The story of Vineyard food in 2024 was decidedly flaky. And a little bit fishy. Sure, plants — our much-loved Island-grown vegetables and fruit — still propelled the plot of this story. They were the supporting actors for nearly all the most popular recipes on cookthevineyard.com this year (see below).
But with apologies to Michael Pollan, we have updated his eating mantra to more accurately reflect the theme of this Vineyard tale: Eat food. Mostly plants. And fish. And bread. Not too much. Unless the croissants are freshly baked and the bay scallops are on sale.
It’s official: we are an Island of bread and pastry fanatics. Not just any bread, not just any pastry. Slow-fermented, highly hydrated loaves made with freshly milled New England-grown grains. Chewy bialys filled with Island-grown leeks or peppers. Sourdough brioche. Fresh cider doughnuts. Croissants that shatter into a thousand buttery shards.
With the addition of an artisan bakery and the opening of a new farmstand in 2024, Beetlebung Farm joined The Grey Barn and Morning Glory Farm to make a trio of baking farms on the Island, with each of them emphasizing locally sourced ancient grains that are healthier than modern refined flours, even the lowly chocolate chip cookie got a makeover in 2024. Made with rye and einkorn flour at Beetlebung Farm, spelt flour at The Grey Barn, and buckwheat flour at Morning Glory Farm, these chocolate chip cookies have a roasty, nutty flavor and a crisp texture. Never buy just one.
It wasn’t only farms that embraced scratch baking in 2024. When the new Italian café, La Strada, opened on Main street in Vineyard Haven last spring, it debuted sandwiches made with its house-baked focaccia. Later in the year, The Model Deli opened in the former space of The Larder in Vineyard Haven, offering freshly baked, house-made bagels and an all-day sandwich menu. Catboat Coffee Co. introduced us to manousheh, a crispy Lebanese flatbread topped with cheese, ground beef or zaatar.
We ended the year with the first annual Great Martha’s Vineyard Bakeoff, a fundraiser for Friends of Family Planning and Martha’s Vineyard Community Services which offered a passport to bakeries all over the Island, from Orange Peel Bakery in Aquinnah to Rosewater Market in Edgartown. At each destination, special treats were for sale on Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 23 and 24.
Because even Vineyarders can’t live on bread alone — and many of us became sensitive to meat and dairy this year thanks to alpha-gal — folks got friendly with cooking fish. The number one most searched recipe on cookthevineyard.com was Black Sea Bass with Fresh Garlic-Lemon Butter, a recipe first introduced in 2021. Black Sea Bass is now one of the most plentiful fish in Vineyard waters. Two other perennial favorites, Pan Fried Fluke with Lemon Caper Thyme Butter Sauce and Roasted Fish with Cherry Tomatoes and Olives put the search engines to work, too.
A Community Supported Fishery (otherwise known as a CSF) organized by the Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen’s Preservation Trust, took off this year. The pay-ahead, pick-up-later model featured monthly distributions at the West Tisbury Farmers’ Market. Introduced to help Island fishermen get a fair price for their catch and to find a home for whatever fish they bring in, the CSF included a variety of vacuum-packed flash-frozen fish or shellfish in each pickup, from scallops (sea and bay) to fluke, black sea bass, bonito, squid, monkfish and more.
The CSF was the latest addition to an explosion of Island share-based programs, which now include CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture), CSBs (Community Supported Bread) and CSFs (Community Supported Flowers).
For all of us with CSAs and farmstand desires, the variety of Island-grown vegetables blew us away once again. Our favorite vegetable of the year? Murasaki Fioretto, a hybrid purple cauliflower that has slender stems, tiny bouquets of flowerets and a subtly sweet flavor.
When we brought our goodies home, what were we making with them? Recipes that highlighted seasonal ingredients or (no surprise) satisfied our sweet tooth. Or both, as you’ll see below.
As we do every year, we had some fun determining this list of the 10 most popular new (published in 2024) recipes that were featured in the Cook the Vineyard newsletter and posted on cookthevineyard.com. Without further ado, here is that list.
1. Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting.
Abby Dodge’s Valentine’s Day treat, designed to flex between cupcake and muffin, was the runaway favorite recipe of the year. With no mixer required, these moist and fragrant snacks are easy to make, and of course packed with beta-carotene. Hello carrots!
2. Tomato-Corn Chowder with Bacon and Leeks.
Timing can be everything, and this uber-fresh and hearty soup was published in Martha’s Vineyard Magazine and on cookthevineyard.com at the height of tomato and corn season this summer. It tastes of summer itself. A total crowd pleaser.
3. Grill-Roasted Potatoes with Rosemary, Lemon, Sea Salt & Fresh Corn Vinaigrette.
One of our favorite ways to grill potatoes — in a foil pouch — gained fans this summer with this recipe. The steam created inside the pouch cooks and flavors the veggies, while the direct heat of the grill grates penetrates the foil just enough for some caramelization to occur.
4. Crispy Sheet Pan Chicken with Honeynut Squash and Hot Honey Drizzle.
Any sheet pan dinner that incorporates freshly harvested veggies is a win in our book. Those adorable, nutty tasting Honeynut squash — along with fresh corn — found a popular home this year in this jazzy chicken sheet pan dinner.
5. Gingerbread with Pear Cranberry Compote.
The little black dress of winter desserts — gingerbread cake — got a delicious update from Abby Dodge this year. Moist and spicy, this version featured a glam garnish, too, made with seasonal fruit.
6. Simple Sautéed Bay Scallops with a Citrus Pan Sauce.
Breaking the rules, we let this new variation of a previously published technique sneak on to the list. This year’s colorful preparation included late-season Sungold and Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes and was served over maftoul, a type of Palestinian hand-rolled couscous.
7. Spring Veggie Stir-Fry with Lemon-Dill Yogurt Sauce.
Inspired by the beautiful new vegetable varieties our Island farmers are growing, this weeknight stir-fry gets an Ottolenghi-style lift with a swath of herby yogurt sauce beneath it.
8. No Bake Strawberry Cream Cheese Icebox Cake.
Another highlight from our Baking Together column by Abby Dodge, this luscious, make-ahead masterpiece requires minimal effort and zero oven time, resulting in a layered, mousse-like dessert that’s bursting with the flavor of early summer — ruby-red strawberries.
9. Cavatelli with Roasted Artichokes and Preserved Lemon.
For the second year in a row, Vineyard pasta guru Katie Leaird made the top 10 (last year her Lasagna Bolognese took the number one spot) by way of her collaboration with cookbook author (and award-winning podcaster) Dan Pashman on this tasty pasta — a dish Pashman calls one of his five “sleeper hits” in his bestselling cookbook, Anything’s Pastable. But the flavor is anything but sleepy.
10. Comforting Cabbage Soup with Linguiça, Yukon Gold Potatoes and Fall Herbs.
Surprise! Where else but the Vineyard would a cabbage soup be one of the most popular recipes of the year? This deeply flavorful recipe deserves the limelight, though, and it’s a handy destination for all the Island-grown cabbages that seem to pop up like mushrooms on fall farmstands.
All recipes are available on cookthevineyard.com. To subscribe to the Cook the Vineyard newsletter, visit cookthevineyard.substack.com. Susie Middleton is editor of Cook the Vineyard.
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