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The next best thing to summering on Martha’s Vineyard (Mass.) and eating at the famous Black Dog Tavern in Vineyard Haven (where you might spot Bill Clinton, Carly Simon, or other celebrities) is getting a cheaper place somewhere on a lake or the shore and cooking out of this cookbook. What you lack in celebrities, you’ll make up in fun.
This cookbook has the same informal insouciance as the restaurant, and the same devotion to good food. The chapter on lunch starts with this verse:
Do not make a stingy sandwich,
Pile the cold-cuts high.
Customers should see salami
Coming through the rye.
Lunch starts with soup stock, slurps through Quahog Chowder and Watercress Mushroom Soup, sashays into salads dressed with Roasted Red Pepper Vinaigrette, progresses to pasta dishes (we can’t wait to try Ravioli Pomodoro, as soon as our tomatoes are ripe), and gives some alluring daily "specials." The jokes and asides and photographs of Islanders make the book personable and fun to read.
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| Try this blueberry cake with a pot of hot coffee on a Sunday morning, grab a novel and your beach towel, and pretend you’re on the Vineyard. |
2-3/4 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup melted butter
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 cups fresh blueberries
Topping:
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/4 pound cold butter, cut into bits
1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
Heat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour a 9"x13" baking pan. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. In a medium bowl, stir together eggs, buttermilk, butter, and vanilla. Stir into flour mixture until just blended. Pour the batter into the pan and sprinkle the blueberries over the top.
In a small bow, combine the topping ingredients until crumbly. Sprinkle topping over the blueberries.
Bake for about 50 minutes, until a knife comes out clean. The cake will be moist. Cool, then cut into squares or slices. Makes 10 to 12 servings.
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