Marth's Vineyard!

Dawn and Alexis

As is Joe and my tradition, every year for his birthday, we spend some time on Martha's Vineyard at my parent's summer house.  This year was Joe's 30th birthday and we enjoyed a wonderful dinner at Edgartown's Harborview hotel.  It was delicious.  My parent's house is almost 100% solar and on a land reservation on Martha's Vineyard Chappaquiddick Island.  It is a retreat like no other.  While there Joe and I kayaked, read, cooked, clammed, fished and generally enjoyed ourselves for one week.

Living in New York City, sometimes it is a

Victor and Alexis

challenge to remember that we need our own time outside of the City enjoying all that nature has to offer.  Once again, this is more of a photo entry than a recipe entry, but there are some recipes from our vacation coming up in the next post.  For those of you who feel like you should work, work, work and save later - let's not forget that family and friends are the most important thing out there and that when we look back at our memories those are the ones that will stand out the most.

quick rinse off

Joe and Aquinnah fetched, swam, and generally goofed around together and hearing Joe's laughter echo around the bay made me feel happy and content.  It's so very easy to get wrapped up in our everyday stresses and forget how lucky we are and how short life is, cue sentimental music now.

cozy post dinner swaddle.

Whether it be a small dinner out (last night we went for burgers with our lovely neighbor and my college friend Adam Castaldo) or finally purchasing a plane ticket to Chicago to visit my amazing friends (Catherine and Ian Merritt) and meet their child Teddy, our memories are of experiences and our friends shape those; it's important to me for those experiences not to fall to the sidelines.

Anyway,  I will post some delicious recipes that Joe and I tried out while trying to use up all the fresh produce that would otherwise have spoiled... including: spinach dip; mango salsa; and a delicious pasta salad!

The Nourse Farm

The Nourse Farm in Westboro, Massachusetts holds loads of memories for me.  I grew up eating their berries and running in their fields encompassed by the beautiful farm land that is The Nourse Farm.  The Nourse family and the Colantonio family have had many adventure filled vacations - typically involving a well-loved farmhouse in New Hampshire and a week filled with blazing our own cross country ski trails, having water fights in the kitchen, building snow forts and going on horse drawn carriage rides after nights of ice skating.  But most of all my memories are filled with loads and loads of laughter.  Side splitting laughter and amazing support and love.  The Nourses are family to me and I love them all dearly, so when Joe and I were trying to find a place that was meaningful to us to take our engagement photos, the Nourse Farm seemed like the most natural place in the world for it.

Aquinnah and Lucy playing in the pond

Marsha's sesame chicken with dipping sauce

We had a delicious lunch that Marsha and Samantha planned at their house.  Before lunch, however, we walked a few steps out of the house and picked some black raspberries and red raspberries for the champagne that Joe and I brought... not only were we scouting out places for our engagement shots, but Marsha is our officiant and we went over our bare bones ceremony write-up.  Marsha took us on a walking tour of the farm - Joe had never been on an active working farm so he got to pick berries off bushes for the first time! A very exciting day.

Nourse Farm Black-Bottom Raspberry Pies

We took a leisurely walk around the farm stumbling on everything from fresh asparagus stalks, the most delicious strawberries, blueberries & raspberries (they have pick your own berries!!), horses, cows and a moment of sheer delight for both Aquinnah and Lucy when they got to go swimming in a pond shared by the farm's resident horses.   Pictured are the famous Black-Bottomed Raspberry Pies (homemade pies are sold at the store!) with some fresh whipped cream.  Delicious.

Joe's first time in a cow pasture!

I wanted to share with you some beautiful photos of landscape as well as food.  If you live in the area - I cannot recommend their berry picking more (also, they have fresh produce, local dairy and eggs, and the most AMAZING ice cream (also local) - I had two cones of the black raspberry.