The Sidebar: The Water Tasting, Simply Tomato, Summer Reading List, Beauty Buzz
Plus: Tomato-Peach Salad with Lime Ginger Dressing from Martha Holmberg’s new cookbook
1. Raising a Glass of Limeade (and A Cup of Ice Cream) to Sobriety
It’s fundraiser season on the Vineyard. Big tents, glorious buffets, auctions, raffles, speeches, special guest entertainers. Fancy summer dresses and sandals with heels that sink into the squishy grass. Booze. Sure, there’s all that. At least, I think there is – I’m rarely at these fundraisers. Except for one. Where there isn’t any booze at all, only…water.
The Water Tasting By the Sea is the annual fundraiser for the Vineyard House, the only sober living facility on the Island. The Vineyard House is an amazing place, with a house for men and a house for women on a small campus in Vineyard Haven that includes a community room for 12-step meetings, a family visiting area, and a patio for sober events like barbecues and potlucks. (Full disclosure: I served on the Vineyard House board for three years.)
The facility is nice, but the experience of living in a safe, sober, affordable, environment – for up to a year or even more – is life changing. If you’re not familiar with what a sober house is, let me explain. It’s not a detox or a rehab; this is a subsidized place to live (you are required to have a job or find some kind of work in order to be eligible) during that wonky time in early sobriety when you could very easily be tempted to go back to old habits if you return to the environment – and the cohort – you were in before getting sober.
On Thursday night, my husband and I went to this year’s Water Tasting, held at the estate of Richard L. Friedman on a bluff that overlooks Oyster Pond – an incredibly beautiful spot. It was a hot evening but a stiff sea breeze had come in to move the air around, and more than 200 people gathered under the tent and out on the lawn, wandering down to the edge of the bluff to watch the sinking sun sparkling on the pond.
There was a water bar, of course, and servers passed around trays of fancy raspberry limeade. My husband headed right for the mini lobster rolls and pulled pork sliders, but I’m never really one for buffet food so I drifted over to the Mad Martha’s ice cream truck and stood in a short line with lots of familiar faces to get a cup of Mud Pie. (Ice cream for dinner, like a good alcoholic!)
In line in front of me and in back of me and all around me were sober people I know from every corner of the Vineyard: a dentist and a psychiatrist, a chef and a baker, a landscaper and a gardener, a teacher, a house painter, a clothing shop owner, a lawyer, an accountant, a real estate broker, a nurse, a carpenter, a fisherman, a bar owner, an actress, a musician, and at least a handful of people who were in the rooms with me when I first arrived on the Island in 2008 – and still are.
When I run into these people in the grocery store, and we ask each other the obligatory ‘how are you?’ we actually mean it. And we answer each other honestly, comforted by the fact that we don’t have to pretend that everything’s hunky-dory all the time. It is enormously uplifting to bump into a sober pal during your daily routine. It’s part of the safety net.
As I was leaning over to say hello to someone who I know is in early sobriety, a ripple of quiet moved through the crowd as the first speaker took the podium. It’s a tradition at the Water Tasting to hear from both a sober man and a sober woman about their experience living in “the sober house,” as the Vineyard House is familiarly referred to on the Island. (It had humble beginnings as one actual house; the new campus was built in 2015.)
The first speaker stood up with his son by his side and talked about the father he’s become in his ten years of sobriety, and how the relationships he built and the skills he learned at Vineyard House helped him to ultimately be a better father and partner. His young son beamed. He went on to talk about the culture of hanging with a bunch of sober guys at the house, cooking together, playing games, watching TV, going to lots of meetings, working, staying healthy, helping and supporting each other.
His enthusiasm was palpable, and it got me thinking about the early days of my sobriety, when I didn’t have the benefit of rehab or a sober living space, but I did go to so many meetings that I soon had a support network of women who very definitely kept me from going crazy. If I had not had daily contact with those people, I probably would have relapsed.
When the next speaker came to the podium and began to tell her story, one of the first things she said was this: “The opposite of addiction is connection.” It’s so true! Our disease is one that wants to isolate us. It’s why Bill Wilson and the creators of the 12-step literature used “we” instead of “I,” starting with step one:
“We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and our lives had become unmanageable.”
Because we don’t get sober alone; it only works by working with other people. The Water Tasting was a manifestation of the power of connection.
By the time the last speaker – a very grateful and moving parent of a past Vineyard House resident — had spoken, it was time for us to make a beeline for home. My husband had tears in his eyes (he’s a softie), and I had that great feeling of being “part of” something bigger than myself. I was reminded, too, that I’m grateful for my sober connections on the Island, but they could always be stronger. I think I’ll go to the sober beach barbecue happening weekend after next!
2. Beauty Break
FYI, I’ve been on a beauty buzz for the last week.
The dahlias that I’ve so painstakingly nurtured since March are beginning to share some rather stunning blooms. The sweet peas are coming back from the brink of aphid destruction.
The zinnias are soaring, the cosmos are in full Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies mode, A frenzy of feathery love-in-a-mists popped up practically overnight. The snapdragons apparently are going to keep snapping right through the summer.
Last night I arranged some of each in my collection of little glass bottles. I lined them up on our outdoor dining table and then shuffled the bottles around like playing pieces, constantly rearranging to see what looked best – In a line? Grouped together? Clusters of three? I am easily amused, people, but you know this stuff is pure joy for me.
3. The Summer Reading List and the Martha’s Vineyard Book Festival
Speaking of tents, The 2023 Martha’s Vineyard Book Festival happens next weekend. I always look forward to it; I’ve had the good fortune to participate in it as an author, a panelist, and an author interviewer, but most years I’m just an avid reader looking to hear and see a great author in person. No matter how busy I am with work, I make time to get up to Chilmark and grab a seat under one of the tents for at least one or two of the panels and a few of the author interviews. The festival is free.
This year Tracy Kidder, Jeannette Walls, and Elizabeth Alexander were on the top of my list. I say “were” because sadly I just heard Tracy Kidder is not going to be able to travel to the Island. In his place, though, Dr. Jim O’Connell, the subject of Kidder’s latest book, Rough Sleepers, will speak. Rough Sleepers is the account of how Dr. O’Connell made it his life’s work to administer to the unhoused population of Boston. Kidder spent five years following him on and off the streets of Boston. I have Rough Sleepers right here at my feet, waiting to be picked up after I finish my birthday present: two-time Pulitzer winner Colson Whitehead’s new book, Crook Manifesto. (So good.) I am sorry to miss Kidder though, as he is the author of one of my all-time favorite nonfiction books, Mountains Beyond Mountains, about the extraordinary Dr. Paul Farmer.
And since my list of all-time favorite memoirs includes Jeannette Walls’ best-selling book The Glass Castle, I’m looking forward to hearing her and reading her new novel, Hang the Moon.
I read Elizabeth Alexander’s original essay in The New Yorker that she expanded on for The Trayvon Generation. Alexander is a poet and I find her writing to be beautiful and thoughtful. (Her memoir The Light of the World is outstanding.) I’m looking forward to hearing her and buying the book at the festival.
And if per chance you are going to be on the Island next weekend and can make it up to the festival, you will also want to catch my colleague Bill Eville talk about his new book, Washed Ashore, which is truly a gift to good writing and storytelling. Get a copy even if you’ve never been to MV!
Whether you’re on or off the Island, I have another list of book recommendations for you to enjoy in August. I checked in with some book experts for a summer reading feature I wrote for The Vine, and you’ll find a collection of gems there, including James McBride’s The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store (I loved Deacon King Kong) and Ilyan Woo’s Master Slave Husband Wife (way up on my list). And one more recommendation from me for a book by an author who’s also a seasonal Vineyard visitor: Richard Russo’s latest, Somebody’s Fool.
That should keep you turning the pages for a while.
4. Summer Eating to Go With Your Summer Reading: A New Cookbook
Those of you who are subscribers to my work newsletter, Cook the Vineyard, got a treat this week with a recipe excerpt (BLT Salad with Creamy Salad Dressing) from my friend and colleague Martha Holmberg’s new cookbook, Simply Tomato: 100 recipes For Enjoying Your Favorite Ingredient All Year Long. But I didn’t want all of you over here at Sixburnersue – many of whom have followed both Martha and me since our days at Fine Cooking magazine – to miss out on the tip-off about this timely new book. It’s gorgeous (Ellen Silverman photos), accessible, and filled with Martha’s trademark flavorful recipes that always make you feel like you want to make every single one. So I asked Martha’s publisher, Artisan Books, for a second recipe excerpt for Sixburnersue, and voila, Tomato Peach Salad with Lime-Ginger Dressing. Be sure to buy your copy of the book from an independent bookseller!
Tomato-Peach Salad with Lime-Ginger Dressing
By Martha Holmberg
The starting point for this salad is nuoc cham, a Vietnamese dipping sauce and dressing made with fish sauce, lime juice, and chiles, lightly sweetened with sugar. Part of what I find compelling about the flavor of tomatoes is the umami, that hard-to-describe savory quality that lies underneath the sweet and tangy flavor of a ripe tomato. And fish sauce is like umami in a bottle, so it’s a natural partner.
The salad is deceptive, as it’s very easy to make and doesn’t look super dramatic, but the flavors are mind-blowingly delicious. Of course, use the ripest peaches you can find so their sweetness contributes to the tension of the flavors.
Excerpted from Simply Tomato: 100 Recipes for Enjoying Your Favorite Ingredient All Year Long by Martha Holmberg (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2023. Photographs by Ellen Silverman.
Serves 3 or 4
· 1 tablespoon fish sauce, preferably Red Boat
· 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
· 1 tablespoon minced fresh hot chile, such as jalapeño or serrano
· 2 teaspoons minced shallot or onion
· 1 teaspoon sugar
· ½ teaspoon grated or very finely chopped fresh ginger
· 2 medium tomatoes (about ½ pound/225 g total), cored and cut into wedges
· 2 medium peaches or nectarines (about ½ pound/225 g total), cut into wedges (peel the peaches only if the skin seems super fuzzy)
· About ½ cup (15 g) lightly packed roughly chopped fresh herbs, such as cilantro, basil, and/or mint
1. In a small bowl, whisk together the fish sauce, lime juice, chile, shallot, sugar, and ginger. Let the dressing sit for at least 20 minutes, or up to 1 day (in the fridge if longer than 2 hours), to let the flavors develop.
2. Arrange the tomatoes and peaches on a platter or in a shallow bowl and drizzle the dressing all over. Top with the chopped herbs and serve right away.
Thank you, darling.
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