Cook the Vineyard, a free weekly newsletter and website celebrating the food culture on the Island, will make its debut on July 3. Curated by cookbook author and food writer Susie Middleton, Cook the Vineyard is being published by Martha’s Vineyard Magazine. It will incorporate recipes and food stories that have appeared over the years in the magazine and its sister publications, the Vineyard Gazette and The Vine, as well as new seasonal recipes, menu ideas and cooking tips.
The weekly newsletter, delivered by email every Wednesday morning, will also include suggestions on where to find ingredients and how to prepare them. Cook the Vineyard is sponsored by Cronig’s Markets, LeRoux at Home and the Net Result.
“If we run a deviled eggs recipe, we have a great story on how to shop for, store and cook with Island eggs,” Ms. Middleton said in an interview. “If we run a story on grilled bluefish we have a story about fishing for blues.
“My personal mission is to make cooking more fun and accessible to people through great techniques and by demystifying ingredients,” she added. “We have so many good sources on the Island but sometimes they’re difficult to know about or find or keep track of what’s in season.”
Ms. Middleton is no stranger to food writing. She was an editor at Fine Cooking magazine for more than a decade, serving as editor-in-chief of that magazine for five years. She is the author of four cookbooks, including Fast Fresh and Green, which was published in 2010 and has sold more than 50,000 copies to date.
In 2008, she left her position at Fine Cooking with a book deal and moved to the Vineyard.
“Being cooped up in an office, I felt like it was time for me. I needed a change,” she said. “I came out here for a sabbatical for a few months and I fell in love.”
She co-operated Green Island Farm in West Tisbury for five years, raising 400 laying hens and growing an acre of vegetables. She became a vegetable devotee, growing 20 different kinds of lettuce, four different kinds of kale, peas, onions, summer squash, peppers, tomatoes, Brussels sprouts and a lot of baby bok choy. She wrote a food blog and later founded a farm stand called Six Burner Sue before becoming special projects editor at the Vineyard Gazette.
Learning to grow food revolutionized the way she approaches cooking, Ms. Middleton said.
“I had a real awakening about food when I moved to the Vineyard,” she said. “I became much more aware of what it takes to produce food, how precious it is.” Cook the Vineyard continues a long tradition of food writing at the Vineyard Gazette Media Group, which owns Martha’s Vineyard magazine as well as the Gazette.
A 1968 Gazette article includes old Vineyard recipes for Blueberry Grunt, Clam Shortcake, and Dysentery Cordial. Another old recipe for Eel Stifle calls for two pounds of eels, four onions, and a quart of potatoes. A whaling era recipe for gingerbread reads, “These cakes will keep during a long voyage, and are frequently carried to sea. Many persons find highly-spiced gingerbread a preventative to sea-sickness.”
Nowadays, Islanders have access to myriad sources of both local ingredients and exotic ones. In the midst of the abundance, Ms. Middleton aims to bring inspiration.
“I want to give people a roadmap for cooking on Martha’s Vineyard,” Ms. Middleton said.
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