Vineyard Harvest: A Year of Good Food On Martha's Vineyard

This beautiful volume is bound to send hordes of newcomers to share the cuisine and the beauty of Martha's Vineyard. It is an imaginative and brilliant book, darn it!"
?Walter Cronkite

Although Martha's Vineyard has long claimed a spot in the public imagination as a playground for presidents and celebrities, it is also a place where life can be simple and pure. This ideal of simplicity is exemplified by its local fresh produce and fish just off the boat, prepared with minimal fuss.

In VINEYARD HARVEST: A Year of Good Food on Martha's Vineyard (Broadway Books; May 2005; $35.00/Hardcover; ISBN: 0-7679-1833-9), two of Martha's Vineyard brightest lights? renowned chef Tina Miller and award-winning photographer Alison Shaw?team up with Christie Matheson to create a cookbook that vividly conjures up the magic of the Vineyard through irresistible recipes and brilliant color photography.

Organized seasonally, the recipes encompass a vast range and include:
- Grilled Swordfish with Green Aioli
- Grilled Bluefish with Lemons and Parsley Mayo
- Lobster Pie with Sweet Peas, Leeks, Tarragon, and White Wine
- Crispy Slow-Cooked Duck with Beach Plum Glaze.
- Zucchini and Tomato Casserole with an Asiago Crust
- Roasted September Peaches with Walnut Crust and Sweet Cream
- Apply Brandy Cake

"Miller has an unaffected, low-key style," says Library Journal, and "her recipes are easy but enticing: Peppery Chopped Salad with Shaved Pecorino, Grilled Vegetable Gazpacho, Huckleberry Crostata." Publishers Weekly praises Miller's "signature modern twist to New England Classics" and applauds the "personal stamp that brings to life Miller's short essays on seasonal cooking" and her "affectionate homages to individual producers" such as:

- Renaissance man and "bass guru" Scott Terry, known for the quality of his fish and his paintings of the land and sea
- Ardent conservationists and Shiitake mushroom growers Rebecca Miller and Matthew Dix of North Tabor Farm
- John Curelli's Farm Institute, where kids aged four to fourteen learn about all aspects of farming.

The magnificent photos by Alison Shaw depict the island and all those who make it such an invaluable repository for traditional ways of raising and gathering food. Fisherman still harvest swordfish and tuna using fishing lines not nets, prized bay scallops are still collected in freezing weather, lambs are still raised on an eighteenth-century sheep farm in Chilmark.

"Though this book is inspired by Martha's Vineyard, its message is universal," says Miller. " Wherever you live, you can look around to see what is grown in your area and when it's at its peak...I guarantee that whatever ingredient you're using, if it's local, the quality will be better and the taste will be fresher."

For anyone who has never been to the Vineyard, here is a chance to experience this island paradise. And for everyone who knows and loves it, VINEYARD HARVEST will be a year-round reminder of delicious memories.


About the Authors
Tina Miller, a Vineyard native, trained at La Varenne in France and cooked at famed restaurants in Los Angeles and Philadelphia. She was the chef/owner of two beloved Vineyard restaurants, the Roadhouse and Cafi Moxie, and is the daughter of the founders of the Black Dog Cafe. Currently, she is a private chef.

Christie Matheson writes for Cooking Light, Glamour, Shape, and other magazines.

About the Photographer
Alison Shaw has fine-art prints in private and public collections worldwide. She has published three books of photographs, including Vineyard Summer.

* * *

VINEYARD HARVEST:
A Year of Good Food on Martha's Vineyard
By Tina Miller with Christie Matheson
Photographs by Alison Shaw
Broadway Books