Martha’s Vineyard Food & Wine Festival: 10 Tasty Reasons To Go Fresh-Off-The-Farm

After a year’s hiatus, the Martha’s Vineyard Food & Wine Festival is back, and better than ever. From October 17 – 20, your palate will be treated to some of the most amazing wine and local food at an array of venues.

One of the many new events for this year’s festival is Fresh Off The Farm.  The kick-off to the festival happens on Thursday night from 7 – 9 p.m., at the Ag Hall in West Tisbury. You’ll have the chance to sample delectable bites made by local chefs with ingredients from Vineyard farms.

Let’s discuss who’s making what at this great locally-inspired event. I will warn you that continuing to read this might make you hungry. I did get the scoop on what a lot of the Chefs are making, but don’t worry, there will be some surprises.

Chefs & Restaurants

The lovely Gina Stanley, chef/owner, Art Cliff Diner will be making her fabulous fish cakes. A delight for diner visitors, these are a treat and are always delish!

The Art Cliff is one of my favorite places to eat.  Soon there won’t be a line out to the street, and I will be able to get those pancakes and chicken sausage I love so much.

Dan Sauer from 7A is going to be making meatballs. Everyone loves a good meatball, and I bet these will be fantastic, maybe even better than my Mom’s? Also, there’s talk about him doing something with chicken livers too. 7A’s food is so good, I’d actually try these.

Everett Whiting from Local Smoke will have some succulent roasted pig in the form of pulled pork sliders. A big fan of pulled pork, no one does it like Local Smoke.

Chef Bernadette Cormie from Herring Run Kitchen & Provisions will be making her signature Kale Puffs. These are one of the most frequently requested bites from her kitchen.

Susie Middleton from Green Island Farm will be making an amazing frittata with the eggs from her chickens.  Funny thing, Susie’s next cookbook is called “Fresh From the Farm” which will be available soon.

From Water Street restaurant, Chef Nathan Gould will be preparing a house grown sage focaccia with a couple of different spreads for you to choose from, including a roasted heirloom tomato tapenade, a white truffle and northern bean spread, and infused olive oil. Hmmm, I have a ton of sage in my garden perhaps I need to try something like his focaccia?

Morning Glory Farm’s Robert Lionette will be making a fall inspired soup. With a bounty of ingredients from the farm, I bet it’s going to be one of the best.  Perhaps butternut squash?

Two well know locavores will also be delighting us with delicious bites. The Kitchen Porch’s Chef Jan Buhrman will be creating one of her super fresh, inspiring foods.

Chef Chris Fischer, the Beach Plum Inn, and Rebecca Miller, North Tabor Farm, are teaming up to bring us something unexpected and tasty I bet.

We’re crazy for local kale. Chef Tina Miller is also making a kale dish, kale chiffonade salad with feta. The kale being used will actually be from Rusty Gordon’s Ghost Island Farm. Caution real kale for real tasty food (if you’ve seen the sign you know what I am talking about).  The feta will be from Mermaid Farm.

Island Grown Schools

This year’s event is a fundraiser for Island Grown Initiative’s Island Grown Schools, the Vineyard’s farm-to-school program which impacts almost every one of the Island’s 2,300 children.

Island Grown Schools is enabling children to be connected to local farms and farmers, empowered to make healthy eating choices, informed about the food system, and engaged in growing food for themselves, their families and community.  

Island Grown Schools is the perfect charity to support with this event, part food, part wine, part local, part educational, all fun, this is a cause people are happy to support.

Because of this, some of the schools will be offering bites to sample. After all, there are talented people cooking in our schools.

Jenny Devivo from the West Tisbury School will be cooking up something special. The Martha’s Vineyard High School’s Culinary Department will be showing off their cooking skills. The high school’s Chef, Bernadette Cormie will be there too.

Fresh Off the Farm

Now that I’ve tempted you with some of the goodies you’ll find at Fresh Off The Farm, let me share with you what’s coming from Island farms.

The Farm Institute is providing the hamburger. Mermaid Farm is providing its amazing feta, and the chefs are partnering with these a number of other Island farms so as to have some of the freshest, most delicious, locally made food for this event.

Wine Too

It’s a food and wine festival, so of course there will be wine to sample as you’re enjoying the locally-inspired food. Joseph Carr Winery and Dylan’s Ghost will have wines to enjoy. Also, Our Market will be providing a number of perfectly paired wines to sample as well.

The Ag Hall will be filled with amazing food and wine, and keeping things local, Good Night Louise will be there playing.

Add it all up, and it sounds like a perfect evening, and the perfect way to kick off a weekend of wine and food on Martha’s Vineyard.  Tickets are only $40.00 and are available at TicketsMV.com 

Many of the Martha’s Vineyard Food & Wine events have sold out, but perhaps I’ll see you at this inaugural event, Fresh Off the Farm, a gathering of community and cuisine-tasting, sipping and music.

Thanks for reading On Point.  For more information and a list of all of the events, you can check out Martha’s Vineyard Food & Wine Festival on Facebook.  And speaking of social media, don’t forget to  “Like” us on Facebook, on follow us on Twitter, Linked In, Pinterest and YouTube.

I should mention that this year’s Martha’s Vineyard Food & Wine Festival made it to Forbes list of 10 Festivals to Taste This Fall.  Pretty cool!