JANE N. SLATER

508-645-3378

slaterjn@comcast.net

Chilmark will have many choices of eating places this week. The air should be full of the good smells of food! The Galley opened yesterday for the season; the Bite will open today at 11 a.m.; the Tavern will open May 23 and the Home Port will open on May 25. The Menemsha Fish Market, Larsen’s Fish Market and the Menemsha Café are all already going strong.

At the Tavern, Paul and Louise Petersiel are back for a second year. Their daughter, Jenna, with chef Pete Gwilliam will manage the restaurant this year. They will open for the evening meal on May 23.

The Home Port will welcome a new chef, Teddy Diggs of Washington, D.C., who comes to Chilmark with his wife, Holly, and his daughters, three-year-old Keira and six-month-old Lenah. They will be living at the restaurant and enjoying a first Menemsha summer. The Home Port will serve dinner on May 25 to the Fishermen’s Association as they do annually. The association strives to inform and protect the fishing industry.

Best wishes from us all to Louie Larsen who is recovering at home following surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital last week. We will be happy to see him out and about soon.

Please note the public hearing scheduled for May 24 at 7 p.m. at the town hall. The public is invited to view the plans for the Tea Lane Farm conversion and to comment on the plans.

Ted Meinelt of South Road was honored at a luncheon on Wednesday last, hosted by the Chilmark Historical Commission. He was presented with a certificate of appreciation for his efforts to preserve the history of Chilmark. His name will be added to a plaque in town hall. Congratulations to Ted!

Congratulations to John Flender, who is happy to tell of the birth of his granddaughter, Clara Molly Flender. She was born in April to William and Stacey in Burlington, Vt. Clara will make her first Vineyard visit in August.

Charles and Lucille Plotz are back at their Flanders Lane home where Lucille is no doubt already gardening.

Bob and Sarah Nixon have been in town briefly to start the preparations for opening the Beach Plum Inn and Menemsha Inn as well as the restaurant, Home Port. The Beach Plum Inn hosted the dinner and dance for the prom of the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High school on May 14.

Congratulations to Tony Maws, chef and owner of the Craigie on Main restaurant in Cambridge. He has won the prestigious James Beard Award for Best Chef, Northeast. He is a longtime summer resident of Larsen Lane and the son of Marjorie Maws of Newton and Menemsha. He is also the nephew of the Bluesteins of Larsen Laneall are most proud of Tony! Cheers from us all!

The Chilmark Public Library will offer a program by wildlife biologists Liz Baldwin and Luanne Johnson on May 25 at 5:30 p.m. Their program, For the Birds: A Peep Show, will tell us about the birds on the beaches of Martha’s Vineyard and will include videos, pictures and much information. The program is free to the public.

More about birds: Our neighborhood recently lost a number of trees, which may account for the activity going on under our deck these days. Our deck is raised, with lots of flat space under the floor of the deck appropriate for nests. This year we have many little brown birds and a couple of robins all trying to build nests. The heavy winds of the past weeks have presented a challenge. Some mornings we find nests in every stage of construction on the ground only to watch them all hard at work again. We have dubbed the whole operation Nest Building 101. It will be interesting so see if any actually succeed.

We are all invited to the annual All-Island Memorial Day Picnic at the Tisbury Water Works. It is always a fun event with music and games for all.

Rebecca Haag, Chilmark resident on Old Farm Road, is the chief executive officer and president of the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts. She will receive an honorary PhD from Simmons College in Boston on May 20 in recognition of her dedicated advocacy work for HIV prevention, treatment and care. The commencement speaker will be Margaret Marshall, who is a retired Supreme Court justice and a longtime West Tisbury resident. She will also receive honors at the commencement. Becky’s mother is coming from Cincinnati and will travel with Becky and Mary Breslauer to their home in Chilmark for a celebratory weekend. Cheers from us all!

Correction from last weekhow do you spell quahaug? Carefully, that’s how. No wonder I don’t win at Scrabble!

Three seasonal Chilmark couples had the adventure of a lifetime in March when they traveled together on a photo safari to Tanzania and the Serengeti. They enjoyed seeing the magnificent scenery, a great variety of wild animals and even camped out at night with the air filled with animal calls. The lucky travelers are Iv and Margo Cohen, Steve and Elizabeth Power and Ted and Jane Rabe. We all want to see the pictures!

Stuart Katz and Jane Martin were at their Chilmark home this weekend past.

The Chilmark Community Church will hold their annual Yard and Plant Sale from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on May 28. They will sell seedlings, herbs and there will be some household and flea market things for sale also. The big draw will be the lobster rolls-to-go, a new offering this year, prepared by the same cooks who bring us the wonderful lobster rolls weekly all summer.