As many of you know, we have the luxury of having a family home on Martha’s Vineyard. We are able to go out to the Island a few times each year and enjoy the company of family and spend some time at the beach. One of our favorite pastimes (read obsessions) is ocean fishing, and Martha’s Vineyard is truly a fisherman’s paradise. No matter what time of year, there is always something good to be had from the ocean. My husband’s parents, who are able to spend quite a bit of time here, also keep a large kitchen garden, so summertime on the island is a time of plenty.
The first day I woke to a beautiful balmy island morning and took my coffee into the back yard to check out the garden. My mother in Law had emailed me about what was growing, so I had an idea of what I’d find. What took me by surprise were the giant radishes the size of lemons. I had never seen a radish grow so big. I had planted these very seeds when we last were here in May, in a mix with carrot seeds, but they were average, “garden variety” radish, not some monster varietal. You might remember in my last post a photo of a cheese and radish sandwich on a bagel. Those tiny radish were from my garden, of which I was formerly proud. What am I doing wrong? I’ii have to do some research to find out why in my garden they are quarter sized and often woody, but here they are luscious red orbs of crunchy delight. I picked a dozen, sliced them thinly, and set them in a marinade of rice wine vinegar, sugar and water.
Despite the neat rows of sorrel, arugula, chicory, and red and green lettuce in the garden, I still felt the need to traipse next door with my basket to the twice weekly farmers market. I wanted some cilantro, and that was as good an excuse as any to stroll the aisles of farm raised produce, meats, breads and cheeses, as well as handmade soaps, hats and fresh squeezed lemonade. I was surprised to see the amount and variety this time of year; while my zucchini are just flowering, I found some beautiful 6 inch long ones perfect for the saute pan. When I asked, I was told they grow them under plastic to keep them warm and to fruit earlier. I fought down my rising jealousy with the fact that I live in a different growing zone entirely than Martha’s Vineyard, and furthermore islands are naturally more temperate because of the surrounding seas. In a month I’d be sick of fresh zucchini anyway. But for now I was happy to have it and bought 8 nice ones to bring home, along with a fresh baguette.
Later that afternoon we drove to one of our favorite fishing spots, a jetty that juts out into the sea at the edge of a wide basin, With it’s sister across the way, it forms a channel that feeds a big salt water pond. The structure, as well as the sand beach on one side, provides a great place to fish for black bass, tau-tog, porgy, rock bass, flounder and fluke. It can occasionally be a good spot for stripers and bluefish, but it’s not reliable enough to count on. When the water warms it’s a pretty reliable place for scup, and that’s what we went for today. I’m not a big fan of the littler fish, so I usually make my way around the jetty to the channel and try for the odd striper, but midday at a slack tide is not really the ideal time. I didn’t have much hope. After a couple dozen casts, and a nice lunch, I decided walk out to the end of the jetty to see what was going on there. The boys had long since given up fishing and were napping in the sand when I decided the way to catch my striper was to hook on a huge piece of squid, heave it to the middle of the channel and wait till the big one came along and gulped it in. Yeah right. But as I waited, enjoying the warm sun and the breeze off the ocean, I began to notice my line migrate ever so slightly. My big squid was being nibbled! I quickly reeled in, changed my big hook for a smaller one, slapped on a tiny mouthful of squid, cast back out and nailed a giant porgy. I had three more in the bucket before the boys caught on and we had a blitz. We filleted them on the beach and brought them home to bake over sliced onions, one of the easiest and most delicious ways to cook fish.
A few minutes in the garden provided me with the greens for a lovely salad. I chopped the fresh cilantro into it and used the radish marinade mixed with some good olive oil for the dressing. The baguette sliced up, the zucchini sliced and sauteed with a pinch of salt and the fish baked to perfection completed our Island feast. A beautiful day and a most memorable meal!
Delicate Balance 