Our Winter 2018 Issue

Finding someone to write about cooking on a WHOI research vessel has been on our wish list since we first started publishing this magazine. We were curious about how one went about provisioning for a ship that spent months on end at sea, and, more importantly, how you actually cooked a meal (after meal, after meal) in such a challenging environment. We finally found our candidate, or he found us, at a fundraising event this past summer. We’ve known Jeff Avery since he was a sous chef at Naked Oyster, but had lost track of him over a dozen years ago after he moved on to a new opportunity. Turns out Jeff had subsequently become a Merchant Mariner and was hired by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to be the Chief Steward on one of their research vessels. Before we could ask him, he pitched us a story about his earliest experiences at sea. Although Jeff had never had his work published before, he really hit it out of the ballpark with this piece. We hope you find it as enlightening, informative and engaging as we did.

A favorite contributor Tamar Haspel returns to share her experiences as a recreational lobsterman. As always, she packs a lot of very useful information in an article that is also a lot of fun to read. We’ve been fortunate to be on the receiving end when Tamar and her husband Kevin Flaherty have hauled in more lobsters than they could eat by themselves, but the idea for this story was hatched when Doug was invited to join them on their rounds one morning last summer. He was amazed at how many regulations are in place to sustain this fishery and he knew Tamar was the person to write an article that would deliver all those important details in a highly readable fashion.

Tom Dott is also back with an entertaining piece about the culinary classes he has attended at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod this year. With such high-end ingredients as caviar, foie gras, quail and pommes Robuchon on the menu, these are not your mother’s cooking classes. And, according to Tom, they are taught by a professional chef who is as passionate about sharing his techniques and knowledge, as he is talented.

Speaking of pommes Robuchon, you know they are on trend when they are mentioned in two different articles in this magazine. We haven’t sampled Chef Cizynski’s version at the Cultural Center (or Paul Robuchon’s for that matter), but we can attest that Chef Toby Hill’s rendition at The Pheasant is a thing of real beauty: rich, buttery, and oh so creamy. Bill and Denise Atwood of The Red Pheasant were among our earliest supporters at Edible Cape Cod so we were sad to learn last winter that they were selling their restaurant after 30 years in operation. We worried about what the new owners would do to such a beloved institution, but new owners Adam and Erica Dunn and Chef Toby allayed our concerns after our first meal (and our first forkful of those potatoes). If you can’t make it to Dennis Village before the end of the year, do put it on your calendar to make a reservation when they reopen in April.

We’ll see you in the spring, too!