanne says. “I just want to go out my back door, go into my garden in my bare feet, and forage. I want a garden that’s going to feed me, and to learn about plants by not interfering with nature.”
Story by Catherine Walthers Pictures by Randi Baird
dream
Roxanne's Octagonal Seaside Garden.
example. I would do a really different garden than what I would call a traditional vegetable garden.” She began her research that winter, cozy inside her Oak Bluffs cottage near Lagoon Pond. She found plants like Myoga Ginger, a perennial ginger from Japan. The Japanese harvest young pink flower shoots before they open, and pickle or cook these shoots which have a zesty ginger taste. From her own work, Roxanne knew about some of the perennial edibles she might plant, like sorrel (she planted three types) and amaranth, an ancient grain with stunning sprays full of magenta-hued seeds. These seeds are smaller than quinoa but equally high in protein, minerals, and vitamins.
She chose the shape of an octagon for the garden, because it represents a new beginning. “If you look it up, it represents starting over,” she explains. She named it the Octagonal Seaside Garden, located on private land in West Tisbury not far from the South Shore. She brought in five yards of live compost. “What that means is it is filled with microbial activity, millions and billions of organisms working together. One cup of live compost has more organisms than people on the earth,” she says.
wind erodes the nutrients in the soil.” It also protects the carbon which the soil has collected. “The whole idea of what’s called regenerative gardening, or permaculture gardening, is that the soil is a carbon sink — keeping the carbon and microbes in — not a carbon detriment. When you rototill, the carbon goes out into the air.” Or as Roxanne describes it in lectures about her experimental garden: “It’s like a well-baked lasagna. When you rototill, it’s like putting the lasagna into a blender.”
whole idea of perennial. Instead of starting from scratch every year, these things are going to pop up every year.”
“I also want a garden where I’m not going to labor so hard,” she says. “I just want to go out my back door, go into my garden in my bare feet, and forage. I want a garden that’s going to feed me, and to learn about plants by not interfering with nature. Getting out of the way of nature is what I learned to do.”
She focused heavily on edible greens, like sea kale or Turkish rocket, another word for arugula. “I love arugula, but it’s an annual. I found this perennial arugula; it’s a lot more sturdy.” And after the tender young leaves shoot up, this arugula plant produces edible flower buds, similar to broccoli rabe.
Roxanne’s experimentation extended to different kinds of berry bushes, beyond the known blueberry or raspberry. There are black currant bushes, and also mulberry bushes, an old European variety that produces sweet black berries over several weeks in the summer. She calls these fruits “underrated,” especially the currants. There’s a Justaberry, a cross between a currant and a gooseberry, and she planted three of these.
“They’re fabulous, no thorns, sweeter than currants.”
She defined the paths and growing areas, and mulched with eel grass and seaweed. “The reason why you would want your surface area, your growing surface, to always be covered is because the rain and
There’s also Perpetual Spinach. It’s a cross between spinach and Swiss Chard, but not as tough as Swiss chard.
“It is delicious. And it comes back every year, that’s the part I love — the
There are some interesting plants to experiment with in the kitchen, like shiso, an herb in the mint family native to China and India and used in Asian dishes. Or plants for your health, like meadowsweet, a medicinal herb with sweet-smelling white flowers used in teas and extracts. It contains salicylic acid, the main component of aspirin, and is said to help rheumatism and arthritis.
Many of the medicinals sport flowers, attracting bees, moths, and other beneficial
Good King Henry flowers.
Myoga ginger stalks. Myoga ginger spring shoots.
Ground cherry.
insects, and can be appreciated just for the beauty they add to a garden of edibles. Roxanne calls it “color therapy,” since they often come in her favorite shades — purple and orange. “These two colors heal me. Something happens in my brain, and I feel like I’m going to be alright.”
As she grows and harvests, Roxanne experiments in the kitchen. A good cook, she wants to see how some of these unusual perennials fit into a menu or diet so that she can talk to other future growers about their uses or benefits. With the shiso, for example, she made – and liked! — shiso pesto, tried shiso leaves in salads, and even dried it for winter. (It turned to dust apparently.)
Some plantings were not very successful, or were even complete flops, she says. Sichuan peppercorns, something she liked and hoped could lessen her carbon footprint if she grew them herself, were supposed to produce berries by the second year, but failed to produce even one. Three Siberian seaberry bushes, also known as buckthorn, expected to bear light orange-colored berries full of Vitamin C, did not survive two winters here, despite projections that they’d do well in our zones, 7a and 7b.
She takes it in stride. “Remember,” she says, “It’s an experiment.”
By mid-summer of that first growing season in 2022, Roxanne recalls a “Shangri-La” of quite enormous plants, of varieties known and unknown. She celebrated with a garden opening. If there
can be art openings, she mused, why not a garden opening? Friend and musician David Stanwood came to play, wheeling his piano down a ramp from his truck into the open wooded garden area, to the delight of the gathered group.
Now, in her third Octagonal Seaside Garden summer, Roxanne continually notes how vibrant the plants are without the addition of any fertilizer other than the initial mounds of live compost. And she glories in how big the yields are. The abundance of edible greens and production of berries has surpassed her expectations. The second biggest benefit — a “gift” — is how many times she is able
to divide a single plant as it grows in size each season. She’s given away hundreds of perennial plants to friends and at community plant swaps, and used them for other projects, noting again that it all adds up to a reduction in the carbon footprint. In 2023, she received a grant from the Cedar Tree Foundation to create a public version of her perennial garden, finding a home for this new experimental garden at the Charter School in West Tisbury. About 20 percent of the perennials planted there this past spring came from the Octagonal Seaside Garden. How long does she expect the perennials in her garden of the future to produce? “It’s a little different for each plant, but honestly, I think it goes on forever.”
People don’t always understand this type of garden or what she’s trying to achieve, Roxanne says. What do you mean there aren’t going to be any tomato or basil plants in it?, they ask. Or, after Roxanne describes the perennials, they say, I’ve never heard of those things. She sometimes questions herself, wondering if she’s perhaps ahead of her time.
“It’s a new idea behind edible gardens,” she says. “It’s going to take some getting used to, just like making changes for climate change is going to take getting used to. It requires doing things differently, and that’s a challenge for people who don’t want to change. That’s going to be one of the hardest challenges of the future — doing things differently.”
David Stanwood played piano for Roxanne's garden opening.
Sea kale in flower.
Amaranth
Perennial Vegetables, Fruits, and Pollinators in the Octagonal Seaside Garden
Myoga Ginger (Zingibur mioga) is a perennial ginger from Japan. Small flowers form at the base of the leaves — harvest the young pink flower shoots before they open. Delicious pickled or cooked to provide a zesty ginger taste. Amaranth is an ancient, gluten free grain high in protein, vitamins, and minerals. All parts of the plant are edible. The seed heads can be collected in the fall, dried, and stored for up to one year. Cook with rice to make a complete protein. The leaves can be sliced fine and added to salads or cooked like spinach.
Sea Kale can be grown anywhere, not just by the sea. It is a perennial brassica with edible leaves, flowers, and florets – like broccoli. It’s quickly becoming a cult classic in permaculture gardens.
Skirret is a perennial vegetable in the carrot family. It was brought from China to the British Isles by the Romans. It is a sweet starchy root like a carrot. Harvest biggest roots, divide (see a video here: bit.ly/skirret-division), and replant. Tolerates part sun.
Sansho Japanese pepper is a dark green shrub that can grow to the size of a small tree. The peppery leaves are used as a spice for flavoring rice and fish. Pollinates with Szechuan (female) to produce peppercorns.
Sechuan Pepper is a unique shrub that produces the peppercorn used in Chinese cuisine.
Sweet Cicely is a perennial herb in the parsley family. The roots, stems and leaves are all edible and impart a sweet anise flavor. Prefers dappled light
Sorrel is an herbaceous spring green that can be eaten raw or cooked. Cut back seed stalks for a continuous supply of lemony flavored greens.
Okinawa Spinach is a deliciously mild spinach from Indonesia in the Gynura genus. It boasts a nutty flavor with stunning purple and green leaves. Tender perennial. Easy to propagate with leaf cuttings.
Turkish Rocket is easy to grow and establishes quickly. Edible leaves are tasty like arugula when young with edible flower buds forming later in the season like broccoli-rabe. The yellow florets attract a host of beneficial insects, but readily self-seed so dead head as blooms fade if you want to contain the patch.
Oyster Leaf (Mertensia maritima) is native to many Atlantic northern coastlines. With a briny oyster taste, its leaves are coveted by chefs in the know for a vegan oyster culinary treat.
Good King Henry (Chenopodium Bonus-Henricus) is a perennial spinach analogue. Leaves can be harvested and cooked like spinach. It is a dynamic accumulator with a long tap root and comes up early in the spring like dandelion. GKH will bolt during the summer months, but the flowers are edible as well. The seedheads can be harvested in the fall and cooked like quinoa.
Shiso is an herb in the mint family native to the mountainous regions of China and India, and now can be found
PICKLED MYOGA GINGER Recipes by Roxanne Kapitan GARDEN OF THE FUTURE
Add a tangy taste to your favorite foods by sprinkling pickled myoga ginger on top of such dishes as fish cakes and scrambled eggs, or tuck it inside your favorite sandwich.
INGREDIENTS
Myoga ginger flower buds (about 25)
Apple cider vinegar
Bay leaves
Peppercorns
Rosemary sprigs
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Cut the mature Myoga Ginger flower buds at the base of each stalk at the end of August. Wash well in a bowl of cold water, drain, and pat dry.
2. Slice each bud on the diagonal into thin pieces and drop into 1 to 2 cups of apple cider vinegar. Add 3 fresh bay leaves, 6 peppercorns, and 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary to the vinegar/ginger mixture. Liquid should cover the ginger.
3. Cover and refrigerate. The ginger is ready to use after 2 weeks and will last approximately 6 months refrigerated.
Skirret edible roots.
Myoga ginger flowers and rhizomes.
around the globe. Shiso is commonly used in Asian dishes with sushi, as a pickling agent, dried into colorful flakes, and added fresh to soups and salads.
Horseradish (Armoracia rusticana) has a deep tap root that can be grated to make a peppery condiment. Take a long thin shovel and slide off up to half the taproot; clean and fine-grate into a paste. It is hardy to zone 3 and difficult to eradicate, so plant it where you want it to remain.
Meadowsweet (Filipundula ulmaria) is a medicinal herb with white, sweetsmelling flowers that are used in teas and extracts. It contains salicylic acid, the main component of aspirin. In addition to pain relief, it has been used to treat gout, rheumatism, and arthritis. Plant in part sun.
NATIVE POLLINATORS
Blue False Indigo (Baptisia Australia) is a dependable nitrogen fixer and especially helpful in new gardens to build soil health. This deep-rooted prairie species is drought tolerant and makes an excellent companion plant to fruiting trees and shrubs.
Vervain is a strong late season pollinator traditionally used by Native Americans as a relaxant, as a cure for insomnia, for expelling worms, and for repairing a damaged liver.
SEA KALE SALAD
INGREDIENTS
1/4 pound shiitake mushrooms, sliced thin
1/4 cup good quality olive oil, divided
6 to 8 sea kale leaves, washed and sliced thin
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Tbsp lemon zest
2 Tbsps apple cider vinegar
¼ pound Mermaid Farm feta cheese
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup cooked wild rice
3 dashes smoked paprika
2 Tbsps minced live sauerkraut Salt, to taste
Cardinal Flower (Lobelia Cardinalis) attracts hummingbirds and swallowtail butterflies with its scarlet flowers and plentiful nectar. Allow seeds to have soil contact in the fall to form larger colonies. Grows best in moist soil.
Anise Hyssop (Agastache) is a powerful pollinator attracting native bees, moths, and butterflies. The anise-flavored medicinal flowers, used in tea, can soothe and heal congestive aliments. Calendula is a flower historically used for magical purposes such as
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Lightly saute the shiitake mushrooms in a bit of the olive oil. Set aside to cool.
2. Mix the rest of the ingredients in a bowl. Add the cooled shiitakes and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours.
3. Toss the mixture again, and serve.
attracting fairies, for deciding between two paths, and for adorning Hindu deities. Currently, Calendula flower is commonly used in healing salves, as a natural dye, and to soothe inflammation. Sprinkle the petals on top of a salad and let the magic work for you!
FRUITS
Crandall Black Currant, sometimes called clove currant, is a hardy fruitbearing shrub. Easy to grow, it sports showy yellow trumpet-shaped flowers in spring that produce large, sweet fruit in August.
Salal is a small, mounding evergreen shrub that produces delicious dark blue berries at summer’s end.
Siberian Splendor Seaberry (Buckthorn) (Hippophae rhamnoides) is a productive cultivar that yields a heavy crop of light orange, sweet berries in September. An excellent source of vitamin C, the shrubs will bear fruit in two to three years after planting.
Wellington Black Mulberry is an old European variety that will produce sweet black berries over several weeks in summer.
Shiso and calendula.
Sea kale.
A Pause For Lunch at Beetlebung Farm
Every week, the farm crew gathers to enjoy what they grow.
Story by Britt Bowker Pictures by Sheny Leon
The Beetlebung crew lines up for farm lunch.
Everyone gathers around a long farmhouse table.
Farm lunch nourishes the whole team.
Locally sourced shrimp and veggies from the farm.
Chef Mirra Sims.
On a July afternoon, zucchini and chickpea fritters sit sizzling on a frying pan inside the farmhouse kitchen at Beetlebung Farm, where I find chef Mirra Sims and farm manager Kate Woods cooking up final preparations ahead of the farm crew’s weekly lunch.
Every Thursday throughout the summer, the farmers at Beetlebung make a point to gather and enjoy what they grow. Farm lunch uses what’s growing on the property and what’s in season across the Island. It’s also a reliable opportunity for the farm crew to catch up and come together amid summer’s bustling pace. “A pause,” Mara Flanagan, Beetlebung’s director of operations, calls it. And as you can see from Sheny Leon’s photos (taken on a different July day), these lunches are nothing shy of gourmet. I had to try for myself.
About 10 of us gather around a long wooden table on the farmhouse’s back porch. Mirra shows us a plating technique: first, the zucchini and chickpea fritter, a fried egg from North Tabor Farm on top, a dollop of labneh zaatar from Mermaid Farm, fennel and Tropea onion salad, and toast with fried garlic butter and sungolds. I’m thinking it's the best lunch I’ve ever eaten. Kate says they hear that a lot.
Kate started farm lunch with her partner and co-manager Nick Doherty in 2021 — it was a tradition they carried over to Beetlebung from Stone Barns in New York, an 80-acre farm where they met and used to work. Kate and Nick used
Farm lunch uses what’s growing on the property and what’s in season across the Island. It’s also a reliable opportunity for the farm crew to catch up and come together amid summer’s bustling pace.
to cook lunches at Beetlebung together, until Mirra arrived as their full-time chef in January. She’ll run the commercial kitchen that’s going in the farm’s new barn, which is under construction on the other side of the property. Kate hopes it will open come fall, and it will include a year-round farmstand, a bakery with a flour mill (the Island’s only flour mill), and a commercial kitchen where Mirra will cook with produce and make value-added products. Kate referred to the new barn as “a post-harvest hub.”
This regenerative farm in the heart of Chilmark has come a long way. The last time I was here, in 2018, owner Amy
Kate Woods and Nick Doherty.
Weinberg had just bought the farm from the Fischer family, who had been stewards of the six-acre property since 1961. I met with Amy and Krishana Collins in the red-trimmed weathered building known as Susie’s barn. They talked about their goals for the land, among which were to turn the barn we sat in into staff housing. I learned on my recent visit that a farm team member lives there now, and most of the farmers have employee housing.
We eat overlooking acres of blooming perennials and ripening crops. We talk about wild turkeys and someone’s recent trip to Cuttyhunk. I feel like I’m at a family dinner.
The crew this July day is a seasoned one — many of them that I met in 2018 are still here. We eat overlooking acres of blooming perennials and ripening crops. We talk about wild turkeys and someone’s recent trip to Cuttyhunk. I feel like I’m at a family dinner.
Beetlebung is a no-till, low-till farm that grows a diverse mix of veggies and herbs that folks can find at the farmstand, the West Tisbury Farmers Market, and on menus around the Island.
“We try to pick interesting things that are more relevant culinarily, that prioritize taste and flavor,” Kate tells me. She adds that State Road Restaurant is one of their biggest supporters, putting in orders every week.
“They’re like, ‘Tell us what’s good for you.’ They’re most consistent and really kind of represent the people we want to work with,” Kate said.
The farm also offers workshops, like its Variety Tasting Classes, that include a farm tour and meal. I remember Amy and Krishana talked about wanting to offer programs like these six years ago, and it’s inspiring to see that it’s all happening. And with the new barn set to open soon, there’s clearly so much more to come.
As folks clear their plates and get ready to return to work, everyone thanks Mirra for the delicious spread. She responded in a way that, to me, sums up farm lunch.
“Thanks for growing,” she said.
Kate Woods and Mirra Sims in the farmhouse kitchen at Beetlebung.
A salad made with Beetlebung's harvest.
Beetlebung's New Barn and Flour Mill
One part of the new barn at Beetlebung Farm is actually an old barn that was brought to the Island from Walpole, New Hampshire. It was supposed to be torn down, but owner Amy Weinberg saw it and wanted to save it. Crews broke it down, cleaned it, and put it into storage, and its reconstruction on the Island began about two years ago. Attached to the old barn space is an addition under construction that hosts the commercial kitchen, farmstand, and bakery. (There’s also a washroom, walk-in cooler, farm offices, and more). The bakery will be on the second floor, and there’s a flour mill on the first floor from New American Stone Mills. There is an initial high cost from purchasing a mill, Kate said, and grain growing is difficult to make work economically, but she hopes it will encourage different farmers to grow grain, since there will be a guaranteed point of sale. “I hope we can foster a local grain economy,” Kate said. She called it “a beautiful bridge between farming and the culinary world with a piece of equipment.”
Beetlebung Farm is located at 521 South Road in Chilmark. The honor-based farmstand is open daily during the season. Find out more at beetlebungfarm.org.
SPRING SCAPE AND DELFINO CHIMMI
2 bunches Delfino cilantro (chopped)
2 bunches flat leaf cilantro (chopped)
1 bunch garlic scapes (grilled and sliced thin)
1 bunch scallions or spring onions (sliced thin)
4 cups good quality olive oil
1 Tbsp cobenaro chili flakes
4 ea lime zest
salt to taste
black pepper to taste
dash of red wine vinegar
and more.
“We try to pick interesting things that are more relevant culinarily, that prioritize taste and flavor, ” –Kate Woods, Farm Manager at Beetlebung
The new barn at Beetlebung.
Drizzle chimichurri over fish, vegetables, meats,
Lessons in Foraging With Jack Yuen
THE ART OF SLOWING DOWN AND NOTICING IN ITSELF IS FULFILLING.
Story by Annabelle Brothers
by Sheny Leon
I’ve learned that foraging really comes down to noticing. It was one of the first things I observed, one day in early July, as I followed Jack Yuen on a foraging outing. We were walking down the Caroline Tuthill path — a Sheriff’s Meadow trail that I thought was familiar to me. Little did I know how much I’d missed.
You may recognize Yuen’s name from the Vineyard art world. His paintings are displayed at Louisa Gould Gallery in Vineyard Haven. But the purpose of my
walk with Jack was to learn about one of his other passions.
As we entered the trailhead, I took note of how Jack’s body language shifted. Walking with purpose, but not too eagerly, Jack led the way. His head was in constant motion, scanning the landscape that moved below and around us. As I made a sorry attempt to do the same, I realized that I’d never really noticed the plants before. Rather, they often melted into the landscape as an element, but not my main focus. Unlike me, Jack knew
how to notice the plants.
Jack was born and raised in Oak Bluffs and lived there until he moved away to college at 18. While he now lives in Providence, where he continues to make his artwork, Jack considers the Island an important part of him, and he visits often. His first memories of foraging are from when he was eight or nine years old. “My friend introduced me to this plant called Sheep Sorrel. We picked some, we tried some. It has this very lemony flavor. It’s pretty cool
Photos
Annabelle Brothers and Jack Yuen on a foraging outing.
and it’s quite good.” This introduction to Sheep Sorrel opened his mind to foraging. “Up until that point I thought food only existed in the grocery store or maybe a garden. The fact that you could eat something from what I considered a wild space was fascinating to me.” His curiosity about nature and our relationship to it began to grow.
Over the years, Jack accumulated knowledge about edible wild plants here and there, mainly by word of mouth. In recent years, Jack began taking foraging more seriously. “Foraging has really been a way of deepening my relationship with nature.”
As a person with little foraging experience (aside from the occasional outing to harvest wild berries), I was curious to learn what tools Jack used to become such an avid and confident forager.
“It’s amazing that we live in the time of the internet where you can find all this information about foraging pretty accessibly online.” He also emphasized that you should be 100 percent sure of what you harvest — and sometimes the internet can get it wrong. That’s why he suggested taking advantage of our libraries and public resources for triple checking. “A good rule of thumb is having at least three resources that you can look at when identifying a species, to cross reference.”
For Jack, there is no pressure to be successful every time. And in fact, you won’t be successful every time — at least, not if we’re measuring success by the weight of our basket at the end of the day.
To me, this was the daunting part of learning this hobby. I mean, what if I pick the wrong thing and poison myself? But Jack encouraged me to try: “You can just go out there and see what you can find. You don’t even have to eat it. See what you can learn and find. I think the most important part of it is creating these relationships with our local ecosystem. That’s the most valuable takeaway — even more than a bountiful harvest is creating a connection to your ecosystem.”
For Jack, there is no pressure to be successful every time. And in fact, you won’t be successful every time — at least, not if we’re measuring success by the weight of our basket at the end of the day. Indeed, for much of my outing with Jack, we didn’t find much. We passed some wintergreen plants, which generally aren’t ready to pick until the winter, and we found the sparse remains of Juneberries,
whose season had just passed. With foraging, Jack notes, there are “all these small windows for certain things that you are interested in harvesting.” While some might find this frustrating, Jack sees it differently. “I think it’s pretty cool how you can get a keen sense of what season you are in.”
While we weren’t having luck finding the most “desirable” plants, Jack explained that there is always something you can do with what you do find. “For instance, if there are no blueberries, you could make tea with the leaves of the blueberries!”
Jack values foraging as a means to deepen his connection with the land — more even than taking home a basket of wild goods. “I think foraging leads to this increased feeling of land stewardship and responsibility for the land,” he said. “If I’m foraging, I want it to come from the cleanest environment.”
Foraging is a practice that should be enjoyed, but also carried out with care and respect for the land and the Indigenous communities that have stewarded it for generations and preserved the knowledge that enables us to enjoy the practice.
Lowbush Blueberries.
Foraging leads to an increased feeling of land stewardship, Jack says.
Additionally, Jack reminds us that foraging is rooted in traditional Indigenous knowledge. “I think it's good to be mindful that a lot of this, if not maybe all of the forging knowledge that we have, came from a community — a culture. Having that awareness and trying to go about it in a respectful way I think is important.” Foraging is a practice that should be enjoyed, but also carried out with care and respect for the land and the Indigenous communities that have stewarded it for generations and preserved the knowledge that enables us to enjoy the practice. You want to forage moderately, keeping in mind the health of the plants and the habitat where you’re foraging. It’s important to make sure that it’s legal to forage where you’re exploring. Opt for places like those managed by Sheriff’s Meadow and other public land trusts. Conservation lands may prohibit the practice. At Felix Neck, for example, foraging is not permitted. Each conservation organization has its own rules and regulations regarding foraging, so check with them first.
When Jack and I were just about ready to call it quits, with about four Juneberries in our basket, Jack noticed some Lowbush Blueberries off the trail. He recognized the leaves right away, but he was doubtful that there would be berries yet, since it was still early in the season. To our surprise, we were able to pick a couple of handfuls of berries —
Keep in mind the health of the plants when foraging.
small handfuls, but oh, how rewarding it felt! After an hour and a half of harsh luck, those two handfuls felt like gold. Jack stowed them away in a wooden box for later, and we made our way back to the entrance.
I was excited to have something to bring home. Our harvest was nothing to flaunt, but it helped me understand why people love foraging. Foraging gives us the opportunity to slow down and simply notice. The art of noticing in itself is fulfilling. To me, what was even more exciting than bringing home the blueberries we’d picked was that now I could come back and actually recognize something I wouldn’t have been able to identify before.
Jack sees parallels between his love of creating art and his passion for foraging, noting that “when it comes to foraging and painting scenes from nature, both require going out and practicing being very aware of your surroundings.” He explained that when he’s searching for a scene to paint, he’s “looking at all of the details and how they all interconnect.” Similarly, with foraging, “you're looking for the details of the landscape in order to find something that you can collect. They have parallels where you’re going outdoors and slowing down, practicing this sense of awareness.”
and other public land
are good places to start when considering where to forage.
Tools for the trail.
Sheriff's Meadow properties
trusts
We were able to pick a couple of handfuls of berries — those two handfuls felt like gold.
Wild Blueberry FRUIT LEATHERS
Recipe by Annabelle Brothers
INGREDIENTS
2 cups of wild blueberries
1 Tbsp Raw Honey (optional)
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees F or the lowest setting.
2. Wash the blueberries thoroughly and remove any remaining stems.
3. Throw blueberries into a blender or food processor and combine with honey until fully blended.
4. Pour the blended blueberries onto a baking sheet covered with a Silpat baking mat (Parchment paper will also work, but I find the Silpat baking mat works best when removing the leather at the end.)
5. Use a spatula to spread the blended blueberries evenly until it is only about ⅛ inch to ¼ inch thick. (I prefer them on the thinner side.)
6. Stick them in the oven for about two hours, then check on them every half hour. They are ready when the spread appears mat in texture and is no longer sticky to the touch.
7. Once cooled, use kitchen scissors to cut the fruit leather into strips. Roll them up and enjoy or store them in an airtight container to enjoy later.
Wild blueberry fruit leathers rolled up.
Room for Change: Table Manners
In defense of the dining table — and the pleasure in gathering around a sustainable one.
Story by Leslie Garrett
PHOTO SHENY LEON
My mother called it “family time” and it was nonnegotiable. It involved my father, brother, mother, and me sitting down each evening and eating together around the table my mom had picked up for $25 at a garage sale and painted olive green (what can I say, the official color of the 70s was olive green). The food itself was unspectacular (again, let’s blame the 70s). But though, at the time, my brother and I muttered and rolled our eyes, as an adult I am deeply committed to the idea of gathering, of breaking
bread together, of nourishment of body and soul around a communal table.
I hear, however, that the dining table — indeed dining together — is out of favor. Just one in three families sits down to eat together, says family therapist Anne Fishel, executive director of the nonprofit Family Dinner Project. “In the fight to idealize our homes, dining rooms have been a devastating casualty,” reports Southern Living Magazine, concluding that, “Before our very eyes, dining rooms have disappeared.” My friend, a realtor, concurs, noting that her clients prioritize kitchen islands
over dining rooms, a culture shift that developers seem happy to oblige.
Not so fast, say I, a stalwart member of the dining table resistance. I have long insisted on “family time” in my own home, enduring the eye-rolls of my own teens, while their friends embraced our communal dinners with sociological curiosity.
And I have long celebrated the dining table — one that is the site of day-to-day meals, of occasions happy and sad and in between, that reaches beyond years and activities, that isn’t so precious that it can’t be used for constructing a science fair
“I love the idea that I built the dining table and then they’re also eating lamb or chicken or vegetables that I’ve raised and grown here on Island on that table.”
– Collins Heavener
When it comes to
Heavener's process involves bringing out the beauty of the specific wood.
PHOTOS BY SHENY LEON
project or a gingerbread house, or supporting the occasional Zoom call. (Come to think of it, the desk at which I work was once a dining table — a lovely antique nabbed by my mom 50 years ago at a yard sale — that I’ve repurposed and refurbished, including turning a built-in cutlery drawer into a keyboard tray.)
To wit, the first purchase my husband and I made two years ago to furnish our Island home was, you guessed it, a dining table — specifically a large rectangular table made of reclaimed wood with an expandable (hidden) leaf. For seating, we purchased one bench (same company, same reclaimed wood) and eight wicker dining chairs, bought secondhand. We demand much of our dining table — including that it comprises sustainability.
Hand-made from domestic hardwood
Collins Heavener lives (and farms) with his family on Chappaquiddick and handmakes gorgeous dining tables for Island folks, a process he finds “incredibly gratifying,” he says. “The dining table gets a ton of mileage through all the life experiences. I want a dining table to be used.”
He starts by consulting with the designer or homeowner and often takes a field trip to the home to get a sense of the space where the table will reside. He also wants to know how the table will be used, he says, “like ‘when you picture a full dinner how many people do you want to seat? How do you want them seated? Is this family style or intimate?”
Collins also celebrates the relationship that dining tables have to food. “I love the idea that I built the dining table and then they’re also eating lamb or chicken or vegetables that I’ve raised and grown here on Island on that table.” When it comes to choosing
the wood, he’s partial to domestic woods. “Part of that is only wanting to work with what you can find in our backyard more or less in New England,” he says. “I don’t want anything that’s taken a long trip overseas.” He recently built a table from a beloved cherry tree that had to come down in the front yard of the client’s home. Collins’s particular favorite
is black walnut — “so exceptional to work with,” he says, “and so diverse in character. In terms of colors, it’s purple and chocolate, it’s gray, it’s red and no two trees are similar.” When he delivers his tables, he says that people often comment that it’s too nice to use. “I say, ‘absolutely trash it, make it yours,’” he replies. He points to his own table, which bears the marks of his son’s Hot Wheels … “so many of life’s experiences happen around the dining table. I feel honored to be able to build that piece for whoever’s looking for it.”
Secondhand but first-rate I am the reigning queen of secondhand shopping and easily more than half of our Island home is furnished with cast-off goods. (I’m fully anticipating the day when a guest notices he’s walking on his own discarded wool rug or sitting on his former sofa.) The good news about the death of dining rooms is that there’s a lot of orphaned furniture out there. According to Architectural Digest, “Most of the furniture currently cluttering dumps was made within the last 10 to 15 years.” Which means that the good stuff
PHOTO BY COLLINS HEAVENER
COURTESY
ELIZABETH WEINSTEIN
Using domestic New England hardwood, Collins Heavener fashions tables for everyday life.
This enormous second-hand cherry table snagged by Bluedot's Marketplace editor comes with an equally impressive pedigree.
But it isn’t just the materials themselves that contribute to an item’s sustainability, Sophia Warren points out. “Another aspect is keeping something for a really long time over years of use,” she says.
— built to last — is up for grabs.
Bluedot’s Marketing Editor, Elizabeth Weinstein, who lives in midtown Manhattan, spent months scanning online sites — she and her husband love to cook and host and wanted a vintage table “with a little gravitas.” Finally, she says, she spotted the one — a solid cherry
table that seated anywhere from six to twenty people. The table had apparently been in the Danish mission to the United Nations (not far from Elizabeth’s midtown apartment), which … who cares if that’s even true? That’s an origin story to share over a meal with guests! These days, Elizabeth is happily
hosting, including her dad’s 80th party, which featured 18 guests. “We have nine extra leaves and 18 extra legs squirreled around our apartment,” she says. “We think we only need nine of the legs, but we’re afraid to get rid of the extras!” She calls it “the table of my dreams.”
I bought a cream-colored pedestal table (and four Eames-ish chairs) at Chicken Alley and the price tag — less than $150 all in — was definitely dreamy to me.
Reclaiming the past
Sophia Warren, COO and Creative Director at Vineyard Decorators, has clients who value sustainability and she makes a point of ensuring that her product line supports that. “We have a few dining tables that we keep in stock that are sorted from different reclaimed woods,” she says. “One of the things that I love about them is that they all have this distressing on the finish. As they get more use over time, they just become more beautiful.” Vineyard Decorators also works with a couple of companies that custom-make tables from domestic hardwoods using U.S.-based millworkers.
Whether your style is mid-century modern or casual farmhouse (top), Vineyard Decorators has a sustainable option.
PHOTO BY CLAIRE CALLAGY, COURTESY VINEYARD DECORATORS
PHOTO BY RANDI BAIRD, COURTESY VINEYARD DECORATORS
But it isn’t just the materials themselves that contribute to an item’s sustainability, Sophia points out. “Another aspect is keeping something for a really long time over years of use,” she says. “Dining on it and getting its own strips and nips and grooves and marks and just life on the table is another way to look at sustainability.”
Among the many things I love about Martha’s Vineyard, perhaps my favorite is the
The writer selected an expandable table made from reclaimed wood from Vineyard Decorators for her Island home.
WWood for good
Collins Heavener has his eye on longevity when he builds tables. He wants them to last.
ood sometimes comes with tags noting a specific certification program. Eco-certifications run the gamut from third-party verified and trustworthy to industry-verified and less so to almost meaningless. Our own Dear Dot weighed in on certification programs for wood (bit.ly/Dear-Dotcerts) — primarily Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified and Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI). According to Dot’s research, “The FSC, or Forest Stewardship Council, certification was created following the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro by environmental activists while Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) was created by timber industry professionals in 1994 in response to FSC, which they viewed as a threat to industry. On their surface, both certifications look legit. But while FSC relies on a third-party verification system (this means that qualified outsiders are the ones determining whether requirements are met), SFI allows companies to self-assess. SFI is like relying on your teenager to tell you whether they completed their homework whereas FSC would call the teacher.”
Where to find a table
Elizabeth Weinstein, Bluedot’s Marketplace Editor, is something of an online shopping sleuth, able to sniff out the best products at the best price. She suggests table-seekers check out Facebook Marketplace, local “stooping” accounts on social media (there’s NYC and Toronto — tell us if there’s one in your city!), Habitat for Humanity’s ReStores, or Elizabeth’s masterstroke 1stDibs. On
ubiquity of dinner parties. I have sat around many new neighbors’ tables — and they have joined me at mine. Some of those tables have hosted presidents and movie stars and novelists and shipbuilders and farmers and shop clerks and, well … our Island community. The tables bear the marks of lives lived, and meals and friendships savored. Dining tables are out of fashion? Certainly not here, and cheers to that.
Act Two Second Hand Store
66 Main Street, Vineyard Haven; acttwosecondhandstore.org
straight out of the bag, which she calls “a great snack.”
“Cranberry bread. Cranberry muffin. I like cranberry relish — that’s probably my favorite. All you do is throw cranberries and oranges in a food processor,” she says.
She mentioned renowned chef and Wampanoag Tribe of Mashpee member Sherry Pocknett and her “killer cranberry vinaigrette,” which people can find at Pocknett’s restaurant Sly Fox Denn Too in Charlestown, Rhode Island. The menu integrates authentic Northeast Indigenous cuisine, and Pocknett was recognized last year with the James Beard award for Best Chef, Northeast. She was the first Indigenous woman to be recognized with the prestigious award.
Bettina says she has “no idea” when the first Cranberry Day was celebrated, but she hears stories of her great, great grandparents and beyond that. She reflects on how her generation (she grew up in the ‘60s and ‘70s) was really the first to go down-Island and out to stores. “You grew it or you got it out of the ocean, really,” she says.
And as the Island today looks to return to more self-sustaining food systems, perhaps an inventory of its wild cranberry bogs wouldn’t be a bad idea. Bettina and my friends at the Museum agreed. Does anyone need a winter project?
CRANBERRY OAT BREAD
BY KARINA HINES
This festive and popular cranberry oat bread from Botanical Kitchen is loved by health-conscious people who follow a plant-based, sustainable lifestyle. For those following a therapeutic diet to support healing, this recipe is a gift as it is oil-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, eggfree, refined sugar-free, and fabulous! Fresh or frozen cranberries work equally well, so you can make this bread year-round. The coconut in this recipe helps balance the texture and adds small amounts of healthy fats that make the fat-soluble nutrients like vitamin E in both cranberries and apples bio-available for absorption. Makes 1 loaf
INGREDIENTS
1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries
½–1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup apple sauce
½ cup maple syrup
1 tsp vinegar (use apple cider or white vinegar)
Zest of 1 orange
2 cups oat flour
2 Tbsps finely shredded, unsweetened coconut
3 Tbsps tapioca flour
1½ tsps baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1 Tbsp whole rolled oats for garnish
DIRECTION
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a loaf tin with parchment paper, or grease the tin.
2. Roughly chop the fresh and dried cranberries. Reserve a tablespoon or two for garnish.
3. Wash and zest the skin of 1 orange.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk together the apple sauce, maple syrup, vinegar,
and orange zest until smooth. Stir in chopped cranberries.
5. Blend the oat flour and finely shredded coconut for 45– 60 seconds in a blender or food processor until you have a very fine and even oat flour. Pour the oats and coconut into a mixing bowl, and add the tapioca flour, baking powder, and baking soda.
6. Mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients and stir until well combined.
7. Pour the mixture into the lined or greased loaf tin, and spread it evenly. Garnish the top with oats and cranberries. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes. Start checking after 45 minutes; when done, the loaf will spring back when lightly pressed, and an inserted skewer will come out clean.
8. Cool for 10 minutes in the tin, then turn onto a wire cooling rack, remove the loaf tin and the paper, if using, and cool completely before slicing with a bread knife.
9. Store in an airtight container once completely cooled. Freeze whole or in easy-to-grab slices.
BY
Suzan Bellincampi and Jean-Marc Dupon at Cranberry Acres.
PHOTO
KARINE HINES
COURTESY SUZAN BELLINCAMPI
Iwalk past plants taller than I am on my way into Betsy and Jesse Fink’s home in Katama — a stunning barn compound on a sprawling piece of land with meadow gardens you could get lost in. At the property’s entrance, there’s a small wooden sign with the word “Refugia” carved into it, indicating not only that I was at the right place, but that environmental causes are at the heart of just about everything that happens here.
Betsy and Jesse Fink are two of the founders of ReFED, a national nonprofit known for its work combating food waste through data-driven solutions. Their work involves researching, advocating for, and implementing strategies to minimize food waste, improve resource efficiency, and enhance the overall sustainability of food systems. ReFED’s data has helped businesses like Google and the states of Oregon and Washington launch their own food waste recovery and recycling initiatives. ReFED also looks to draw in new philanthropic and investment capital, along with technology, business, and innovation, to the food waste challenge.
BETSY AND JESSE FINK
LOCAL
As a quick refresher for those who need it, food waste is a significant driver of climate change. When food is thrown away — about 40 percent of food grown in the U.S. is tossed out every year — it ends up in landfills where it decomposes and produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Composting food waste can reduce methane emissions, but in many places, such as Martha’s Vineyard,
people still throw a lot of their food waste into the trash. Food waste is also the cause of other environmental issues such as loss of resources such as water, land, and labor. Islanders may also recognize the Finks through the Betsy and Jesse Fink Family Foundation, which has supported local nonprofits such as Island Grown Initiative’s gleaning program and food waste initiative, the MV Atlas of Life program, and Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen’s Preservation Trust. Many people previously featured in this magazine such as Mary Sage Napolitan, Matt Pelikan, and Noli Taylor are Fink Fellows; the foundation’s fellowship program that supports people in their work to make our communities more sustainable and resilient
against climate change.
Betsy and Jesse have always been interested in environmental causes. Betsy is originally from Ithaca, New York (“farm country,” she calls it) and Jesse is from Lynbrook, New York. They met at State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse. (“He stalked me in statistics class,” Betsy says, laughing. “It’s true,” Jesse adds.) They got married in 1982. That summer, they discovered Martha’s Vineyard on their bicycles. Fifteen years later, they came back with their kids. They loved the Island so much, they decided to build a home.
“There’s just something different about the Vineyard,” Betsy says, gazing out at her sun-drenched pollinator garden through the barn’s large windows.
Jesse was the founding COO of the online travel company Priceline, and Betsy was project manager on the founding team, too. They left the company in 1999, and began their work as philanthropists in the agriculture and sustainability space. They’ve spent the last 20 years investing in climate initiatives and helping put food waste as a climate solution on the national agenda. They do this on a local level, too.
Betsy's pollinator gardens have become fully-integrated ecosystems.
“The cultural diversity and the environmental and ecological diversity is what really drew us here,” Jesse adds from across the long table where we sit.
Jesse was the founding COO of the online travel company Priceline, and Betsy was project manager on the founding team,
folks from Earthjustice, a nonprofit they support, to Martha’s Vineyard. They also invited people on the Island they know who are interested in the environment. The group gathered around a long stretch of tables that ran down the room. They enjoyed a dinner from Betsy’s garden.
“Once we launched the report we realized, ‘Wow, people are really paying attention to this’. We realized we needed to keep going. And that’s when it went from a report to an organization, and from an organization to a standalone nonprofit, and it just keeps growing. And the culture of ReFED, I think it embodies the way we look at solving problems.”
–Jesse Fink, co-founder of ReFED
too. They left the company in 1999, and began their work as philanthropists in the agriculture and sustainability space. They’ve spent the last 20 years investing in climate initiatives and helping put food waste as a climate solution on the national agenda. They do this on a local level, too.
Just the night before, the Finks had about 25 people over for dinner in the room where we sit now. They invited
“It was a way to get everyone exposed to Earthjustice, but also for people to share ideas,” Jesse tells me.
This concept of convening likeminded people is at the core of the Finks’ work. They often refer to these gatherings as “big tent” events.
Betsy started Millstone Farm in Wilton, Connecticut, in 2005, where they grew food for restaurants and for the local
community, and introduced organic crop varieties to the market before there was much demand for it. This was where they got a first-hand look at the issue of food waste: “When I would do deliveries for the farm, I also saw how much food and fresh produce was being discarded in the back of our local markets,” Betsy says.
They’d also occasionally host weddings under big tents.
“Everyone likes to go to a farm wedding, so we would have big tents we’d put up for weddings,” Jesse says. “We were funding and still continue to fund a broad range of nonprofits mostly focused on the environment, and within that, a focus on agriculture. And since we had a tent, we decided, why don’t we bring all of our groups together? For probably three to four years, we’d send out an invitation to all the nonprofits we were supporting and say, ‘Please come to Millstone Farm. We’re going to have a day where you’re all going to talk to each other about the work that you’re doing.’”
Folks from IGI, the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and Harlem Grown were among the groups that would attend the big tent gatherings. One year, they focused on what everyone was doing related to food waste.
“In that big tent, hearing different ideas and different stakeholders, we realized that most people are really focused and expert in their sector and in their silo, and it’s bringing those different sectors and silos together where you realize there’s some real opportunity for change,” Jesse says. “We said, you know what, everyone’s doing great
work, but there isn’t something that pulls it all together.”
From there, the seeds for ReFED were sown. Jesse involved the investment group he manages, Mission Point Partners, to help conduct an analysis that helped lay the groundwork for a “systemic investing approach” that would use philanthropy and investment to combat food waste. Jesse and his team launched A Roadmap to Reduce Food Waste By 20 Percent (bit. ly/2016_report), a report that compiled data about food waste and included buy-in from big food and government groups like Walmart and Sodexo and the EPA and USDA. The report included actionable insights, data, charts, statistics, and graphics to show how food waste is a solvable problem with economic benefits. The report, which they published in 2016, customized recommendations to producers, manufacturers, retailers, restaurants, policymakers, and capital providers. Some of the recommendations included closer collaborations between farmers and food businesses to create a second market for imperfect produce, and further adoption of tools to track and analyze food waste at restaurants. Sarah Vared, ReFED’s third co-founder, spearheaded the report.
“Once we launched the report we realized, ‘Wow, people are really paying attention to this,’” Jesse tells me. “We realized we needed to keep going. And that’s when it went from a report to an organization, and from an organization to a standalone nonprofit, and it just keeps growing. And the culture of ReFED,
I think it embodies the way we look at solving problems.”
ReFED made a leap in 2021 when it launched its Insights Engine platform (bit.ly/Insight_engine), an interactive database that users can use to monitor their own food waste, look for solutions, find providers, calculate impact, track capital, and find policies. It features the most comprehensive look at food waste in the United States. For example, if a food business wants to learn what they can do to reduce food waste, they can use the Insight Engine platform to filter through 42 analyzed solutions to find those that work best for them. They can use different filters to prioritize for financial savings, greenhouse gas emissions, or any other priorities, and the platform will provide an estimate of how much the solution costs per ton of food saved. People can also click on solutions that interest them to find businesses and nonprofits in their area that provide those services.
“We’re trying to make as much analysis as possible at people’s fingertips, so they can be champions for the topic, and they can know within whatever their sphere is of all the things they could be doing,” ReFED’s executive director Dana Gunders told me in a phone conversation we had the week before. “What’s going to have the most impact, you know? And what can I afford right now? How much is it going to cost so that I can actually know I can do it?”
ReFED also has a new Roadmap to 2030, which outlines goals for reducing food waste in the U.S. by 50 percent by
2030. The roadmap looks at the entire food supply chain and identifies seven key action areas showing where the food system must focus its efforts to reduce waste, including strengthening food rescue, reshaping consumer environments, recycling anything remaining, and optimizing the harvest, among other strategies.
ReFED also has a re-granting program, where funders or philanthropists who are interested in food waste but don’t know how to get involved can give a donation to ReFED, and ReFED will then re-grant it to various large or small nonprofit organizations that could use it. A grant from this program went to Growing Places Garden Project in Leominster to develop a Fresh Chef Kit program to provide locally sourced and lightly processed produce to SNAP households in north-central Massachusetts.
Through ReFED, the Finks have helped create more national and local awareness around food waste. They believe the issue is solvable, but it has to be done on a local level. IGI has made some great strides for food waste recovery and recycling over the years (with the Finks’ support) through its food waste drop-off site at Thimble Farm (though that’s closing September 1 — see our story on page 9), and through its gleaning program. The local nonprofit has helped redirect more than 3 million pounds of household and restaurant scraps out of the Island’s waste stream. But efforts have to go beyond the farm.
“What has to happen is it can’t be voluntary anymore,” Jesse said. “There has to be legislation, regulations that say you really have to do it if you’re a large restaurant, if you’re in food service, or even the hospital or the high school — you need to separate food waste because now you can bring it to one of these particular places.”
In Massachusetts, we’re lucky we have progressive policy around food waste compared to other states. According to state law, any facility that produces more than one-half ton of food waste per week must divert it from landfills. In Boston, there’s a free curbside food waste collection for residents, and small businesses like Bootstrap Compost (bit. ly/BuildingBootstrap) helped create the infrastructure and made composting accessible to residents before the city did. That’s along the lines of what the Finks hope to see on Martha’s Vineyard.
“IGI did an amazing job pushing it forward with the idea that there was going to be a handoff to some commercial
operation, but it’s not happening,” Jesse says. “When the time comes when we have a place to do it and no, you have to do it, it’ll be done.”
Another thing about food waste: “So far it hasn’t been politicized,” Jesse says. “And if we can continue that way, it’s huge, where you can have both our political parties realizing that food waste solutions are important. They view it in a different way. There may be one side that looks at the redirection of food to feed people, there could be another side that says it can save money for businesses. Regardless, it really works for everybody.”
And without making things too political, I ask Betsy and Jesse if they have any dream stakeholders for food waste they haven’t been able to reach yet.
“Michelle Obama,” Jesse says. “When she was in the White House, she was focused on agriculture and gardens —”
“And food health for children,” Betsy adds.
“I just think she’d be a wonderful person to understand food waste. She’s got
an amazing platform to be a messenger for that,” Jesse says.
This concept of “the right messenger” is important to the Finks. Through their foundation, they support individuals “who are amazing storytellers with powerful messages to share,” like Terry Tempest Williams and Robin Kimmerer who wrote Braiding Sweetgrass, Jesse says.
One in seven Americans are food insecure, so the issue of food waste exists in this paradoxical context where there are people hungry for the food that’s being thrown away. It brings me back to a concept I remember Rebecca Haag mentioning to me almost a decade ago when I first started learning about food insecurity on the Island. Answers lie in providing “the right food, at the right time, in the right form, to the right people,” she told me. And as the Finks say, food waste is a systemic issue, and its solutions are systemic, too.
“Food waste is a systemwide problem that occurs across all sectors of the supply chain,” ReFED’s team told me via email.
On our one-year anniversary as the first B Corporation certified bank in Massachusetts, our deep connections to community, local business, and environment continue to inspire our mission of banking as a force for good.
mvbank.com
“What has to happen is it can’t be voluntary anymore. There has to be legislation, regulations that say you really have to [separate food waste] if you’re a large restaurant, if you’re in food service, or even the hospital or the high school — you need to separate food waste because now you can bring it to one of these particular places.”
– Jesse Fink, co-founder of ReFED
“But it’s also a solvable problem. We know what works — we just need the right combination of motivation, stakeholder alignment, and funding to make it happen.”
As ReFED looks toward the future, it plans to keep innovating, fundraising, and potentially expanding internationally. Jesse and Betsy will continue to split their time between the Island and their home in Boulder, Colorado, where their kids live. They spend their free time kayaking and hiking. Betsy loves to get lost in her gardens and make bouquets for friends. In
biology, refugia is a location that supports isolated or relict populations of species that were once more widespread. That’s how the Finks see their home in Katama, too: “A place where species come during climate change to survive and hopefully proliferate,” Betsy says.
“I don’t think we ever dreamed this is the life we would have, but we feel blessed that we have made good choices and have had good luck to be where we are,” Jesse says. “We’ve spent the last 20 years just giving back, helping mentor individuals
who are passionate about what they’re doing, and get great satisfaction and gratification seeing people expand their career in making a difference themselves.”
As our conversation wraps up, I ask a question I always do: Is there anything we haven’t talked about that we should?
“Our love for each other,” Jesse says. “We’re stronger together, we figured out,” Betsy adds, laughing.
A memorable answer to what can sometimes be a throwaway question. The Finks truly leave nothing to waste.
LOCAL HEROES BETSY AND JESSE FINK
They're finding food waste solutions at both national and local levels, and their nonprofit, ReFED, is helping lead the way.
Britt Bowker
Read the story, page 75.
Story by
Photos by Claire Callagy
508.696.9999 West Tisbury
508.645.2628 Chilmark
Elevated Chilmark North Shore 4-Acre Waterfront Property
Unique opportunity to enjoy a remarkable, secure, elevated Chilmark north shore 4-acre waterfront property with dramatic 180-degree year-round sunset water views over the sandy coastline to Great Rock Bight, Menemsha Hills, Aquinnah shore, Gay Head Lighthouse, and the Elizabeth Islands. This wide expanse of the Vineyard Sound enjoys endless sailboat, fishing, and other boating activity to enhance the ocean’s splendor. The views are enchanting every hour of every day of every season under any conditions rain or shine. Enjoy the 4 bedroom 3 bath main house, 2 bedroom 2 bath guest house, waterside pool, pool house, and garage on a 33 ft elevated 500 ft setback site in the highly desirable Spring Point waterfront community. Exclusively offered at $8,100,000.
