Food trends come and go. But social food issues like food security, hunger prevention, food diversity and food waste are here to stay.
On an unseasonably chilly Friday evening in Vineyard Haven, Juliska on Main street is packed, though oddly quiet save for the occasional “yum... this is good” and a persistent scrape of silverware on plates. Odd sounds for a store devoted to tablewear.
Behind a table Chrissy Kinsman stands beaming. In front of her are the reasons for the night’s reverie. Pies, lots of them.
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.
Low-fat is not part of the vocabulary at the Savory Pie Company.
“I’ve had people ask me if I had any low-fat and I look at them like you’ve got to be kidding me,” owner Dee Smith said at her Tea Lane Catering kitchen in Chilmark this week. “There’s a need for gluten free and we’re just starting with that, but there’s certainly no word like low-fat in our category of pies.”
For those easily intimidated by pie making there is a simple home truth; find someone who has mastered the art, and buy a pie from that person. For many an Island household, Eileen Blake, of Eileen Blake’s Pies, was that go-to expert for nearly 40 years.
