How Did Martha Get on the Vineyard?
While killing time aboard the Minne-Ha-Ha steamboat in the summer of 2008, I cracked open Kitchen Confidential. Perched atop a milk crate, I devoured Anthony Bourdain’s brilliantly crass account of the restaurant world, reluctantly tearing myself away whenever a customer entered the snackbar deck. In between attending to summer job duties I’d become entranced by Bourdain’s prose and palpable love affair with all things edible. By the end of that summer I’d neglected enough hot dog and popcorn making to finish Bourdain’s other works, The Nasty Bits and A Cook’s Tour, feeling a particular connection to the latter. There was something captivating about Bourdain’s ability to decenter himself from the travel narrative while still managing to convey so much of his own perspective. He got out of the way when depicting other cultures and people, touting and practicing epoché, an ancient Greek concept translating to “I am certain of nothing.” Yet readers could develop a familiarity with what seemed like his most intimate thoughts.
Perhaps it was ironic that I neglected my humble food prep job in favor of reading stories about earning stripes in the culinary realm. But that was lost on my 15-year-old self. I was too wrapped up in the fantasy of travelling the world and accessing cultures through their most beloved dishes. However, it would have to remain just that, a dream. As would the discipline of sharing narratives, because writing alone wasn’t a sustainable career, I insisted. So I would be content living vicariously through episodes of Parts Unknown. And though I pursued creative nonfiction avidly throughout high school and college, it was a hobby. Scribbling down a Joan Didion assignment for my Travel Writing class delighted me, but my writing always yielded to the search for teaching jobs.
Six years of working in independent schools and one pandemic later, I finally realized I wasn’t as passionate about education as my colleagues. It was time, before either my students or I burned out completely, to switch lanes, certainly to one that was conducive to writing. Pursuing writing projects became far less nebulous after I reconnected with an old friend, sorority sister, and ENG 221 classmate, Marina Crouse. Marina, who carved a path as a writing coach and finished the first draft of her novel this year, helped convince me that focusing on writing did not equate to lighting my bachelor’s degree on fire. With that, I entered a sort of rebellious phase (“Screw it, I’m gonna write!”) and brainstormed endless strategies for making a career shift. This all happened to coincide with the chance to live on Martha’s Vineyard year round.
In June 2020 my wife, Tee, and I moved to the island for what we thought was just the summer. Tee anticipated a seasonal baking opportunity and I had no idea when or if fall classes - I was still a teacher at the time - would be in person. My school ended up reopening in early August, sending me back to central Massachusetts. With more residents than usual staying on the Vineyard, Tee’s job continued to extend well beyond its usual season. I would visit her on the weekends, feeling far more excited to ferry off the mainland than to return to it. Once it became clear that Tee could bake throughout the winter, what started as an overwhelming thought of living on the island long-term quickly evolved into an exciting prospect. Consequently, about one year after the start of our “summer stint,” I joined Tee as a washashore.
Tee and I used food to acquaint ourselves with Martha’s Vineyard, especially when most social events were paused. Whether it was bringing takeout from Austin & Maura to the MV Regional High School’s drive-in holiday showcase, or assembling wares from Edgartown Meat & Fish to create beach-ready meals, we sensed a common theme in the local products we sampled. Vendors seemed to strive to deliver something intentional and sustainable. More often than not, the food we tried was almost entirely locally sourced, a term that folks in other areas might get away with using ambiguously, but not really those within the Vineyard’s borders. In return, we noticed fierce community support for these businesses. After witnessing numerous examples of this relationship in practice, Tee devised a way to celebrate the island’s culinary culture while indulging my desire to write: a blog featuring those harvesting the island’s resources in innovative and delicious ways. I planned out profile pieces, consulted friends and mentors in communications, and recruited Marina as my editor. Through writing, video, and social media, I wanted to capture the excitement of my fascinating new home.
Martha’s on the Vineyard is not my ‘real’ job. There are no paid sponsorships and those featured on the blog have been quite generous in volunteering their time. Upon moving, I immediately joined Tee at the bakery full time, so I generate blog content whenever I’m not mixing zucchini bread. Work for the blog entails blasting out emails to vendors and pounding the pavement at farmers markets to find new participants. It can also consist of milling over footage from a vendor’s fishing excursion, trying to find the perfect copyright-friendly song to punctuate it. Other times it’s a whole lot of transcribing, recipe experimenting, and keeping my puns in check, most of which transpires during lunch breaks. I’m ecstatic to report that MotV has enabled me to write. I have deadlines that cause me think constantly about the next feature and angle, even if they are self imposed.
Among the people I’ve featured - all of them granting me an interview and filming session of their process in the midst of a hectic peak season - is a genuine openness. Talking to one vendor often leads to meeting several others in a place as small as this, with each one offering a different, insightful outlook on why local business is so crucial. Resourcefulness, a trait they’ve all named explicitly when referring to the Vineyard’s culture, is also apparent. Some have worked the graveyard shift for almost a decade in order to hone their craft and inspire adventurous cooking. Others have tapped into local resources that were outsourced for centuries. There are those using food as a means of practicing sustainability, or championing the community and remedying aspects of social injustice. And there are those who want to elevate the Vineyard traveler’s experience, expressing their story and heart through the plate. They all recognized something they could contribute to the island and jumped in. The willingness to take that risk has resonated with me. I hope, as I get to know more of the folks behind the island’s food, that I will be able to do the same.
It’s unclear whether the blog could become a job or eventually lead to a related path. But with so many remarkable vendors left to meet, I’ll continue telling their stories. I love the experiences MotV has provided me so far and wish for the blog to be a helpful platform for local businesses. Exploring the 87 square miles via my appetite is admittedly a chance to emulate the Bourdanian spirit in a very small but fulfilling way. There is no globetrotting or discussing the state of humanity with Obama over pho (though he is a resident here, so…), but it’s thrilling nonetheless to connect with people over food, detecting the sentimentality woven into their cooking. Creating these profiles is an exercise in epoché and my access point to the Vineyard.
