Harvesting Nantucket

by Sarah Teach

Have you ever tasted a tomato fresh off the vine? If you have, you know that the difference between farm veggies and standard grocery store produce is incredible!  But how do you glean the most vivid flavors from the freshness that Nantucket offers you?  It is a learned art.  Lucky for those of us who love the food of this island, there is a guiding resource that is hot off the presses.  Bound in a quality hardcover, the brand new book Harvesting Nantucket: The Taste of Bartlett’s Ocean View Farm is filled with 128 farm-to-table themed pages.  Faced with a delightful spread of luscious, glossy photographs dotted with fresh narrative, you’ll have a hard time deciding whether this book belongs on your coffee table or your kitchen counter.  Sure, it contains 75 mouth-watering recipes that feature the freshest in-season produce from Bartlett’s Farm; but in essence, it is more than a cookbook.

Written by long-time islander and writer Barbara Gookin, Harvesting is a yummy word-and-food concoction filled with lots of history and background information about the island’s oldest farm.  You’re getting the real thing from this former food columnist who says of the book, “The word “craft” comes to mind when I think of the farm around which Harvesting is based.”  After all, Bartlett’s vegetables are the products of many decades of honest work and time-tested flavor perfecting.  So it’s appropriate that the book is a peek through the keyhole into the actual production of the food you’re making! Gookin continues, “You can be on your porch husking your Bartlett’s corn while reading about the very thing. You can say, ‘I know the exact process that this piece of corn went through to get to me!’”  The beautiful, high definition food photography is the primarily work of island photographer Claudia Kronenberg, whose name you may recognize from art culture all throughout New England.  Alongside her work, you’ll find the winning pictures from Bartlett’s photo safaris, taken by a number of local photographers of all ages.

Harvesting Nantucket makes a splendid gift for every lover of Nantucket. And at $35, the eye-catching hardcover makes a worthwhile investment.  If you do decide it belongs on your coffee table, then there’s an even better bargain for you.  For $45, you can get both Harvesting and original 1994 edition of Dorothy W. Bartlett’s Bartlett's Ocean View Farm Cookbook, which features recipes that allow you to make the most out of Nantucket’s native produce. For islanders, Harvesting is a classic addition to your home.  If you rent out your home, just think how thrilled your tenants will be to learn to prepare their food the Nantucket way!  For vacationers, Harvesting is a long-lasting keepsake of a trip to Nantucket.  With recipes collected from 12 local chefs and the kitchen at Bartlett’s Farm, Harvesting truly is a delectable mixture of the diverse flavors of Nantucket. 

Find it at local bookstores such as Nantucket Bookworks, on-site at Bartlett’s Farm, or at www.BartlettsFarm.com.