Dear Readers,
“The scent of wild blueberries, sweet and mingled with a humusy musk from the dirt that sustains them, wafting through the woods on a humid afternoon …” writes Laura Roosevelt in her ode to eating what’s grown in your backyard, or picked up at a nearby farm, for this issue dedicated to the bounty of Martha’s Vineyard. “Wild blueberries, like the ones my mother and I would pick together almost daily during that summer when I was eleven.”
I hope most of us have those memories: The burst of sweet summer corn in our mouths, an explosion of velvety tomato, a briny oyster, or fish right off the boat. Our Local Hero for this issue (who else could it be but Rebecca Haag, Executive Director of IGI?), says about food: “It is also love, it is family, it is community, it is tradition and history.”
We’re celebrating this abundance with the art of farms and food — gorgeous photographs by Sheny Leon of the sweet corn harvest at Morning Glory Farm; paintings and drawings from Martha’s Vineyard Hospital’s Permanent Art Collection (thank you to the hospital, and Monina von Opel for curating this); Randi Baird’s lovely images of oyster farmer Noah Mayrand visiting his beds in Lagoon Pond. That story, by the way, was written by MV Regional High School graduate (and Bluedot Institute intern) Annabelle Brothers.
We love Jo Douglas’s Fork-to-Pork program: She collects food waste from Island restaurants, feeds her passel of pigs (sometimes with Back Door Donuts to their delight); then when it’s time for the pigs to become food, she brings, say, a pork loin, or a pork belly (or both) back to a restaurant. See the recipe for Pawnee House’s Italian Porchetta here.
It’s a sweet, “righteous” circle of life, like so much of the food system on Martha’s Vineyard.
Reader Jack Connell wrote about Mollie Doyle’s story on induction ranges:
“I’m a bit of a blend of energy geek and marketing guy and try to refrain from offering advice unless I really like what I’m seeing — and Blüedot is a somewhat recent discovery for me. Thank you for all you’re doing in bringing energy advice to everyone, residents, and visitors alike.
“It’s with that respect for what you’re doing that I might, from time to time, chime in with a technical correction if I think it’s important. The recent email article about induction stoves by Mollie Doyle was very well written and makes a very compelling case (we just replaced our gas stove with induction at home, before heading to the Vineyard for the summer). The statement, ‘My mom’s induction stove is fueled by the solar panels from her roof. If you install an induction stove but do not have solar, there is a good chance you will still be using fossil fuel-based energy to power your electric range.’ is partially correct, but makes it sound like induction is not a good idea without solar on one’s roof. In fact, our electricity on the Vineyard is, on average, produced by about 43% non-carbon sources so the conversion from LP to induction does help, a lot. (Ref: EPA eGRID Power Profiler for 02539).
Keep up the great writing!
–Jack Connell
Thanks, Jack! We invite anyone to write to us with corrections, ideas (or praise!). I’m at ed****@bl***********.com.
We so appreciate our readers (subscribe here to have the magazine mailed to you) and our newsletter subscribers (you can sign up here for that) for continuing to support our mission to bring you local, solutions-focused climate stories. (You can contribute here.)
Bon Appétit!
–Jamie Kageleiry
