Man oh man do I  love Martha’s Vineyard. As a kid we sometimes summered there and were allowed to run free, unsupervised, walking and cycling all over the island. Our friends the Blancos, are spending the week there and we visited them today. They are staying in an incredible house in Chilmark built in 1965 and designed by Eliot Noyes. The house is almost exactly the same as it was when featured in Life Magazine in 1965. Fond memories, good friends, rad 60’s modern architecture and excellent seafood made for a delightful time all around.

We had raw oysters in Menemsha in the evening and picked up some Vineyard Sole to cook at home. Because I had such great luck cooking black sole the Adriatic way in Ireland, I did the same with the Vineyard Sole with equally good results. Anna made a delicious salad with cucumbers, peppers, carrots, capers and a lemony dressing and we had some fresh corn and leftover pasta on the side. It was perfect.

• Vineyard Sole cooked the Adriatic Way (Panko Variation) •
5 medium filets (approx 1.5lbs)  of Vineyard (or other) sole
3 cups of panko bread crumbs
juice of 3 lemons
3/4 cup olive oil
1-2 tsp salt

Mix panko, lemon juice, olive oil and salt to combine. Taste for seasoning, add more salt if desired. Preheat broiler. Lay sole filets on a baking sheet and thoroughly cover tops of filets with panko mixture. Let sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. Broil for 5-7 minutes until cooked through and bread crumbs are lightly browned. If your broiler is very hot, you might find that the crumbs get brown before the fish is done. In this case, remove from broiler, turn the oven to 500 and bake until fish is cooked through. Enjoy.

Note: We’ve used other white fish for this, flounder works well as do other types of sole. My mom uses this recipe for Cod, but I haven’t had luck with it (see here & here).

Usually when we have fish on Cape Cod it’s because someone caught it. Tonight we had salmon from Stop & Shop. I cooked it in parchment using this really quick and easy recipe again. All agreed that it was delicious. See this post for my notes on how I made it without using twine.

Anna made the yummy kale salad that it seems only she can make properly. I don’t know why it didn’t come out well when I made it. Anna says her trick is to be heavy handed with the olive oil, salt and cheese and to really massage the kale well.

Our tiny group was made slightly less tiny by the addition of half of the Drew’s family tonight. Drew brought a mix of homegrown broccolini and broccoli rabe which he sauteed with garlic. He also brought a couple of pints of Talenti gelato for dessert. If you haven’t tried it yet, you really should (just please be sure to re-use that hefty plastic container it comes in).

We had an intimate Cape dinner last night, just five of us. I had lots of tomatoes from my csa box and decided to make that delicious  Pasta With Tomato and Ginger Salsa and Creme Fraiche again. My family agreed that the dish can use a lot more fresh ginger than the recipe calls for.

• Rita’s Signature Salad, Blueberries & Orange Version •
Make a batch of  Rita’s Dressing with orange juice and zest, instead of lemon. Make the dressing in the salad bowl and then add all of the ingredients that can safely sit in the dressing, in this case, blueberries and fresh herbs. Put the leafy greens and anything that can’t sit in the dressing without getting soggy, on top and then leave it alone. Toss just before eating. When the time comes to toss the salad, Rita will tell you that you need to “mix it, really, really mix it.” It’s a great way to bring salad to a friend’s house, all in one bowl, without having to put the dressing in a bottle or jar.