N Magazine's May 2013 Issue

N

Nantucket

Wine Festival Issue

Is Nantucket

Shrinking?

Examining the Health

Benefits OF WINE The Colorful Journey of

Gene Mahon

Nantucket Magazine May 2013

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Lifestyle

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Editor & Publisher Bruce A. Percelay Managing Editor Robert Cocuzzo Art Director Paulette Chevalier Head Photographers Nathan Coe Kit Noble Operations Consultant Adrian Wilkins Contributors Dr. Joseph Garasic Andrea Hutchins Jen Laskey Sarah Parks Ben Simons Betsy Tyler Photographers Maria Carey Mike Diskin Dan Driscoll Cary Hazlegrove Kris Kinsley Hancock Bruce Plotkin Brian Sager Joshua Simpson Advertising Director Fifi Greenberg Advertising Sales Audrey Wagner Publisher N. LLC Chairman: Bruce A. Percelay

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Nantucket Times 17 North Beach Street Nantucket, MA 02554 508-228-1515

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ŠCopyright 2011 Nantucket Times. Nantucket Times (N Magazine) is published seven times annually from April through December. Reproduction of any part of this publication is prohibited without written permission from the publisher. Editorial submissions may be sent to Editor, Nantucket Times, 17 North Beach Street, Nantucket, MA 02554.

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SPRINKLERS

POOLS

LIGHTING

Spring at Last

Is Nantucket disappearing? If you live on the wrong side of Baxter Road, Sheep Pond Road or Smith Point and witnessed the effects of our unusually intense series of storms this past winter, the answer would be yes. The larger question is what does this recent weather pattern mean for the future of Nantucket? In our first issue of the year, N Magazine addresses this topic in depth and learns of the storms’ various Points of Impact.

Editor & Publisher

Given the severity of this past winter, there is no better way

to celebrate its end than by raising a glass of robust cabernet, buttery chardonnay, or crisp rosé at the 17th Annual Nantucket Wine Festival. Refreshed and ex-

panded by island summer resident Mark Goldweitz, the Wine Festival will take on a new taste this season by featuring a greater focus on food, and promises to be the most sophisticated and well attended event to date. As the Wine Festival’s local media sponsor, N Magazine presents a selection of stories ranging from littleknown, limited production bottles of Veuve Clicquot, to a doctor’s perspective on the benefits of red wine, to food and wine pairings by some of Nantucket’s top chefs.

From wine to water, we meet River Bennett, a Nantucket native who recently finished up his college career at the University of Virginia, where he worked with nonprofits bringing clean drinking water to areas around the world. Also featured in this issue is a profile of Nantucket icon Gene Mahon, a person who is ubiquitous on Nantucket and has a wonderfully colorful past. And speaking of colorful, local photographer Maria Carey has captured a canine fashion spread showcasing the dog days of the Daffodil Parade.

With winter now behind us, we want to wish you a wonderful spring and we collectively look forward to the warm winds of summer.

Sincerely,

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Bruce A. Percelay Editor & Publisher

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GuestCONTRIBUTORS DR. JOSEPH GARASIC Dr. Joseph M. Garasic is an attending interventional cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and a visiting specialist caring for cardiovascular patients at the Nantucket Cottage Hospital. He is Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Director of Peripheral Vascular Intervention in the Cardiology Division at MGH. He and his wife Kathryn and their son Joseph William reside in Boston and Nantucket with their Labrador Retriever, Darwin. For this Wine Festival issue, Dr. Garasic investigates the facts and fictions behind the health benefits of wine in “Drink to Your Health?” (page 81).

MIKE DISKIN As the former creative director of The Phoenix Media Communications Group, a Boston-based media company that owned the Boston Phoenix, Mike Diskin has spent the past two decades building a successful career in the worlds of fashion, food and pop-culture coverage. He’s photographed some of the most beautiful people and places in the world, and regularly contributes to magazines, radio shows and television as a lifestyle and trends reporter. Diskin makes his N Magazine debut photographing Dr. Joseph Garasic in “Drink to Your Health?” (page 81).

MARIA CAREY Photographer Maria Carey has an incredible passion for the dog-human relationship, and her photography expresses this through modern lifestyle portraiture of pets. Although for most of her career she has considered herself a scientist practicing emergency medicine at Nantucket Cottage Hospital, Carey is quick to say that she is now also an artist. When she’s not in the ER or behind the camera, Carey can be found playing at the beach with her two Golden Retrievers, Sophie and Zachary. For this issue, Carey brought her eye for fashion and pet photography in the style piece,

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“Dog Day Afternoon” (page 72).

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Behind the shoot 1 Page

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“I knew Marine marine Home home Center center had great carpets, but what I discovered was great style.”

When designer Sophie Metz was called in to turn a newly-constructed house into a dream beach home, Marine was her first stop. While Sophie had heard Marine offered hundreds of carpet styles, what she discovered was the edgy flair for Island design that is the signature of her work.

With the assistance of Marine’s design team, Sophie was able to deliver exactly what her client needed without having to leave the island.

marinehomecenter.com - 134 Orange Street, Nantucket - (508) 228-0900

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­— Sophie Metz

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Food

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forward

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t

he Nantucket Wine Festival is taking it up a notch this year with a greater emphasis on food. Set on Children’s Beach, the Wine Fest’s Culinary

Marketplace will host cooking demonstrations and food and wine seminars presented by some of the country’s top chefs. The roster is filled out with names like Chef Chris Coombs, an up-and-coming talent who first cut his teeth at Topper’s on Nantucket and eventually went on to star on the Food Network’s cooking show, Chopped. Today, Coombs is the Executive Chef of three restaurants, including Boston Chops, which recently opened in the South End. In this spirit of promoting young talents, the Wine Festival will also hold the Junior Top Chefs Competition, with four student teams competing for a $5,000 culinary scholarship. The main event, however, will surely be La Fête, an exclusive dinner prepared by guest chefs and paired with rare selections of premier cru and grand cru wines from the attendees’private collections.

As a toast to this new food-forward approach to the Wine Festival, N Magazine hosted its own feast earlier this spring at the beautiful Pumpkin Pond Farm on Millbrook Road. Wine Fest Luminary Chef Erik

Stenfors of Met on Main prepared an antipasto style menu, boasting such dishes as herb roasted chicken on baby Swiss chard, fresh mozzarella with oven-cured tomatoes and grilled artichokes with roasted peppers.

The table was beautifully set by designer Robin

Bergland of Trillium on Washington Street, as well as with flowers by Michael Molinar of Flowers on

Chestnut. Of course, what’s a feast without wine?

Amber Cantella and Jenny Benzie of Epernay on North Beach Street poured reds and whites to the delight of the lucky diners. N’s Head Photographer Nathan Coe captured the dinner for this year’s Wine Festival cover. com, and make sure to sample some of the great culinary events being served up by the Wine Festival this year!

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Go behind the scenes of the photo shoot at N-Magazine.

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2013

28 The Ebb & Flow

Nantucket’s own River Bennett graduates from the University of Virginia this spring and shares his adventures from the last four years.

33 Glass Act

Nantucket artist MJ Levy Dickson unveils her latest creation, an art installation made of ten thousand pieces of handmade sea glass.

39 THE WIDOW’S WORK

Pop open one of the top bottles of bubbly and learn the legend behind Veuve Clicquot

44 The Isle of Mahon

The far-out story of Nantucket’s “Mahon About Town,” Gene Mahon.

52 Intoxicating Recipes

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Three Nantucket chefs share recipes for a delicious spring feast along with their favorite wine pairings.

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72 A Dog Day Afternoon Some of the island’s top dogs strut their stuff in celebration of the Daffodil Festival’s annual puppy parade.

81 Drink to Your Health?

NCH visiting cardiologist, Dr. Joseph Garasic, investigates the facts and fictions behind the health benefits of wine.

90 The British Are Coming!

Chef Neil Ferguson takes over as Galley Beach’s executive chef this spring, serving up a cuisine he’s cultivated all over the world.

99 Nantucket’s Believe It or Not!

This Daffodil weekend, the Whaling Museum opens a new exhibit exploring Nantucket myths and legends.

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After one of the worst winters in recent memory, complete with devastating flooding and erosion, many wonder what the future holds for Nantucket.

May 2013

p

62 POINTS OF IMPACT

g?

Shrinkin

the Health Examining

Of Wine BenefitS Journey of The Colorful On

Nantucket

Magazine

May 2013

gene Mah

In celebration of the Nantucket Wine Festival, photographer Nathan Coe captures a spring feast at Pumpkin Pond Farm for this May cover. Read more about the food, wine and décor on page 20, and then go behind the scenes of the shoot at N-Magazine.com.

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NBUZZ

Wine festival’s The Nantucket

New Direction

After sixteen years at the helm, Nantucket Wine Festival founder Denis Toner handed off his command to Mark Goldweitz this past fall. The change of guard sees a change of venue for the Grand Tasting from the Nantucket Yacht Club to the White Elephant, as well as the addition of several new events such as the exclusive Fete Dinner and the Culinary Market Place.

Is the Police Station

N Magazine Partners with

Book Festival N Magazine has been named the official local media sponsor of the Nantucket Book Festival. Accordingly, N’s June 2013 issue will feature exclusive author profiles and interviews, event information and tips to enjoying this second annual event held from June 21st to June 23rd.

Under Arrest?

Here’s a twist. The town is debating on what to do with the old police station, which was replaced by the $15 million dollar “Cop Mahal” off Fairgrounds Road. The old building on South Water Street could prove an ideal location for a restaurant or retail space. However, if the HDC rules the building as a historic structure, the costs of renovating the building would be exorbitant and it would be unlikely that taxpayers would vote in favor of paying for the work.

If the Board of Selectmen challenge the HDC’s possible historic designation of the building, it would put them in the awkward position of having to hear their own appeal, as the selectmen also serve as the HDC’s appellate board. N will monitor how this stand off unfolds.

Lola Burger

Returns

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Summer Resident Receives

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Presidential

Marco Coelho’s Lola Burger, formerly on Easy Street, has found a new home at the space once known as The Rotary Roadhouse.

There was early speculation whether Coelho and Chef Robert Boslow were going to open a clam shack in the spot, rumored to be called The Twisted Clam, but the Lola 41 and Pazzo owners decided to go back to their trusty tuna burger instead. Thankfully, fried clams will be on the menu, too.

Award

Longtime summer resident and former Pennsylvania Senator, Harris Wofford, received the Presidential Citizens

Medal from President Barack Obama this past February, the second highest honor awarded to a civilian. Wofford appeared in N Magazine’s 2012 Winter Issue (The Triumph & Tragedy of Harris Wofford), and received the award for his many years of national service.

Is the

Hospital Expecting?

The Nantucket Cottage hospital is quietly planning a new, cutting-edge facility that would replace the antiquated fifty-year-old building that has long since passed its useful life. The new building will be designed to be the “hospital of the future” and will likely kick-off an island-wide fundraising effort for what would undoubtedly be Nantucket’s most important and ambitious building. We will be closely monitoring this development.

Stop & Shop

in Town

After months of debate, it looks like Stop & Shop will be moving into the

former Grand Union space on Salem Street. This comes after a local petition started by Nantucket resident Dr. Greg Hinson forced CVS out from moving

Cap’n

Tobey’s

into the space and demanded that the island have a grocery store option in town.

Closed for Good

For the first time in nearly sixty years, the doors of the former Cap’n Tobey’s Chowder House will remain closed this season

New Proprietors in

as it undergoes

Demarco’s

construction and awaits a new tenant.

The prime

The husband and wife team of American Seasons, Chef Michael

location on Straight Warf was purchased

Lascola and Orla Murphy LaScola will open another restaurant

by entrepreneur and summer resident,

called The Proprietors in the former space of Demarco’s on India

Bernard Chui, last June. There has been

Street this June. The two have teamed up with Chef Tom Berry

no word as to what business might move

formerly of the Great Harbor Yacht Club. Not to worry, American

into the space.

Seasons will be open as well!

Who will be the next N Magazine

Person of the Year?

Year Award for her remarkable work as President and CEO of the Nantucket Cottage Hospital.

Dr. Hartmann appeared on the cover of the 2012 Winter Issue and was formally recognized at an award ceremony at the Jared Coffin House. The search for the next Person of the Year in now underway. Nominate someone at www.N-Magazine.com

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Last November, Dr. Margot Hartmann was awarded N Magazine’s first annual Person of the

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Nspire

The

Ebb Flow of River Bennett Written by Robert Cocuzzo

Photography by Kit Noble

In 2009, River Bennett was awarded a four-year scholarship from the Nantucket Golf Club Foundation.

This May, he graduates from the University of Virginia.

You wouldn’t describe River Bennett as “your typical kid.” By appearance alone, the twenty-one-yearold is anything but. Long chestnut curls flow from his head, cascading around a strong face from which two tranquil eyes peak out. There’s no doubt that he attracts a lot of attention wherever he goes. Of course, appearance is one thing. It’s when River Bennett opens his mouth that he truly distinguishes himself. “While I think that each generation is met with their own obstacles, each has been able to rise above and meet those obstacles head on,” he says. “There are some immense problems that my generation will have to confront soon, but we've also been groomed to prepare for these and the optimism among the people I meet who are my age is what keeps me confident.”

After being awarded a full scholarship from the Nantucket Golf Club in 2009, River told of his plans of studying international development and music. And that’s exactly what he did. He majored in Political rhetoric surrounding energy independence in the United States. On the musical front, he served as president of the Virginia Gentlemen, UVA’s oldest a cappella group that twice traveled to Washington D.C. to perform at The White House earlier this year. And although these accolades alone are quite impressive, River’s philanthropic pursuits outside of the classroom may end up defining his college years.

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and Social Thought at the University of Virginia, recently finishing his degree with a thesis on the political

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W

hile a sophomore at Nantucket High

through the opportunities that I've had, it's hard to

School, River learned of an ingenious

feel pessimistic about the state of things when you

device that pumped clean water for

see how much focus is going into fixing it.”

communities in sub-Sahara Africa. The

aptly named PlayPump is powered by children: as they push each other around a specially designed merry-go-round in their schoolyard, they pump clean drinking water from a well below. Intrigued,

“My overriding lesson from water is that every human has a right to it and almost everyone agrees with this.”

River led a fundraising campaign on Nantucket for PlayPumps, organizing swimathons and encouraging donations from landscaping companies and

In the fall of 2011, River and a fellow student,

other high-water users. He raised enough money to

Kodjo Messan, learned of a UVA doctorate student

purchase two

who was teaching computer literacy to female

PlayPump

students at a small Islamic school in her home

systems, about

village of Kumbo, Cameroon. Set in the mountains,

$14,000 a-

the remote village experienced daily electricity

piece, which

blackouts—the school struggling to keep the lights

were later

on, let alone the computers. Recognizing an

installed in

opportunity for an alternative energy project, River

Lesotho,

and Kodjo applied for a $5,000 research grant from

Africa. Fun-

UVA to travel to Kumbo and set up a metering

draising for

tower to gauge solar and wind energy that might

PlayPumps

power the school. “Being an Islamic high school

on Nantucket inspired River to continue his work in water philanthropy at UVA by joining Global Brigades, an international, student-led organization working in health and sustainable development in countries like Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Ghana. He twice traveled to Honduras as a member of the organization’s Water Brigades, and by his senior year, River was the Global Brigades representative for UVA. During the summer of his junior year, he interned at Charity: Water in New York City, a nonprofit that raises money and awareness for other vetted water organizations around the globe. “Charity:Water is a grant-giver and grant-seeker,” River explains.

“They do not have any actual boots on the ground.

They are a fundraising platform.” From PlayPumps to Water Brigades to Charity:Water, River has been involved in all ends of the effort to bring clean drinking water to the nearly billion people who live

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without it. “My overriding lesson from water is that

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every human has a right to it and almost everyone agrees with this,” River says. “There is a lot of incredible work being done to secure this vision, and

that was relatively young, they were a little wary at

first of having Americans come over,” River says. “When they realized what our interests were and how our interests aligned, it became a pretty interesting cultural experience.”

This summer, River will analyze the data collected from the meter tower and draw up a plan to invest in an alternative energy system for the school in Kumbo. “It was a great introduction into the actual ways that these systems work,” River says. “I’ve been getting very interested in alternative energy and its future, and it was inspiring to see it there in real life.”

In a day when America’s youth lives virtually through the one dimension of iPhones and computer screens, River Bennett is touching reality first hand.

When asked what motivates him, he says, “It’s interesting for me and humbling to realize how much is out in the world, that’s why I like traveling and that’s why I keep trying to put myself out there: for a different perspective.” And his perspective continues to take shape as he plans to head off to France to teach English this fall. After that, one can only imagine where this River will run.

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31 River Bennett in New York City interning for Charity:Water

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Nspire

Glass Written by Robert Cocuzzo

A C T

Photography by Dan Driscoll

The Nantucket Wine Festival will pour through thousands of glass bottles this year, the bulk of which will be hauled off to the dump for recycling. Some of these bottles, however, will become part of an art installation that promises to be truly smashing.

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For someone who’s not

As the first artist-in-residence at

much of drinker, local

the Perkins School for the Blind,

artist M.J. Levy Dickson

Dickson developed a curriculum

knows wine, beer and

around tactile art, artwork that is

liquor bottles better than

expressed and experienced through

most bartenders. She can

touch. “Nothing is real to a person

tell you which labels peel

with limited vision unless he or she

off the easiest, which

can touch and feel it,” she says.

bottles run out the fastest,

“For instance, most art teachers

even which glass breaks

describe clouds as looking like cot-

into the most pieces.

ton balls, but to a blind person this

Dickson’s fascination has

would be a misguided description.”

little to do with the bot-

She continues, “An atomizer spray-

tles’ contents, but rather

ing mist into the air would be more

the bottles themselves.

accurate as the blind person could

For when she peels off

feel the mist and realize clouds

their labels, smashes

hold moisture and understand that

them to pieces, and then

rain comes from clouds.” Dickson

runs the shards of glass

hopes that her Pumpkin Pond Farm

through a cement mixer,

installation will merge tactile and

what comes out the other

visual arts, thus expanding upon the

end is a work of art she

senses by which people experience

calls “Like Sea Glass:

her work.

A Hand Full of Light.”

“Here, try this,” she says, handing

This summer, ten thou-

me a long piece of blue glass, “just

sand pieces of Dickson’s

close your eyes and feel it.” The

handmade sea glass will

glass is smooth, enjoyable to roll

stretch fifty feet through

around in my palm, and feels a lot

Pumpkin Pond Farm. “It will be an interactive landscape composed of large handmolded glass shapes inspired by the sea,” the artist explains, pointing to a watercolor sketch of the design. “There will be a sand path meandering through the center of the glass landscape with a boardwalk rhythmically following its curve.” Unlike most art installations that are strictly for viewing, Dickson’s work is as much about touching as it is seeing.

In fact, she encourages people to take a piece or two of glass home N magazine

with them.

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like a spoon. “I’ve shared this piece with two people, one in Massachusetts and one in London” she says.

“Both have said it feels like a spoon.” At first, this revelation seems hardly profound. Yet when considered in the context of art and the appreciation of art, the thought begins to take shape. This piece of glass invokes a distinct image and emotion in the same way that an abstract painting can. In that light, these pieces of glass become like paints on a canvas, conveying images and experiences that transcend simply being a heap of broken bottles.

Almost as interesting as Dickson’s inspiration behind the project was her process in creating it. At last year’s Wine Festival, she sifted through the festival’s outgoing recycling looking for the right color glass, often to the mortification of her children. This went on for months, digging through the recycling bins of restaurants and bars. Then came the tedious prep-work of peeling off hundreds of labels. “I have a relationship with certain bottles because their labels were easy to get off,” she says, showing me a book full of labels like pressed flowers. “These were ones that came off the easiest.” The last step was to turn the shards of sharp glass into smooth sea glass. She called up Toscana Construction and they began experimenting tumbling glass in a cement mixer with a concoction of water, salt and other minerals. After much trial and error, Dickson was left with an estimated 10,000 pieces of smooth sea glass. These were then joined by handmade pieces created with the help of local glass designers, Katherine Moore and Allison MacDonald.

For some, Dickson’s installation might be hard to grasp. What’s so great about a huge pile of glass, anyway? Is it really art? To this, she responds by pointing to one of her chief inspirations, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. Dickson visited Ai’s “Sunflower Seeds” installation at the Tate Modern in London, in which the artist displayed one hundred million hand-painted porcelain sunflower seeds. The artwork took years to create, with 1,600 artisans molding, sculpting and painting each of the hundred million seeds. The installation was widely praised and the Tate ultimately purchased the ten tons of seeds for its permanent collection. “The creation of one hundred million porcelain seeds serves as a reminder that together we have the ability to achieve our goals to everyone’s mutual benefit,” Dickson says, “we are only limited by our own imaginations.”

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clothing & accessories... wine & cheese...home & gifts.

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photo by Terry Pommett

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4 Easy Street • 508.228.5073 www.currentVintage.com www.facebook.com/currentVintage

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NDepth

THE

Widow’s Work Written by Jen Laskey

Photography by Cary Hazlegrove

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The sparkling legacy of Veuve Clicquot has made its way into clinking glasses around the world, and is sure to fill many more at this year’s Nantucket Wine Festival. But champagne connoisseurs take note: The real toast of the town will be two of Veuve Clicquot’s coveted Cave Privée vintages.

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W

hether at polo matches or fashion

shows or fine French restaurants,

Veuve Clicquot’s yellow label is

synonymous with luxury. And yet despite its wide

Clicquot Ponsardin. Against all odds, not only did the widow Clicquot turn the small champagne house into a world-renowned brand, but she revolutionized the way champagne is made.

acclaim, only a handful of non-French speakers could tell you that “veuve” actually means “widow,”

Today, while Veuve Clicquot’s yellow label

as in the Widow Clicquot Ponsardin, the cham-

continues to be the toast of the luxury market, an

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pagne’s legendary namesake. The year was 1805

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exclusive, limited selection has recently risen to the

when a twenty-seven-year-old widow named

top as their best bubbly. Costing between $200 to

Barbe Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin convinced

$250 a bottle, Veuve Clicquot’s Cave Privée Col-

her father-in-law to let her take over her late

lection has been carefully cultivated and aged for

husband’s small champagne house. The

twenty to thirty years—some, even longer—un-

move was unprecedented, this at a time

der the most ideal conditions in their cave privée,

when French women rarely ran their own

or “private wine cellar,” in Reims, France. The

businesses, let alone in the male-dominated

collection was first released in Europe in 2010 to

business of champagne. Better still, she

commemorate the 200th anniversary of Madame

renamed the champagne after herself: Veuve

Clicquot’s premiere 1810 vintage.

It wasn’t released in America until late 2012, and currently, there are only two Cave Privée champagnes on the U.S. market: The 1990 Blanc and 1989 Rosé vintages. Both received high ratings from Wine Spectator (94 and 95 points, respectively). “Most champagne is, of course, non-vintage,” explains Dominique Demarville, Veuve Clicquot’s Chef de Cave, who became the House’s 10th Cellar Master in 2009. Veuve’s non-vintage champagnes are the ones we all recognize from a mile away with the yellow labels, costing around $50. They are designed to retain a consistent classic style year in and year out. The Cave Privée champagnes, by contrast,

Whether at polo matches or fashions shows or fine French restaurants, Veuve Clicquot’s yellow label is synonymous with luxury. are created with wine from single, exceptional vintages, such as 1975, 1978, 1980, 1989, and 1990, and the winemakers pay special attention to the individual character of each one. “The volume is very small,” explains Demarville. “And the idea is to give people who love old champagnes the opportunity to discover and experience something ‘new’ in the Veuve Clicquot style.”

Demarville works closely with Senior Winemaker Cyril Brun to determine which vintages will make it into the Cave Privée collection. As a winemaker, Brun has one goal: For all his wines to live up to Madame Clicquot’s motto: Only one quality, the finest. “For me, Cave Privée is a benchmark, a wine that reflects a level of excellence that is rarely reached,” he says. “Furthermore, it showcases some mature facets of champagne that I enjoy a lot. I consider Cave Privée to be the quintessence of our style.” And so it is that Veuve Clicquot continues the widow’s work.

Like any great wine, champagne takes on different flavor characteristics as it ages. As Demarville puts it, the Cave Privée champagnes “have several lives.” Vintage wines at Veuve Clicquot are typically aged for six years. “In the beginning, when we first release the vintage, it’s fresh and fruity with a very gentle touch of brioche and toast.” After twenty years of aging, the Cave Privée is less fruit-forward and more complex. “We have a wonderful richness of flavors like brioche, toast, vanilla, truffle and candied fruits, which make the wine very intense.” But in keeping with Veuve Clicquot’s signature style, Demarville asserts that even these long-aged wines have “a delicate freshness and minerality, especially on the finish,” which he points out, and have good aging potential for another ten to fifteen years.

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“is wonderful for the tasting of such old vintages.” The Cave Privée wines continue to evolve

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NDepth

The Isle of

Mahon The Hippie Roots of Nantucket’s Man About Town Written by Robert Cocuzzo

Photography by Kit Noble

From his Benjamin Franklin haircut down to his Converse high tops, Gene Mahon is a Nantucket icon. Walk into most any social event, no matter the season or venue, and there he’ll be, camera in hand, documentN magazine

ing the night for his weekly e-newsletter, “Mahon About Town.” Over his forty-four years on Nantucket, Mahon has owned and operated more

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businesses than he can recall. Past ventures include a record store, a copy center, a production house, a publishing house, a television station, a photography gallery, a camera shop and a legendary nightclub. Historically speaking, Gene Mahon is a relic of a forgotten era on Nantucket—the psychedelic sixties and seventies.

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In the spring of 1969, fresh out of Villanova and after a year of adventures out West, Gene Mahon arrived on Nantucket as part of a wave of young hippies. With their long hair, ragged beards and bare feet, these so-called “flower children” were treated as pariahs.

When they walked up Main Street, little old ladies cowered in fear and crossed to the other side. Tour buses slowed past jobsites where hippies worked as painters and carpenters and pointed them out like exotic wildlife. “These are some of the only hippies on Nantucket,” the driver would inform his passengers over the intercom. Some snapped photos. The stops became so frequent that pretty soon the workers just smiled and waved on cue. On the weekends, hippies and islanders played each other in basketball and volleyball, and the games often became physical enough to leave the hippies limping off the court with bruised ribs and bloody noses. Suspicion of the hippie minority ran so high in some cases that the bank declined their checks, or insurance companies refused to sign up their businesses.

Yet even for a hippie, Nantucket was a place of boundless possibility, and few saw that possibility more than Gene Mahon.

Within his first five weeks on the island, Mahon was running his own painting crew. He then opened a photography gallery on Centre Street where he hung his black and white landscape prints and encouraged other photographers to show their work. At the time, there was only one camera shop on the island, and Mahon became its most loyal patron.

One day he walked in and the shop owner Charlie Folger threw him the keys. “Forget it, I’m done,” he sighed.

“Here, you run it.” And with that Folger walked out. As casually as if he owned the place himself, Mahon stepped behind the counter and began tending shop. Indeed, he would eventually buy the camera shop, thus confirming his place in Nantucket society.

And what a society it was. Come noon each day, the center of town became the center of the universe, with every walk of life descending upon it for lunch and perhaps a couple midday drinks. Many of the storefronts were old and splintered, a far cry from the gilded lilies that would sprout up in the years to come. The beloved watering hole of most hippies was the Bosun’s Locker, a dark, dingy bar on Main Street with all the character and characters of an old whaling saloon. On a rainy day, the barman might as well have charged rent, as men, women and children hunkered down for hours on end.

On the other end of the social spectrum was the Opera House, the headquarters of Nantucket’s high society, frequented by old money, artists and highbrow summer residents. European-style waiters floated about the room with upturned noses as a honkytonk piano filled the restaurant with ragtime.

Opera House owner Gwen Gaillard held court each night at table one. To sit at Gaillard’s table was to be accepted into Nantucket high society. Everyone wanted to sit with her.

One night, she invited a hippie-turned-businessman to join her for dinner. Gene Mahon had officially arrived, and quickly became a notable fixture at the chic Opera House.

Mahon’s taste for the Nantucket nightlife led him to become part owner of the Roadhouse in 1978, what he today describes as the “hottest nightclub the island has ever known.” Owned along with writer and pianist Frank Conroy and local businessman Bill Torpey, Mahon’s Roadhouse was a Gatsbian and world-class jazz.

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revival, complete with flowing champagne

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T

he Roadhouse became the after-hours spot for famous actors, artists and the island’s

who’s who pouring out of the Opera House each night. Dustin Hoffman drank there. So did American playwright Arthur Miller, and the owners of Studio 54. Jimmy Buffet often dropped in for impromptu performances. The stage saw the likes of jazz greats Buster Williams, Stan Strickland and Joe Lovano, now considered the greatest jazz horn player in the country. At the center of it all was Gene Mahon, less than a decade on Nantucket, exactly where he was meant to be.

More than thirty years later, Gene Mahon continues to be a barometer of our times and a link to times long gone. He has since sold the camera shop, closed the photo gallery and shut the doors to the Roadhouse. Other businesses have also come and gone over the years, leading Mahon to reinvent himself again and again.

What remains unchanged is his passion for the island and his belief that the best is yet to come.

“Nantucket has been very kind to me,” he says today. “Since coming ashore for the first time in 1969 and deciding within hours that I wanted to make this my home, I’ve done my best to make it a better place to live, joining the hundreds and hundreds of others who have made that same choice…We’ll make it a better place to live.”

As for his hippie roots, let’s just say Gene Mahon

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is still pretty far-out.

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“Since coming ashore for the first time in 1969 and deciding within hours that I wanted to make this my home, I’ve done my best to make it a better place to live…”

Photographs by Wayne E. Chinnock Photography.

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NTertain

IntoxicatinG

Recipes Food and Wine Pairings from Nantucket Chefs Written by Jen Laskey

Photography by Nathan Coe

Just in time for your Daffy Fest Dinner, Chefs Evan Marley of Pi Pizzeria, Michael Getter of Dune and Erik Stenfors of Met on Main offer up spring-inspired food and wine pairings with recipes that feature fresh, locally sourced, seasonal ingredients.

Melanzane alla Parmigiana (Eggplant Parmesan)

by Chef Evan Marley

Chef Evan Marley’s interpretation of the classic ItalianAmerican eggplant parm was inspired by a trip to the Italian region of Campania where the dish was first created. He and his wife Maria were dining at Cumpa’ Cosimo on the Amalfi Coast when instead of being offered menus, the couple was met by the chef, a quintessential Italian mamma, who pinched Marley’s cheeks and said, “I know what you want!” She returned with her renowned melanzane alla parmigiana. “It was revelation,” says Marley, “like nothing I’d ever had before.” After dinner, Mamma Netta gave Marley the centuries-old recipe to bring back to Nantucket. For wine pairing, Chef Marley recommends an aglianico, such as Mastroberadino’s

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Radici Taurasi Riserva 2006, or an I Tratturi Primitivo 2011 by Feudi di San Marzano.

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The Marinara

. 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil . 1 onion, 1 carrot and 1 bulb of fennel

. 1 handful of fresh basil . 6 lightly crushed garlic cloves . 3 anchovy fillets . 1 cup of medium-bodied white wine . 2 28-ounce cans whole, peeled San Marzano tomatoes

. Salt and red pepper flakes, to taste

In a large skillet, heat the 3 tablespoons of olive oil for the marinara. Add the onion, garlic, carrot, fennel, anchovy and basil. SautĂŠ over medium-low heat for 8 minutes.

Add the wine and cook until wine has almost evaporated. Using your hands, crush the tomatoes into the skillet. Bring to a simmer and cook over moderately low heat, stirring occasionally, about 25 minutes. Transfer the tomato sauce to a food processor and puree until smooth. Season with salt and red pepper flakes.

The Eggplant

. 7 cups flour . 1 tablespoon each, garlic powder and onion powder . 2 tablespoons dried parsley Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

. 4 eggs . 3 medium eggplants, peeled and cut lengthwise (1/2-inch thick)

. 8 cups of olive oil for frying . 1 pound shredded mozzarella . 1 cup freshly grated pecorino Romano cheese While the marinara sauce is cooking, in a large bowl crack the eggs, add 3 cups of water, and whisk. Then, in a second large bowl, add flour, garlic and onion powders, dried parsley, salt and pepper. Mix all together well. Dredge the eggplant slices in the flour mixture, then dip in the egg wash, and then back in the flour. Put on a baking sheet.

In a high-sided large skillet or Dutch oven, heat olive oil to 375°F. Working in several batches, cook the eggplant, turning once, until golden on both sides, about 7 minutes per batch. Add more olive oil to the skillet between batches if needed. Drain the eggplant slices on a rack over a sheet pan. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spread a thin layer of the marinara sauce in a 9x13-inch glass or ceramic baking dish. Arrange one-third of the fried eggplant slices in the baking dish and sprinkle all over with half of the grated cheeses. Then drizzle with marina sauce. Repeat this layering again. Top the third layer of eggplant with just marinara sauce and a dusting of Pecorino Romano cheese. Conserve a small amount of the marinara to top the dish with before serving.

minutes, until the top of the eggplant Parmesan is golden and the marinara sauce is bubbling. Let rest for 15 minutes.

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Bake in the upper third of the oven for about 35

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Roast Rack of Lamb with Braised Fennel, Roasted Eggplant, Feta, Tomatoes, Olives and Rosemary

by Chef Michael Getter

Braised Fennel

. 2 bulbs of fennel (may use fiddleheads and favas in late spring, just blanche and sauté)

. 1 cup medium diced Spanish onion . 1 quart chicken stock . 2 cups white wine, such as a chardonnay . 2 tablespoons chopped fresh garlic . 1 tablespoon chopped Italian parsley . 1 tablespoon mixture of chopped fresh oregano, thyme and rosemary

. 3 bay leaves . 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil . Kosher salt and ground black pepper to taste Remove the fennel’s long fronds and cut the bulb into 6 pieces. Place the fennel in a baking dish. Sweat the onions, herbs and garlic in a sauté pan with the olive oil

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until soft, add the white wine and reduce by half, and

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then add the chicken stock. Season the liquid with salt and pepper. Pour the liquid over the fennel. Cover pan with foil, place in 350˚F oven and cook until fennel is slightly soft, about 30 minutes. When done, remove fennel from liquid, discard liquid. When ready to serve heat sauté pan on high and place the fennel in pan and sauté until golden brown.

Roasted Eggplant

. 1 large eggplant . 2 tablespoons chopped mixed herbs, such as rosemary, parsley, oregano and thyme

. 1 tablespoon chopped garlic . Extra virgin olive oil . Kosher salt and ground black pepper to taste Cut the eggplant in half, length-wise, and place on pan to oven-roast, flesh side up. Season eggplant with salt and pepper, brush with the chopped garlic and sprinkle with chopped herbs. Roast in 375˚F oven until eggplant is soft, approximately 45 minutes. When done scrape out flesh and puree in blender until smooth. You can add some olive oil, if needed, to get puree going.

Lamb

. 2 Frenched racks of lamb . Extra virgin olive oil . Kosher salt and ground black pepper Season the fully cleaned racks of lamb and generously season with salt and pepper. Heat a heavy bottom sauté pan on high with a thin coating of olive oil. Once oil begins to smoke, add the racks

Feta, Cucumber, Tomato and Olive Salad . 1 cup each, small diced English cucumber and diced ripe red tomato

. 1 cup crumbled feta cheese . 1 cup chopped mixture of good quality cured olives . 1/2 cup fresh Italian parsley leaves . 2 ounces fresh lemon juice . 3 ounces extra virgin olive oil

of lamb, meat side down, and evenly brown on all sides. Remove from pan and place in a 375˚F oven.

Combine all ingredients. Rosemary Oil, 1/2 cup fresh rosemary,

Roast until the lamb has an internal temperature of

de-stemmed, 1/2 cup fresh chopped Italian parsley leaves

125˚F. Let the rack rest for 10 to 15 minutes before

1 cup extra virgin olive oil, Salt

slicing each rack into three portions.

Heat a pot of salted water to a boil, add parsley and rosemary and blanch until bright green. Remove from water and place in an ice water bath. Remove from bath, place herbs on kitchen towel and ring until dry. Place herbs and olive oil in blender and puree until smooth, season with salt, set aside. Pour the rosemary oil over the lamb just before serving.

Chef Michael Getter “Even in spring,” says Chef Michael Getter, “it’s always kind of chilly here on Nantucket, so I’m still in a mindset of hearty and richly prepared dishes.” However, with the arrival of spring ingredients like fennel, fiddlehead ferns, fava beans, and fresh lamb, the chef’s signature “big, bold flavors” get infused with bright, fresh ones. His rack of lamb along with its mélange of veggie accompaniments is a perfect example of this turning of the Sinskey’s POV, a blend of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and merlot with notes of blueberry, cassis, wild fennel, olive, vanilla and violet. As is characteristic of this blend, the tannins are firm, but not overpowering, making the wine an especially good complement to Getter’s lamb.

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seasonal tides. Chef Getter recommends pairing the dish with the 2008 vintage of Robert

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Lobster Bolognese over Fresh Tagliatelle

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BY CHEF ERIK STENFROS

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Lobster Bolognese Sauce . 1 1/2 pounds fresh shucked and cooked lobster meat . 4 cups lobster stock . 1 carrot, 1 white onion and 1 bulb fennel, diced small . 2 ribs celery peeled, diced small . 4 cups crushed, seeded and skinned Roma tomatoes . 1 teaspoon salt . 1 ounce olive oil . 3 ounces butter . 3 ounces pancetta, diced small . 1/4 bunch thyme . 1/4 bunch tarragon . 1 pint heavy cream . 6 ounces white wine . 6 ounces Pernod (anise-flavored liqueur) . 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Place all diced vegetables through a large die meat grinder (or food processor), along with the pancetta and herbs. In a large, heavy-bottomed pan, cook the vegetable and pancetta mix in olive oil and half of the butter. Turn heat down and sweat vegetables for 10 to 15 minutes. Add the remaining butter and let it melt. Stir in the flour, and then add the tomato.

Next, stir in the white wine and reduce by half. Add the Pernod and reduce by half. Pour in the lobster stock and reduce by half again. Add the cream, bring sauce to low boil for 10 minutes, and then reduce the Bolognese by a quarter. Just before serving, add the lobster meat to the warm sauce.

Lobster Halves Boil a large pot of water.

Place half cracked lobsters in the boiling water and cook for 8 minutes.

Tagliatelle 2 pounds fresh tagliatelle noodles Bring salted water to boil, add pasta, cook as recommended, or to taste.

Add the pasta to the Bolognese sauce.

Chef Erik Stenfors

“My cuisine is inspired by the seasons,” says Chef Erik Stenfors. “Summer and springtime foods should be clean flavors with minimal cooking that highlight fresh ingredients like tomatoes and herbs.” In this dish, Chef Stenfors achieves a taste of spring with locally caught lobsters and vegetables from nearby farms. “Visitors from all around come to Nantucket to enjoy lobster,” he says, “and this is a different approach from what they might be used to.” As for wine, Chef Stenfors recommends a nice Sangiovese or Chianti lobster while also being able to handle the richness of the tomato sauce.

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that will highlight the sweetness of the

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a few of our favorite things for spring

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Four additional guest bedrooms offer multiple uses. Newly constructed separate au pair suite. Two additional decks off upper floors. Abundance of storage space, including loft area above the garage. Spectacular natural sunlight throughout and eight fireplaces complete this stunning home.

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Price available upon request.

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Charlestown & East Cambridge 92 Main St., Charlestown 617.242.7393

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Points N magazine

Written by Robert Cocuzzo

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Photography by Katie Kaizer

Impact of

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Conventional wisdom says Nantucket could be around for as little as four hundred more years, but after this winter, some may wonder if those numbers will soon be under water. Is Nantucket disappearing before our very eyes?

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A

North Beach Street after the February 8th blizzard, Nemo.

bout a week before Halloween, a tropical wave in the Caribbean sparked what became known as Super Storm Sandy. The system spiraled counterclockwise, drawing energy from unseasonably warm waters in

the Atlantic, and eventually made landfall just northeast of Atlantic City. The devastation was staggering, with Sandy proving to be the second costliest Atlantic storm in U.S. history.

Nantucket’s saving grace from the full impact of Sandy was a cold front pushing down from Greenland and warm water pinning the storm to the New Jersey coast. Yet even with Sandy’s near miss, Nantucket limps out of the winter scarred by three storms that raise some unsettling questions.

“You’ll have to forgive me if I have a little storm burnout,” Dave Fronzuto tells me from his office in the Public Safety Facility on Fairgrounds Road, “FEMA was just here and I’ve

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been working with them on accessing the damages.” Fronzuto

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is Nantucket’s Emergency Management and Marine Safety Coordinator and since Sandy struck, he’s been eating, sleeping and breathing storms. “People need to understand that although these storms were bad, the No-Name storm in 1991 was a lot worse,” he insists. “To put it in perspective, during

Downtown (top) and Easy Street (bottom) during Hurricane Sandy. Photos by Kit Noble.

the No-Name Storm, the tide was 1.2 feet higher than that of these storms. You saw the devastation that these tides caused.

Can you imagine 1.2 feet higher?” Fronzuto speculates that the February blizzard, Nemo, and the March nor’easter, Saturn, packed about the punch of Hurricane Bob of August 1991, with winds gusting upwards of ninety miles-per-hour.

In the case of Nemo, the tide was astronomically low. Had the tide been astronomically high, as it was during Saturn, the destruction would have been far worse.

If anyone can weigh in on destruction, it’s Dave Fronzuto.

In the wake of the three storms, Fronzuto has been accessing and documenting damages to the town’s infrastructure and then filing for relief funds from FEMA. The assessments are two- prong: estimate the cost in damages and then estimate the cost to mitigate those damages from future storms. FEMA allocates specific funds for specific storms, and Fronzuto needed to pinpoint what damage was done by which storm.

This becomes infinitely more tedious when considering that the storms rolled in like rogue waves, the damages compounding as the winter continued.

— Dave Fronzuto

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“People need to understand that although these storms were bad, the No-Name storm in 1991 was a lot worse… during the No-Name Storm, the tide was 1.2 feet higher than that of these storms. You saw the devastation that these tides caused.

Can you imagine 1.2 feet higher?”

65 Easy Street flooding during Hurricane Sandy

A

ccording to Fronzuto, there were four critical points of destruction: Easy Street, the town pier, Sheep Pond Road, and Baxter Road.

Easy Street flooded first in all three storms, and Fronzuto estimates it will cost between $35,000 to $40,000 to repair damages and another $200,000 for mitigation work. The town pier was walloped first with $100,000 in damages by Sandy, then $25,000

by Nemo, and finally with upwards of $45,000 by Saturn. Out on Sheep Pond Road, where three houses were taken by erosion,

the road will be relocated about 200 feet inshore. At press time, similar relocation plans were being considered for Baxter Road on ‘Sconset Bluff, where storm-related erosion devoured twenty feet of beachfront before forcing the demolition of a garage, a cottage and eventually a 5,200 square-foot house. In total, the three storms will cost around $500,000.

“This year has really been pretty high up there as far as worst case scenarios,” contends Dr. Sarah

“People tend to forget that the sea is rising slowly, but faster all the time…so with each new storm larger amounts of land will be affected.”

— Dr. Sarah Oktay

Oktay, director of the UMass Boston Nantucket Field Station. “What has occurred is a one-two-three-punch which has not allowed beaches, dunes, or marshes the ability to regrow between storms.” From her field station on the north-facing Quaise portion of Nantucket Harbor, Dr. Oktay has been quantifying the characteristics of these storms, from the amount of sand driven up into the marshes to the overall rise in sea level around Nantucket. “People tend to forget that the sea is rising slowly, but faster all the time,” she explains. “So with each new storm larger amounts of land will be affected.” Dr. Oktay indicates that the seas around Nantucket have risen a little over five inches in the past fifty years. In the next fifty years, studies show it will rise by at least a foot, which is 2.3 times faster than the previous fifty years. However, the news isn’t all bad. Locations like Cod Fish Park and Great Point actually gained elevation in some areas from the storms, although those beaches also shortened as they typically do in winter. Beaches at Cisco and Surfside are much wider due to the addition of sand eroded from nearby beaches. “In the case of Great

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Point,” Dr. Oktay says, “I think it is

66

certainly possible that within a hundred years, it will be a nice mature island.”

Heavy snow complicated emergency relief work during the February 8th blizzard, Nemo.

If only that growth were the case for areas like the ‘Sconset Bluff, where storm-related erosion has forced the demolition of three structures and has threatened several others. Watching an excavator demolish a perfectly good home because it had nowhere else to go but into the Atlantic makes one wonder what kind of insurance these homes have, if any.

Charlie Kilvert, president of Nantucket Insurance, explains that the options are limited. “Because Baxter Road is sitting there exposed to the Atlantic Ocean with nothing in front of it but the sea pounding away during these winter storms, the insurance companies are selective when writing a new home there,” Kilvert says. “The higher the chance of loss to a property N magazine

is a factor in determining the cost of the insurance.”

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A

high-end insurance company like Pure,

In the midst of this nomenclatural confusion,

AIG or Chubb Group might consider

the press labeled Sandy a “super storm,” a term

writing insurance for a home on Baxter

that was eventually adopted and proliferated by

Road, provided the homeowner has a

government officials. Kelley explains that Sandy

portfolio of other properties that the company is

should be understood as a “hybrid storm,” one

covering elsewhere, thus balancing its risk.

where a warm core storm and a cold core storm

Other options for insuring coastal properties on

merge. “A hurricane is a warm core storm, and

Nantucket include the Massachusetts FAIR Plan,

most of the violent weather is within a hundred

a residual market insurance association that will

miles of the eye of the storm,” he says. “In a

cover homes up to $1,000,000, and Lloyd’s of

hybrid storm you can have the effects for

London, an insurance consortium that covers

hundreds of miles away from the center of the

many coastal New England properties. Even if a

storm. Sandy became a hybrid storm as it went

home does have insurance, perhaps from a policy

ashore.” So it is that although Sandy did not hit

signed twenty years prior, the insurance company

directly, Nantucket still suffered her wrath.

“In the weather world, in the meteorological world, there is a huge controversy over whether or not Sandy was a hurricane when it made landfall…” can reassess the property and decide to drop it

For those who weathered the winter on the island,

if the chance of loss gets too high. Insurance

all the flooding, erosion and destruction can seem

claims in the wake of Sandy were particularly

like harbingers of a shrinking Nantucket, that

painstaking as it was unclear whether Sandy was

is unless you have a bird’s eye view like pilot

a hurricane or a storm, a key distinction in the

George Riethof. For over a decade, Riethof

definition of coverage.

has been flying over Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard two hundred days per year photographing

In fact, that debate continues today. “In the

the islands and their surrounding waters. In the

weather world, in the meteorological world, there

aftermath of this winter’s storms, Riethof’s aerial

is a huge controversy over whether or not Sandy

images of the island became Internet

was a hurricane when it made landfall,” explains

sensations, often prompting a

NECN meteorologist, Tim Kelley. “The National

litany of comments mourning

Hurricane Center has done an analysis and

the loss of land

reanalysis, and they keep changing their tune.

and homes.

Now they’re saying that Sandy was a hurricane all the way up to a couple hours before landfall.” Some argue that this lack of clarity on the part of the National Hurricane Center is to blame for the lack of preparedness in

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New York and New Jersey.

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N magazine Photo by Kit Noble

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Y

et for Riethof these images were not surprising, or tragic for that matter. “The island has changed

shape over the years,” he says. “For every area that has been eroding I’ve seen other areas accreting.

Hurricane Sandy and the subsequent nor’easter took about twenty feet off the entire southern shoreline of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. I flew over several times in the subsequent weeks and saw most of this sand undersea just offshore. About a month later, that twenty feet of beach was all back onshore.” Riethof says that while ‘Sconset Bluff seems to be “marching steadily into the ocean” and that “the south shore from Madequecham to Fisherman’s Beach seems to be shrinking,” in terms of net change the land has mostly just shifted. Unfortunately, this shift is happening where people own homes. “While I sympathize with those whose houses have been threatened or destroyed by this erosion, I did not see the event as tragic,” Riethof says. “First of all, those who built or bought houses near the coastline, particularly unstable coastlines, knew this was coming. Secondly, these were not photos of destruction, these were images of natural events, change, and the force of nature.”

(Top) NOAA satellite image of Hurricane Sandy, (bottom) aerial photo of ‘Sconset Bluff by George Riethof.

The shape of Nantucket is bound to change in the years to come, hewn by storms and rising sea levels that will continue to give and take. The streets will flood again and again. Beaches will be lost and more homes destroyed. And perhaps there is nothing a Nantucketer can do but adapt. Many talk about the high price of living on-island. These winter storms may just be another expense we’re forced to pay. Whether or not one subscribes to global warming and climate change theories, what can be said is that over the long term we are all just renting our land from Mother Nature here on Nantucket.

Dress

Hepburn 3 Salem Street Nantucket

dog day Location Centerboard Inn 8 Chester Street Nantucket

afternoon

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Photography by Maria Carey

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B

efore the Antique Car Parade and tailgate picnic, there’s the Daffodil Festival’s Puppy Parade, a time for Nantucket’s top dogs to strut their stuff for spring. In celebration of these furry festivities, Nantucket pet photographer MARIA CAREY captures canines and couture.

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Dog Tag

Cold Noses 16 Straight Wharf

Jacket

Hair

Darya Salon 34 Centre Street Nantucket

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Current Vintage 4 Easy Street Nantucket

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74

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Flower Dog Collar

Geronimo’s Pet Supplies 119 Lower Pleasant Street

PAW HAT

Geronimo’s Pet Supplies 119 Lower Pleasant Street

FLOWER CHEW TOY

Geronimo’s Pet Supplies 119 Lower Pleasant Street

WOOF BALL

Cold Noses 16 Straight Wharf

YP Makeup Nantucket

PUPPY ON HARNESS

Cold Noses 16 Straight Wharf

Dress & Jacket

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Makeup

Current Vintage 4 Easy Street Nantucket 75

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1

Pick your jeans.

All colors are in play.

2

Cut a piece of cardboard into a 5 or 6-inch square.

3

Lay the template over your denim and carefully cut squares with sharp fabric scissors. (No need to pin the template...imperfect is just perfect.)

4

Toss the squares into a gentle wash, then the dryer to create a fringe, and finally press each one with a hot iron.

Photography by Joshua Simpson

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with Andrea Hutchins

ay homage to all those worn-out, out-of-fashion jeans by making them into 100 cocktail napkins! After all, denim goes well with everything, including cocktails.

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5

Treat yourself to a Lemontini (1 part vodka/1 part Cointreau/1 part Limoncello) and toast to spring!

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Lighthouse School St. Patrick’s Day Fundraiser at the Chicken Box

Foggysheet nantucket

Julia Kuratek & Stephen Maury Callie Barber & Beth Crowley

Kelly Miller & Robin Kirk Lindsey Toft & Casey Boukus

Suzan Kating, Shelly Olson & Julie Kever

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Grant Sanders & Barrie Sanders

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Lucie Lundeen & Jonah McKinnon

Travis Richard, Randy Hudson & John Jordin

Nantucket Historical Association 4th Annual Quiz Bowl

Team Egypt Judges: Ben Simons, Peggi Godwin & John McGuinness

Melissa Kershaw, Marjan Shirzad & Nathaniel Philbrick

Great Point Pre-Season Cleanup Volunteers: Marjan Shirzad

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Marjan Shirzad & Nathaniel Philbrick

Great Point Volunteers Sarah Oktay, Beth Boyle, Steve Nicolle, Lee Lawerson, Jock Lawerson, Pheobe Lawerson, Jessie Lang, with other volunteers

79 Photos by Brian Sager

NOW SHOWING

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a film

by Ric Burns

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Your portal to Nantucket’s Rich History NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

NHA Offices 15 Broad Street

Whaling Museum 13 Broad Street

Museum Shop 11 Broad Street

www.nha.org 508 228 1894

NMD

Drink To Your Health?

Written by Dr. Joseph Garasic

Photography by Mike Diskin

Does a glass of wine a day really keep the heart doctor away?

Nantucket Cottage Hospital’s visiting cardiologist, Dr. Joseph Garasic, investigates the facts and fictions behind the French Paradox.

While alcohol has been used medicinally for centuries, the modern association between

seen in France is in fact due to wine consump-

alcohol and cardiovascular health is

tion, the next step then is to explain how low to

considerably more recent. A paper

moderate alcohol consumption may positively

in the British Medical Journal

influence health. Perhaps it is the alcohol itself

combined data from eighty-six prior

T

If one assumes that the decrease in cardiac events

that reduces heart disease and saves lives, though

studies investigating the associa-

data to support this theory is scant. Could there

tion between alcohol consumption

be other elements in wine that are beneficial?

and many types of cardiovascular

Leading candidates for consideration are resvera-

disease, coronary artery disease,

trol, procyanidins and polyphenols. Resveratrol

and stroke. Compared to non-drinkers,

is an anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory compound

alcohol drinkers had a 25% reduction in death

found in relatively high concentrations in red

from cardiovascular disease, a 29% reduction in

wine, and derived from the skin of grapes. In the

the occurrence of coronary artery disease, and no

prevention of cardiovascular disease, resveratrol

he idea that wine has miraculous

significant difference between groups in the oc-

is believed to decrease the oxidation of low-

health benefits is common cocktail party

currence of having or dying from a stroke. More-

density lipoprotein (LDL or bad) cholesterol and

banter. “A toast to our health,” someone will

over, the lowest risk of dying from

inhibit the aggregation of platelets. In cardiology

say, raising a glass of wine. “Really, my

coronary artery disease was observed

speak, both are very good things for your heart.

cardiologist says that wine is good for the

in those who had one to two alcoholic

heart.” What is being referred to here is the

drinks daily. Moderate alcohol consumption, it

There is also developing data on resveratrol as a

epidemiologic phenomenon known as the

seemed, really was good for us.

contributor to longevity and its use in the treat-

French Paradox, the observation that the

ment and prevention of cancers, diabetes and

French—lovers of cheese, butter, pork and

But don’t go trading in your gym membership

Alzheimer’s disease. In one study from 2003,

cigarettes—have lower rates of cardiovascular

for a wine-of-the-month club just yet. For those

resveratrol appeared to increase the life span of

disease than other countries with seemingly

that wonder if a little alcohol is good, perhaps

yeast cells by 70%. Alas, it was the life span of

healthier diets and lifestyles. For example,

more is better, multiple studies have also shown

lowly yeast cells and not of humans—a far cry

in one study, residents of Toulouse, France

an increase in death and hemorrhagic

from the fabled fountain of youth. It is also not

were shown to have an intake of cholesterol

clear that we can consume enough resveratrol from red wine to achieve the potential health

“ …don’t go trading your gym membership for a wine-of-the-month club just yet…”

benefits seen in almost exclusively non-human experiments. How much wine would we need to consume? One thousand liters of red wine per day is the requisite amount, far too much for

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even the most voracious oenophile.

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and saturated fat much higher than among

stroke (bleeding in the brain) with heavy

The other compounds to consider are

residents of the United States, and more akin

alcohol consumption. Likewise, heavy

Procyanidins, anti-oxidant agents found

to levels seen in Belfast, Scotland. However,

drinking has been linked to high blood

in tannins. Present in higher concentra-

coronary heart disease mortality in Toulouse

pressure, fatty liver and cirrhosis, and weight

tions in some French red wines than in other

was 1/3 to 1/6 of that in Belfast. And it’s all

gain. Not to mention more bad decisions that

wines, they are potentially linked to improved

because of wine, or so the French Paradox

seemed like good ones at the time. Given these

cardiovascular outcomes. Possible benefits in-

goes. Since the theory hit American audiences

issues, before any physician widely recommends

clude improved health of the blood vessel lining,

by way of a “60 Minutes” episode in 1991, US

alcohol as medicine, the French Paradox needs to

decreased oxidation of good and bad choles-

wine sales soared and everyone wants to know

emerge as a bit less paradoxical and considerably

terol, and reduced blood pressure among others.

if we can really find good heart health in a

more grounded in scientific fact.

Whether procyanidins represent a link to the

glass. So what are the facts behind the French Paradox?

success of the French lifestyle is as yet unproven.

Dr. Joseph Garasic exploring the effects of wine on heart

While it is possible that moderate consumption of alcohol is the key to longevity and cardiovascular health, it is as likely that some other trait common to French culture is more in play. When Americans visit France, for example, many are highly impressed by the plentiful cheeses, breads and rich meals. However, eating like an American visiting France is not the same as eating a diet typically consumed by a French national. Reported rates of obesity are considerably lower in France than in the United States. How can this be?

To begin, overall caloric intake and portion size are both lower in France. The French generally eat three meals per day and do not snack between meals. Not only do Americans tend to snack between meals but those snacks are often high in fat (particularly trans-fats), low in nutrition and have a high refined sugar content. So, it is possible that while we draw attention to the high fat intake in the French diet, some would argue that the French diet contains naturally occurring fat from butter and cream and that these types of non-trans, non-hydrogenated fats are easier for the body to break down. Thus, other aspects of the French diet may be much healthier than the American diet and may play a substantial role in the apparent French Paradox, when in fact there is no paradox at all. Rather, the French of generally healthier food, thus protecting themselves against cardiovascular disease.

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experience is characterized by people eating smaller amounts

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n the end, the French Paradox and the potential cardiovascular benefits of

wine and moderate alcohol consumption will likely continue to be an intriguing hypothesis, supported by a large volume of populationbased observational research, but lacking the Holy Grail of medical proof. To definitively answer the question at hand, a randomized study would be necessary wherein half of the study subjects drank wine moderately and half of the subjects did not. Cardiovascular event rates and mortality would then be compared in each group after a period of follow up. Such a study would require a large number of subjects, would be costly to undertake, and may require a long period of follow up. As a result, there is no prospective, randomized human data available to us in clarifying the veracity of the French Paradox, nor any on the immediate horizon. Thus, doctors will continue to grapple with whether or not to encourage alcohol consumption among their patients, not knowing for certain that the science supporting the paradox is as

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ironclad as we would like. The reason then to

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drink wine is for love of the romance, history and collegiality it brings. And maybe, just maybe, it is good for you as well.

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The

British are coming! to galley beach

In what has become a Wine Festival tradition, festivalgoers will pour out of the White Elephant and head down to Galley Beach for “The After Gala Party,” except this year, a new Executive Chef will be there to greet them.

Chef Neil Ferguson takes over Galley Beach’s kitchen this spring, bringing with him a culinary flare he’s cultivated from his native London to Paris to New York City. Before coming to Nantucket in 2010, Ferguson worked in Michelin starred restaurants with such culinary greats as Gordon Ramsay. In Manhattan, he was the Executive Chef at Gordon Ramasay at the London, ran Allen and Delancey on the Lower East Side, and was the Executive Chef of Soho House New York.

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N Magazine recently caught up with Chef Ferguson to see what he has cooking for the 2013 season.

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NQUIRY

N magazine Photography by Nathan Coe

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N Magazine: How did you end up at Galley Beach?

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Chef Ferguson: Shortly after moving to Nantucket, I was introduced to Galley Beach owner David Silva through a mutual friend at Nantucket New School, where both our sons go, and we spoke about my plans to

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I was needed.

open a restaurant. We got on well from the outset and have been looking at various properties since that time, with a view to opening a place together. This is something we still fully intend to do. I have been working lunches in the kitchen at Galley Beach the last two seasons, cooking the previous menu, helping out wherever

N Magazine: Will the menu be changing at Galley Beach?

Chef Ferguson: The style of food is still going to be based upon as much locally caught or grown food as I’m confident people will be happy with the new menu. We are developing an interesting menu for the bar, some really good bites there, and the dessert menu is getting a complete overhaul.

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possible, but there will be a significant change of style, which is normal when a property has a change of chef.

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are open year-round. You have to be realistic about the market you’re in and cook food that people want to eat. We have some seriously talented people here cooking great food and providing really welcoming, friendly service.

That’s what people want. They come here to relax and enjoy themselves. Looking at the size of the town and the island and the number of restaurants we have open during the summer, Nantucket is comparable with any country town in France.

N Magazine: Great Britain sometimes gets a bad wrap for its food. What would you say to naysayers? It’s not all fish ‘n’ chips and blood pudding, right?

Chef Ferguson: I think thirty years ago food in Great Britain was mediocre in general. The cooking and service industry had a stigma attached to it. People looked down their noses at you if you said you cooked or waited tables for a living—it was a little “Downton Abbey,” with the haves and have-nots. We weren’t a N Magazine: How would you describe your cooking style?

Chef Ferguson: The simplest way to describe my food is good, tasty cooking, elevating the natural flavors of the products. I’m not a big fan of over working ingredients or masking them with heavy, overpowering sauces and dressings. I’ve been fortunate to work with some incredibly talented chefs, running truly great restaurants in Europe.

N Magazine: What was it like cooking with Gordon Ramsay? Is he as ferocious as he is portrayed on television?

Chef Ferguson: I had a great time cooking with Gordon. I was lucky enough to cook

culture where life revolved around the table like it does in France, Italy, Spain, Japan, et cetera. It was a case of eat-to-live, not live-to-eat.

When we did go out for dinner, we didn’t have easy access to good, middle-of-the-road restaurants. Luckily that has all changed. We’ve had some very influential chefs and restaurateurs forge a blazing path to where we are now, with London leading the way. I think the UK holds its own with the best of them.

shoulder-to-shoulder with him back in 1995, eighteen hours a day, for almost three years. He’s an incredible technician with the highest standards. There is only a

N Magazine: Do you have any distinctly Brit-

handful of people who had that exposure, and I feel privileged to have been one of

ish dishes in mind for the Galley’s menu?

those people.

N Magazine: Describe your quintessential spring dinner.

Chef Ferguson: We are developing the bar menu this season and I certainly see a place in there for some British influence, some cracking

Chef Ferguson: Spring is a favorite season because you still have super sweet root

little bits and bobs. One favorite is “devils on

vegetables available and the first peas, favas and asparagus of the season. My ideal

horseback,” a piece of pickled pear, wrapped

dinner would be an elegant shellfish and spring vegetable salad to begin, spring lamb

in tea-soaked prune, wrapped in applewood

for a main course, simply roasted with rosemary, thyme and garlic served with a root

bacon, under the grill until golden. A really

vegetable casserole and something like an apricot clafoutis for dessert. Wine-wise, I

tasty mouthful of food…sharpness, sweetness

would match that with a decent Premier cru Chablis, a Gevrey Chambertin to accom-

and bacon, in one bite!

pany the lamb and a fragrant Viognier for dessert.

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N Magazine: Sounds delicious. See you

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N Magazine: You’ve mixed it up all over the world. How does the Nantucket culinary scene stack up to places like France and New York City?

Chef Ferguson: I think Nantucket holds its own nicely. Major cities are always going to have a broader range of choices and styles just by sheer volume and because they

at seven?

Chef Ferguson: Better yet, see me at Galley Beach.

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Foggysheet

Children’s House Game Night

nantucket

Tom Lennon, Cathy Lennon & Steve Roethke

Shannon Bell, Suzanne Forsyth & Lisa Wisentaner

Eugene Shubin, Olga Shubin, Ana Young & Chris Young

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Rich Perry, Jen Perry, Jen Cohen, Laura Tedechi & Amy Vaites

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Brian Sullivan, Tess Anderson, Michael Holdgate, Dawn Holdgate Photos by BRIAN SAGER

Stacey Williams, Jennifer Hashem, Lisa Wisentaner & Julia Linder

Mickey Perry & Orla LaScola

Greg McKechnie & Courtney McKechnie

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Megan Dubois, Jon Alden

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Nantucket’s

Nha

Believe

it or Not! Written by Sarah Parks, Betsy Tyler & Ben Simons

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We don’t know the origins of some Nantucket legends. Occasionally,

In August of that year, fishermen in Gloucester, Massachusetts,

though, the stories we think we know can be traced even further back

reported multiple sightings of “an unusual fish or serpent” in the

in time, adding context and color that may change our understand-

harbor. The Linnaean Society of New England, a Boston- based

ing. For example, some Nantucketers remember the summer that

natural-history organization, investigated the Gloucester reports and

Tony Sarg’s sea serpent visited the island. In fact, you may have read

concluded that a new marine species had been discovered. Efforts

about it last November in this very magazine (“The Macy’s Day

to capture the serpent were unsuccessful, but speculation about the

Parade Began on Nantucket”). What many people probably don’t

beast flourished in newspapers around the country. In this context,

realize is that the first report of a serpent near the island came more

Francis Joy’s claim becomes one in a series of similar events rather

than a century before Tony Sarg.

than an isolated occurrence.

One morning in September 1821, Francis Joy Jr. was in the tower

Nantucketers, whether or not they believed Joy, were able to profit

of the South Church with a spyglass, looking for vessels off the

from the extended sea serpent mania. Over a decade later, in 1833,

south shore. Instead of a ship, he saw a hundred-foot-long sea

the Nantucket whaling sloop Fame was chartered to hunt the serpent

serpent, about as large around as a barrel. Joy swore before the

off Nahant, north of Boston. Who better to seek out a massive,

Justice of the Peace that he had watched the serpent for about an

unknown sea creature than the legendary whalemen of Nantucket?

hour. Unfortunately, no one else had seen the beast. Francis Joy’s

The Fame returned to Nantucket less than a month later, having

encounter with the sea serpent was one of dozens that occurred

found only a species of porpoise. The Inquirer declared that the

along the New England coast beginning in the summer of 1817.

failed search ended “all our faith—every particle—in the existence of any creature whatever, bearing the least similitude to the alleged ‘sea serpent,’ so often dreamed of and described by credulous visionaries and fabulists.” Still, rumors of the serpent persisted.

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Images Courtesy of the NHA

n Daffodil Weekend, the Nantucket Historical Association opens Nantucket Legends: Foggy Facts and Fictions, a new exhibit at the Whaling Museum exploring familiar and forgotten tales. Here’s a glimpse into what you might find.

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t he Nantucket Coffee Connection

Although the name Starbuck is an old one on Nantucket, it was not a Nantucketer who founded that coffee company in 1971, but two teachers and a writer living in Seattle, Washington. They chose the name from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, specifically Ahab’s fictional first mate, Starbuck. So there is an indirect Starbuck association with Nantucket, but no real connection.

Nathaniel Currier, California Gold, 1849, courtesy of Oakland Museum of California Founders Fund

Folger’s Coffee is a different story, however. In 1849, three Folger brothers headed to the gold fields of California to try their luck. James, at fourteen, was the youngest of three. His older brothers Henry, sixteen, and Edward, twenty, left him in San Francisco while they headed into the Sierras looking for a fortune, but it was James who struck it rich. He found a job working with William H. Bovee, who had established a coffee roasting business and needed a skilled carpenter to build a mill for grinding coffee for his new enterprise, The Pioneer Steam Coffee and Spice Mills. Although a teenager, Folger was adept with a hammer and was hired for the job. Soon he was a business partner of Bovee in the Pioneer Coffee Company, traveling to the mining camps with coffee in cans, a new packaging method for a new product: roasted, ground coffee. No longer would the men in the gold fields have to undertake the laborious process of roasting their own coffee beans and grinding them in a hand-grinder.

By the age of twenty-four, Folger was a full partner with Bovee. Although there were changes in partnership and a period of bankruptcy following the Civil War, Folger turned the company around and became the sole owner in the 1870s of what was renamed J. A. Folger & Co. Folger maintained his east coast connections, occasionally visiting Nantucket in the N magazine

summer. In 1887, he and his family purchased the elegant Greek revival house at One Pleasant

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Street as their summer home, but James died two years later, at the age of fifty-four. His eldest son James A. Folger II took over the coffee business, and when he died in 1921, his younger brother Ernest took the helm, followed by James A. Folger III. In 1963, after three generations of Folger ownership and management, the company was acquired by Procter & Gamble.

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Attoos and Trademarks

Tattoos were popular with European sailors from the fifteenth century on when contact with the East Indies began. American sailors, Nantucket whalemen among them, had their bodies tattooed as marks of their profession. Around the turn of the nineteenth century, as many as one out of five American mariners had tattoos. Among the whalemen, the percentages may have been even higher. One of the most famous trademark symbols in the world—R. H. Macy’s red star—may be derived from a tattoo that the store’s founder, Nantucketer Rowland Hussey Macy (1822–77), received on a whaling voyage.

Like most Nantucket boys, Macy went whaling at an early age. He shipped on the New Bedford whaler Emily Morgan at fifteen. Bound for the Pacific, the Emily Morgan called at Pernambuco on the coast of Brazil. According to one source, it was here that Macy decided to have a red star tattooed on the back of his hand.

Another source tells a more dramatic tale: “The story is that once while at the helm of his ship in a dense fog, a great red star [perhaps Aldebaran] shone through a rift in the gray curtain, and guided by the star, young Macy was able to steer the ship into port; that incident was said to be the origin of the red star, the trademark of the R. H. Macy store.” It seems unlikely that greenhand Macy would have been charged to “steer the ship into port,” but nevertheless his business partners later vouched that one of his hands did indeed bore a red star tattoo. It was even said that he regretted the decision, and he would often hide it.

The Emily Morgan returned to its homeport of New Bedford in 1841.

The next year, Macy gave up whaling forever to apprentice in a printer’s shop. It has been suggested that, if the tattoo source is a legend, Macy may have first spotted the star there as a typesetter’s stock image, or perhaps later among the newspaper offices where he advertised. After a failed stint in California during the Gold Rush, Macy returned east and began his successful journey in retail in Haverhill, Massachusetts. He began to use the image of the red star in advertisements for R. H. Macy’s by 1862, and the rest is retail history.

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Rowland Hussey Macy

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Small Friends WoodstACK

Foggysheet nantucket

Amanda Furtado & Lisa Cranston

Stephanie Grant, Kim LaRup & Kerith Harrison

Joanne McAveety, Ed Sullivan & Polia Ivanovn

Katharine Laffey, Lisa DiLuca, Sarah Lanctot, Jen Dunbar & Rob Dunbar

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Kristen Dussault & Rachel Sullivan

Allison Johnson & Alexa Johnson

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John Cranston & Fred Tilton Photos by BRIAN SAGER

Christy Potter & Kerry Tilton

Variety Sideshow

Dani Henke

Travis Richard, Randy Hudson & John Jordan

Mark Avery

Ingrid Feeney

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Beth Moyer

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Nuptials Featured Wedding

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Are you ready to toast the 17th annual Nantucket Wine Festival?

Holly Finigan of the Nantucket blACKbook gives ladies the inside track on what to wear, where to go & who to see this Wine Fest!

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INTAGE STYLE

The Wine Fest events are the talk of the town, so you’ll want to make sure to dress for wining and dining success! The ever so chic Beth English, owner of the lifestyle boutique currentVintage, gave an exclusive what-to-wear guide for three haute NWF events!

What to wear to THE GALA: Three letters: L.B.D. The Little Black Dress is your secret weapon here! Think of it as stealth dressing to hide any signs of splashing or spillage!

What to wear to the GRAND TASTING: Comfort is key, but you can still be stylish! Beth says a boho maxi, preferably in an “of the moment floral” with a wrap sweater and wedge heel is ideal for fashion and comfort.

What to wear to the BUBBLES + BEER BEACH PARTY: Dress warmly! A fisherman sweater, with genetic denim jeans and campus boots are chic and cozy for a lazy May afternoon at Galley Beach.

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erfect pairing

Dress up your Wine Fest look with hot Nantucket accessories! Celebrity loved jewelry designer JESSICA HICKS moved her store to 2 Union Street, and this season is all about adding brights to bling. Using colorful stones to accent her fine metal pieces, we love her new long crescent champagne diamond earrings!

And the excitement on Centre Street is the Addison Craig expansion!

Celebrating their fifth year as a staple for stellar shoes and beautiful bags, Addison Craig doubled their inventory!

Check out their exclusive “SEE” by Chloe handbags and make sure your feet are fashion-forward and comfortable during these full Wine Fest days with collections from Tory Burch and new favorite Giuseppe Zanotti!

EAUTY BLEND Afternoons filled with gabbing and get-togethers, and you’re going to want to make sure you look your best from that first sip to last call. blACKbook caught up with Lizzie Wiggin, owner of Beauty by the Sea, to get the goods on looking great. Keep your lips looking luscious by primping first with lip balm, followed by lip liner filling in your pout with the color as well.

This will create a base to last throughout the day. Finish with a swipe of gloss, and reapply when necessary. Maintain your skin’s moisture with Tata Harper’s “Floral Essence Moisturizing Spray” which keeps your face looking fresh all day long. Continue your look from day to night with a Kevyn Aucoin cream blush to add a pretty pop to both lips and cheeks, and an eye brightener that doubles as a concealer can do wonders helping you look awake!

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ine & Dine

Book a few nights out at some of Nantucket’s finest restaurants as they collaborate with winemakers to create delicious wine dinners. GALLEY BEACH + PETER MICHAELS: Not only is this the first restaurant dinner to kick of the 2013 Wine Festival, but also Galley Beach’s Michelin starred Executive Chef Neil Ferguson’s first special event! It is also the first time in over a decade that Peter Michaels has had an event on Nantucket. CRU + CAIN: Celebrate with the Cru crew as they toast their one-year anniversary with this intimate dinner featuring Cain Vineyard. Highlight? The Mediterranean seaside influenced cuisine from Chef Erin Zircher, accompanied by the hugely buzzed Cain Five! DUNE + PRIDE MOUNTAIN: A five course meal from chef Michael Getter paired with Pride’s big, bold, full bodied reds and even a few surprise bottles that aren’t even on the market yet.

Photography by Kit Noble

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