Though I spend the majority of my time cooking in home kitchens, I love the hustle of a restaurant kitchen. On August 9th chef John Thurgood and I collaborated to make a beautiful five course tasting menu at the Beach Plum Inn and Restaurant. Though we sat down to build the menu nearly a month before the event, we left room to use the freshest ingredients. On Martha's Vineyard we are lucky to have over forty working farms, and available produce sometimes changes daily. Using the islands bounty and our imaginations we put together a five course tasting. August brings some of the hottest temperatures we see on Martha's Vineyard so we did not want to offer an overly heavy menu.
First up was a watermelon cucumber gazpacho with black bass ceviche, lemon basil, and grapefruit oil.
Next was a coddled egg with lightly dressed purslane, pickled komatsuna, and cured shaved egg yolk.
Then we served a seafood stew, with both smoked and steamed mussels, clams, squid tentacles, tomato, spring onion, and green coriander seeds in a lobster, and shellfish broth.
Next up was braised lamb, over a succotash of fave beans, green beans, turnips, black eyed peas and MVM shiitake mushrooms. topped with pea tendrils and lemon zest.
Last but certainly not least I made mini panna cotta over a strawberry, blueberry, and raspberry compote with crumbled mermaid farm barley cookie.
After careful planning and a quick team meeting service started strong at 6:00. We where two chairs short of selling out. With a strong team an evening like this goes very smoothly, and after spending years as a restaurant general manager I can tell you this small team was strong!
Stay tuned, as I plan to do more pop ups in the future!
watermelon cucumber gazpacho, black bass device, lemon basil, grapefruit oil
coddled egg, purslane salad, pickled komatsuna, cured egg yolk