♪ ♪ >> From the editors of Relish.com, we bring you Moveable Feast, with host Alex Thomopoulos.

>> ALEX THOMOPOULOS: We're in Martha's Vineyard, seven miles off the coast of Cape Cod, known by the indigenous tribes as Noepe-- land among the streams.

It's a rarefied slice of life here.

There are no chain restaurants or stores, but what they do have is fertile farmland and pristine waters.

Perfect to source ingredients for today's feast.

And we're lucky enough to be shown around the island by two chefs who grew up here and know it well-- James Beard Award-winning chef Chris Fischer and Michelin star chef Daniel Eddy.

First up, we're headed to Cottage City Oysters where we'll source sweet, succulent oysters that are uniquely grown in cold, deep ocean water.

And no trip to the Vineyard is complete without a stop at Larsen's Fish Market, where we'll source the freshest catch of the day.

And, finally, we're off to North Tabor Farms, an innovative small family farm that is famous for their produce and their greens.

>> You just point and I can harvest.

(mechanism whirring) >> ALEX: And what better way to cook up a succulent seafood feast than in a wood-fired oven on a beautiful farm with two of the country's best chefs?

It's happening today on Moveable Feast with Relish.

>> Coming up next on Moveable Feast with Relish.

>> Major funding provided by: >> Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please.

(gecko clears throat, feedback squeals) >> GEICO would like to take a moment to say thank you to our military service members at home and abroad for all their hard work and sacrifice.

We all sleep easier knowing you're out there keeping us safe.

And on a personal note... (jet engines roar, gecko's speech muffled) (crowd cheering) (exhales) Just needed to get that off my chest.

Thank you.

>> GEICO-- proudly supporting the military for over 75 years.

>> We can't just take from nature, so we collaborate.

Ocean Spray works with nature every day to farm in a sustainable way.

♪ ♪ >> Ocean Spray is a proud sponsor of Moveable Feast.

>> At Pure Leaf, the most important ingredient in making tea is saying no.

We're committed to saying no to artificial flavors and sweeteners in our brewed iced teas.

♪ ♪ >> I am Errico Auricchio, the founder of BelGioioso Cheese.

I came in 1979 from Italy with my family and the memory of Italian cheese.

>> La Panzanella, bakers of Italian-inspired crackers.

Simple ingredients... and non GMO.

♪ ♪ >> ALEX: Tell me a little bit about what it was like growing up here.

Chris, I know you lived here, but Daniel, I know that you came... you visited.

>> It was the best place to grow up really close to nature, connected to where your food's coming from.

You know, my dad was a lobsterman, fisherman, farmer.

So we ate really well-- and a hunter.

>> ALEX: Wow.

>> And every day was like an activity getting our meals.

>> ALEX: That's amazing.

>> Yeah, You get to know your food source, and you get to know, like, who you're supporting.

>> ALEX: Is this quintessential Martha's Vineyard?

>> Yeah.

>> ALEX: This type of morning-- foggy, people fishing.

>> It'd be more quintessential if they were catching fish, I think.

(laughter) But yeah, it's fall, and like most of the crowds are gone.

People are here to appreciate, you know, the bounty.

>> It's really like a return to nature, you know, especially in September and leading to October because you have this sort of vast amount of people that have left the island.

And then you just have this tranquility.

And you feel it so much from just the residents that are year-round.

They just kind of like can breathe again after like the chaos of July and August.

>> ALEX: Right, right, right.

>> Everybody that lives here has some sort of relationship to food.

You can hunt, you can fish, you can grow it, you can trade for it.

You know, mechanics trade an oil change for a couple dozen eggs.

>> And one of things that I've loved about Martha's Vineyard my whole life growing up, it's just a return to simplicity.

You can kind of forget what time we're living in right now.

That bartering, that old school return, and people embrace it and cherish it.

You know, I really hope that these traditions don't die off with the passage of time.

With such a tight-knit community, I really do think that that's gonna be, you know, a possibility for the next generation.

>> ALEX: And you guys met here on the island as kids.

>> Yeah, we grew up on the same street.

>> Yeah.

>> I think that most people spend their life trying to recreate their early food memories.

And so we were both blessed with this incredible pantry and bounty.

>> Yeah, we were really exposed to real food, real ingredients that came from right here.

It wasn't stuff that was packaged, and put on the shelf, and sold three, four months later.

It was eat it now, it's fresh, it's delicious.

>> ALEX: So what's available on the island right now that we could cook up for our feast?

>> I'm gonna cook with fennel, potatoes, leeks, some green tomatoes, some cilantro.

Dan, do you think the oysters on Martha's Vineyard are the best in the world?

>> Absolutely.

(both laughing) >> And Dan and Greg Martino, they do a good thing down at Cottage City.

I think we should go.

Are you scared of the ocean?

>> ALEX: Little bit.

♪ ♪ >> How's it going?

>> ALEX: How's it going?

What are you guys doing over here?

>> Sieving some oyster seed.

Picking out the big ones and then they're coming out to the farm.

These little guys are gonna go back into the nursery system.

>> How old are those?

>> These are about three months old.

After three years they'll be big enough to eat.

>> ALEX: And what would you say your flavor profile of your oyster is?

>> We're the only open ocean oyster farm in New England.

That means we have a very sandy bottom.

The flow of that open ocean leaves a really clean, crisp taste.

And you get that heavy brine up front.

The term is merroir versus terroir.

So wine is terroir.

We've kind of adopted that and created merroir.

>> Like wine, the same grape, you plant it in a different region and you get a different flavor.

Like the oyster, same species, you plant it in a different region, you get a different flavor.

>> You wanna go out to the farm?

>> ALEX: Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sure.

>> Awesome.

Let's go do it.

♪ ♪ >> All the little buoys are attached to a cage that's just sitting on the bottom.

It's held down by weight.

They weigh about 400 pounds each.

>> They're sitting on sand?

>> Yeah, which is, like 20 feet down.

That's the depth we're at about right now.

>> How many oysters per bed?

>> 1,200 to 1,500.

>> ALEX: Wow.

(whirring) Wow!

(whirring continues) How long have these specific oysters been in the water?

How many years?

>> We moved them out to the farm about two years ago from the nursery.

So, two-and-a-half years, pushing three years.

We don't really track them by age.

We track them by size.

>> ALEX: And how often do you come out and you hand... You said you hand-shape them?

>> Every time we handle the oyster, we're actually chipping them by hand or chipping them by dumping them on the table.

Why don't we get a bag here on the table.

>> ALEX: Wow.

>> See how they do.

The way it grows, so it started out those little babies right at the tip, and it fans out from that.

If you look at our oysters, that first inch there's thousands and thousands of micro fractures, and that's from the wave attenuation that we use in our nursery system.

That's just where they sit there all day and hit each other.

And you'll notice the fragile shell along the edge.

So every time that breaks, that's what's telling the oyster, "Oh, no, I need to get thicker."

We don't want a chef or a person to open the oyster and have that shell in the meat.

It needs to be a clean shuck.

>> One of things I love about oysters is like the textures that really come with it and like how you manipulate it, you can have, like, a wide range.

So, like the pickle versus the fresh versus like the oven roasted.

Like there's just this diversity you could get out of this one little thing, you know, that starts as the size of a grain of a sand, which I love.

>> ALEX: So we're gonna get these oysters cleaned up, and I think we're gonna go to Larsen's Seafood to get some fresh fish for the feast?

How do we...?

Homeward bound!

♪ ♪ >> So this is Larsen's.

This place is the best fish market.

♪ ♪ >> ALEX: So the fishermen, they come in with their boat... >> Right there.

>> ALEX: ...they drop off their catch, and they sell it right there.

>> Everybody that works here is a Larsen.

>> Scotty.

Hi, brother, how you doing?

>> Good.

How you doing?

>> Doing good.

>>Nice.

>> Ooey.

>> ALEX: That's amazing.

>> Nice fluke.

>> ALEX: I'm assuming you're a Larsen.

>> Yep.

>> ALEX: So you grew up in this business.

How have you seen the fish catch change?

>> Really notable is the striped bass population.

That's one thing that I really remember there being a lot more of than there are now.

I haven't seen a whole lot of in the last, you know, maybe five, eight years.

>> So these are from Denny?

>> Yep.

These are from Denny off the fishing vessel Little Lady.

The boat was built in 1929.

>> Wow.

>> No way.

>> ALEX: Wow.

Yep.

His grandfather ran it, and then his dad ran it, and now he's running it.

>> How long is fluke season?

>> Fluke season goes pretty much, mid-June-ish or so, all the way through the summer.

I love Vineyard sole, that's... >> ALEX: You just called this Vineyard sole?

>> Yep.

>> ALEX: Is that what it... it's just a different name for it?

>> Three I can think of right now.

It's Vineyard sole.

It's the best for the market, actually.

Fluke is also what it's called.

And it's also called summer flounder.

>> So the quality is not any different than anywhere else in the country besides the time from when it's caught to when it's brought to market.

Fishermen, dock, market.

It could be a matter of hours until somebody gets a fish.

>> ALEX: The rigor mortis of like this is how fresh it is.

>> So how many of these can I take?

Are you cool with me just go ahead and grabbing what we might need for tonight?

>> You could have at 'em.

Grab whatever you like.

>> Yeah.

>> ALEX: Amazing.

>> Do some cooking.

>> Thank you, brother.

That's gonna be a nice one.

>> ALEX: So why don't we weigh these up and then we're gonna head to North Tabor Farms?

>> I'm excited.

>> ALEX: Doesn't get fresher than this.

♪ ♪ >> North Tabor Farm, when did you guys come into fruition?

>> '94 we bought this place.

>> That was just you and Rebecca?

>> Yeah, just pre-kids, pre-field being here.

We built this to look old, sort of, but this was essentially a forest.

>> ALEX: And what do you grow here on the farm?

>> We try to figure out what the summer people wanted.

And we figured weekly renters that shop the farmer's market are not gonna be like cooking broccoli and all this stuff.

We figured they're gonna go to fish markets, they're gonna buy fish, and what goes with it?

You know, quick salad.

Tomatoes and cucumbers.

>> Yeah.

Yeah.

Exactly.

>> All these raw ingredients.

>> So we grow a host of everything.

♪ ♪ This time of year we've consolidated a lot of the growing to this little market garden right here.

>> Fennel is the other thing you guys wanted.

>> We're both gonna use fennel.

>> ALEX: So are you gonna roast your fennel or no?

>> I'm gonna do a gratin.

It's gonna go in raw, and it's just gonna get cooked in a puree of itself.

How many do you need?

>> ALEX: I'll probably need about three.

>> You can try, too, if you want to cut one.

>> ALEX: I would love to.

>> So you have the bulb, and then it's gonna have, like, a little tuber root at the end.

And so you're gonna go down, right there, you see that little root?

Yeah.

Perfect.

>> ALEX: Nailed it.

>> Nailed it.

>> This little market garden patch is so densely planted, how do you keep it so fertile?

>> We do top dress it with fertilizer, especially the lettuce.

About a week before we plant it we'll go through and do little lines of fertilizer.

>> So actually most of the organic matter in soil comes from the root exudates of these plants, right?

So, the more stuff you have growing on the land, the better.

>> Should we go harvest some salad greens?

>> ALEX: Yeah.

>> Yeah, let's walk over and you guys can see what's going on the other field.

♪ ♪ >> ALEX: All right, so what type of mustards do we have here?

>> So we have two different types in our traditional salad mix.

There's the green mustard, and then there's a red mustard.

And mostly we grow two different types just for color, and you want your salad mix to have like a nice variant of colors and textures.

>> ALEX: And how long does it take from seedling to harvest?

>> Three weeks almost on the nose.

>> Wow.

That's quick.

>> ALEX: Yeah, it's very quick.

I know I definitely want to use a variety of these mustard greens.

>> Yeah, of course.

>> ALEX: I think it will be really nice in a salad, maybe with some of that fennel that we picked.

Thinly slice that for some sweetness, >> You just point and I can harvest.

>> Yeah.

(mechanism whirring) >> ALEX: Wow.

>> Why are your greens better than other people's?

>> I think what makes ours special is a lot of these greens people are used to buying are being shipped from the large producers out of California or wherever they're coming from.

>> So it's like... >> Yeah, it's fresh stuff.

I mean this is, you know, we're picking it twice a week.

It's all fresh stuff.

>> ALEX: Good.

Well, I think we got everything ready for our feast, and should we go cook?

>> Sounds great.

>> Do it.

♪ ♪ >> ALEX: What are you making today?

>> A vegan gratin.

The idea is, instead of cream or butter, we're gonna substitute a vegetable puree.

So we're using leeks.

We have some fennel behind you that we harvested earlier.

Some potatoes.

And we're gonna basically prepare all of them raw, and put them aside, and then we're gonna make a puree out of our trimming.

So it's healthy, and it's... the idea is to be resourceful.

>> ALEX: So tell me a little bit about growing up on Martha's Vineyard.

How did you get into food?

How did you become a chef?

>> I got into food because for my family, part of the day was to gather our dinner.

I was just really blessed to have all these great ingredients right in front of me.

We'll do six leeks.

I just want to trim the tops of these, the ones that we don't want, and any of the yellow, we're gonna discard.

>> ALEX: You know, you hear all these very, uh... hip terms in the culinary world-- sustainable, composting, farm-to-table, seasonality-- but that's really how you grew up cooking.

>> Oh yeah, look at North Tabor Farm, it's like they got their chicken coop here.

They've got their greenhouse here growing tomatoes.

We have the horse pasture here, flowers.

To make a farm work as North Tabor does, you kind of have to, um, as you said earlier, I think use every inch of the property.

>> ALEX: Mm-hmm.

>> Somebody said that.

I didn't, but I'll take credit for it.

That's a good line.

♪ ♪ You started your culinary career on Martha's Vineyard, and then where did you go after that?

>> Well, I started my culinary education on Martha's Vineyard, growing up here, My first job in a restaurant was as a dishwasher because the dishwashers ate so much better than the cooks.

>> ALEX: I find that in the restaurant that I worked in... >> Yeah.

>> ALEX: Everybody takes care of the dishwasher.

♪ ♪ >> All right, so we're taking our scraps.

And we're gonna rinse them.

I'm gonna take these fennel and leek we'll boil it in salted water until it's tender, and then purée it.

>> ALEX: How did you come up with this idea of using a vegetable stock or a vegetable emulsion as a gratin sauce?

>> The first restaurant I worked in, they served scalloped potatoes.

And so I was just like mining ideas.

And it was, like, buttery and creamy and American and, like, not that good.

♪ ♪ >> ALEX: All right, >> All right, I'm happy with that.

>> ALEX: Perfect.

Well, our guests should be arriving soon, so let's get this in the oven.

>> Yep.

>> ALEX: And get cooking.

>> I'm gonna bring this to the oven.

>> ALEX: Okay, I'll see you later.

>> See you.

♪ ♪ >> ALEX: Hi.

>> How are you?

>> ALEX: I'm good-- what are we doing?

>> While you guys have been perusing the farm, I've been over here getting this next stop ready.

The fish that we picked up this morning at Larsen's... >> ALEX: Yes >> ...I've brought it here.

This is the fluke.

>> ALEX: Gorgeous.

>> I've gone ahead and taken some scissors and clipped over the fins around here.

It's allowed me to actually sneak in my thumbs and take out the skin-- it's like a very old-school French way.

It's a great way to keep it juicy and moist.

It demands a bit of technique and attention.

Ideally, like, you cook it, you let it rest, and then you can just sort of like, flake the filets aside.

So what we're gonna do now is we're gonna take some salt, we're gonna cure it.

Basically, it's gonna tighten up the skin a little bit, amplify the flavor, and we're gonna let it hang out for ten minutes so also it's even throughout.

Then we'll rinse it off and then we'll look to fire it up in the oven.

>> ALEX: You know, usually you don't want fish to be too tough, but I think with the cooking method, it's necessary.

>> Well, funny-- within this, it's like, also, partly, the fish is so fresh.

it's like tender, like this is something where it will be buttery and in that cooking process you want it just to have it retain some of its form.

The last touch, which will be the herb salad.

So, yeah, we got some chives, some curly parsley, some tarragon and some fennel fronds to sort of tie some of the dishes together, so yeah, if we just cut those batons, we'll have a nice little garnish-- it'll apply some freshness because the salsa we'll make is gonna be pretty rich, you know?

It's gonna be a lot of the contrast of the ocean, between the oysters and then the fish together-- so it's gonna be a little bit of fat on here.

And so we're gonna want the fresh herbs to really help to cut that and just sort of, like, mellow it out.

>> ALEX: I think that'll be a great accompaniment to the fish, to the gratin... >> Yeah.

>> ALEX: I think it'll be a nice meal.

>> It's gonna be a delicious meal.

>> ALEX: Okay, good, so you'll let this cure, you'll give it a rinse... >> Yeah, and, uh... >> ALEX: And I'll see you over at the wood fire grill, I'm gonna do my salad and I'll bring everything over.

>> Wonderful.

I'll take this.

>> ALEX: So the boys are getting their ingredients ready for the feast, and I'm gonna make a quick salad to go along with their beautiful dishes.

I've got some fennel here that we harvested from the garden.

It's so tender, I really just wanna let the vegetable kind of shine in this dish.

So I'm gonna take the fronds off.

I wanted to use the fennel raw.

I think that it will be a beautiful accompaniment to Dan and Chris's dishes.

They're both really fresh and bright, but they do have a lot of rich elements to it.

We've got the chickens back there that gave me some beautiful eggs that I'm gonna top this salad with.

Got some parsley, tarragon that I've finally chopped, Got some lemon and I'm gonna zest that as well-- I love using the zest as well as the juice.

So marinating the fennel is going to change the texture slightly.

It's gonna break it down very, very gently.

And now we build the vinaigrette I'm going to start with a little bit of Dijon mustard.

This is gonna help emulsify the dressing as well as impart a ton of flavor.

Then I've got one shallot, diced up fine, some black pepper, a little bit of salt, some champagne vinegar, and one of my favorite foods on the planet, anchovies.

Now, before you go, "Ew, anchovies!"

Grow up!

They're delicious.

They don't taste fishy at all.

They offer just this really beautiful backbone of flavor.

Gonna add that to the vinaigrette, some olive oil...

There you have it, you have a beautiful... champagne shallot anchovy vinaigrette.

And then I've got these beautiful eggs.

I cook these eggs for just under eight minutes.

You get this half cooked, jammy texture.

And then I'm gonna bring this cheese over.

It's really sharp and nutty and a little bit sweet.

It's gonna be amazing on this salad.

So I'm gonna bring everything over to the wood fire oven and let's get this feast started.

♪ ♪ What's going on, chef?

>> We got, uh, these shallots and garlic that we've been... >> ALEX: Wow!

>> ...Cooking in the oven for a little bit of time now.

>> ALEX: Stunning.

>> You can see that they've gotten a bit of caramelization, it's nicely melted.

We're gonna put that in that bowl over there, and they we're gonna kinda, like, mash it up.

This is gonna go into the vinaigrette that we're gonna make for the fish.

And so, while we actually have this open, we're gonna come into here, and we're gonna... >> ALEX: That's hot, >> Dive into the fire... >> ALEX: Do you want a mitt?

>> Nah, it's okay.

Yeah, so we have these great skillets.

We'll take a little bit of olive oil, give it a little kiss over here, then we're gonna actually just put the fish on there.

And we're gonna kind of... >> ALEX: Those are smoking hot.

>> Smoking hot.

Get this other one in here.

(sizzling) And at this point, we're gonna look to just get it right back in there.

And... we're gonna take this pan, and we're gonna use that to make our brown butter sauce, so it already has some, like, flavor of the shallots and the garlic.

So while the butter's browning and the fish are cooking in there, we're gonna take the oysters, we're gonna give them a little... little plumpness, but we're gonna, like, leave them just slightly submerged in their liquid.

We want to go a little gentle with these because they have been cared for and nurtured, and we don't wanna hammer them.

>> ALEX: How long will that go for?

>> We're gonna look at it and maybe, like, two minutes.

We have the oysters catching smoke.

We have the butter browning.

We have the fluke cooking.

We have these little things over here.

And what we can start doing is peeling some of it.

Give me a hand on this.

>> ALEX: Yeah.

>> So we're gonna have a real rustic sauce of just like peeled shallots, chunky garlic, >> ALEX: Martha's Vineyard is really where you built your food foundation.

>> Yeah, it was.

>> ALEX: That safe to say?

>> It was one of the places, goes back to when I was barely able to walk.

And here we are 30-some-odd years later.

>> ALEX: So your background is really in fine dining, but you seem very comfortable cooking so rustically.

>> I learned a lot of cooking from my mom, and my mom being from Nicaragua, like, I grew up cooking simple things.

It was rice and beans and, like, tortillas, cooking in open flames like this.

But there's always this precision that sort of was applied to it.

There was "x" amount of water that you put in with the rice.

There was a certain amount of time that you cook the beans for, a certain amount of salt, and it's a very simple and humble cooking.

But if you apply the technique to it and you take that same sort of precision to everything else, then you could define it as fine dining.

But in the end, it's just really caring about the ingredients that you're cooking with and really wanting to highlight them and make them the best thing possible.

So here are these oysters, and I'm watching them, and I care about them, and it's about making sure that they're cooked to that moment that is just perfection, and it doesn't have to do about fine dining or the tableware and the stemware and the silver.

It's just treating things with respect and with love, because when you do, more often than not, it comes out tasty, right?

>> ALEX: Comes out delicious.

>> Comes out delicious!

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> Hey!

>> ALEX: How's everybody doing?

We good?

>> Awesome.

>> ALEX: Well, I want to say thank you to both Chef Dan and Chef Chris for showing me around Martha's Vineyard-- we sourced all of our ingredients from the land and the sea, and thank you for sharing some of your favorite fishermen and farmers with us.

And we wanted to celebrate everything that Martha's Vineyard has to give and that you guys have grown, so thank you.

We hope that we did your ingredients justice.

Chefs, would you like to explain to everybody what we created?

>> Well, I made a vegan gratin, so it's leeks, fennel, and potatoes.

It was meant to compliment Dan's fluke.

>> And the fluke down from Larsen's with sungold tomatoes, shallots, butter, and oysters poached in the wood fired oven... >> ALEX: From Cottage City.

>> From Cottage City!

And fine herbs from, uh, and vegetables from this beautiful farm.

>> ALEX: I, as well, created a salad that celebrates your beautiful farm here on Martha's Vineyard.

Some mustard greens, mizuna, wild arugula, fresh herbs, and some eggs from your chickens and fennel that we picked.

Ruby, thank you for your help.

We hope you guys enjoy.

>> Awesome.

>> Thanks!

All right, it looks great, smells good.

(chatting) >> It's delicious, man.

It's really good.

>> It's phenomenal.

(chatter) >> ALEX: What an incredible time we had here in Martha's Vineyard, to know where your food comes from and get to meet the fishermen and the farmers who grew that food.

And to be able to cook with incredible chefs and prepare an amazing feast has been such a gift.

If you want any of these recipes from tonight's episode, make sure you follow us on Facebook or Instagram.

And who knows, maybe our next feast will be in your backyard.

I'll see you next time on Moveable Feast with Relish.

♪ ♪ >> For more information about this episode, recipes, and behind the scenes fun, make sure you go to relish.com.

Follow us @moveablefeast_TV on Instagram and like us on Facebook.

See you next time on A Moveable Feast with Relish.

>> Major funding provided by: >> Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please.

(gecko clears throat, feedback squeals) >> GEICO would like to take a moment to say thank you to our military service members at home and abroad for all their hard work and sacrifice.

We all sleep easier knowing you're out there keeping us safe.

And on a personal note... (jet engines roar, gecko's speech muffled) (crowd cheering) (exhales) Just needed to get that off my chest.

Thank you.

>> GEICO-- proudly supporting the military for over 75 years.

>> We can't just take from nature, so we collaborate.

Ocean Spray works with nature every day to farm in a sustainable way.

♪ ♪ >> Ocean Spray is a proud sponsor of Moveable Feast.

>> At Pure Leaf, the most important ingredient in making tea is saying no.

We're committed to saying no to artificial flavors and sweeteners in our brewed iced teas.

♪ ♪ >> I am Errico Auricchio, the founder of BelGioioso Cheese.

I came in 1979 from Italy with my family and the memory of Italian cheese.

>> La Panzanella, bakers of Italian-inspired crackers.

Simple ingredients... and non GMO.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪