Dining
It’s 6 a.m., but the energy feels more like noon at the Orange Peel Bakery in Aquinnah. Music is blaring, the sinks are full of dirty pots and bowls, the mixer is going and the counters are covered with vats of bread dough and pre-ferments (wild yeast) that are so active they are pushing the lids off the containers.
Juliannne Vanderhoop looks up from lighting her outdoor stone oven that could house a character from a J.R.R. Tolkien story, and recalls how it all started.
Pottery, Soup and Music
This weekend Feathersone Center for the Arts in Oak Bluffs is holding its third annual Potters Bowl with guest curator Washington Ledesma.
The idea behind the event is both basic and beautiful. Visitors to the show are asked to buy a ceramic bowl for $25 and then they get a free bowl of soup plus a roll, drink and dessert. Talk about art literally satisyfing an inner hunger.
In addition to local meat and produce, last Saturday’s farmers’ market in West Tisbury featured some healthy local competition between two well-known Vineyard chefs. In the third annual Seafood Throwdown sponsored by the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance and the Dukes County Fishermen’s Association, chefs Jo Maxwell of Chesca’s in Edgartown and Teddy Diggs of Home Port in Menemsha met stove-to-stove in a stormy cook-off.
Whether or not she’s a true blood-relation, Auntie Anne Beiler is every pretzel fanatic’s favorite aunt. That’s because Auntie Ann is the founder, with husband Jonas, of Auntie Anne’s pretzel company.
Tonight, August 17, beginning at 7:30 p.m., Auntie Anne will visit the Federated Church in Edgartown to talk about her journey, from humble beginnings to worldwide snack attack guru.
Last weekend, brightly-colored rides and parts of the ferris wheel began to appear on the Agricultural Society field in preparation for the annual fair starting this Thursday, August 16. Also on Saturday morning in Vineyard Haven, Tim Laursen put the finishing touches on another piece of fair-bound machinery: his hand-welded pig smoker.
This is Mr. Laursen’s and friend Everett Whiting’s third year at the fair doing business as Local Smoke, serving up pulled pork sandwiches from their Island-raised pigs.
The Vineyard is getting set for its own Seafood Throwdown to take place at the West Tisbury Farmers’ Market this Saturday, August 11, beginning at 9:30 a.m.
The competition is basic in its demands: two chefs are let loose on the farmers’ market, able to use anything they find on the premises, with one required ingredient to be revealed at the time of the competition. They create a meal on the spot and then at 11:30 the judges taste the results and declare the winner.