NThings:
Cosmic Award
By Homa Nasab
Nantucket’s Maria Mitchell Association has scored a bright and rising star among the nation’s educational institutions. Founded more than a century ago, the association celebrates the scientific and personal legacy of Nantucket born Maria Mitchell, America’s premier female astronomer, scientist and 19th-century educator.
In June, the organization received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring, an award of $10,000 for the group to enhance its educational and mentoring programs. The highly prestigious prize was presented to only 21 other institutions, with Maria Mitchell being honored especially for its astronomy internship program. Founded by Dorrit Hoffleit in 1957 to be an integral part of the group’s scientific educational efforts, the program mentors “students in demographic groups that are underrepresented” in these fields. Since 1991, the island’s major scientific organization has also served as a permanent training site in astronomy for the Nat
ional Science Foundation’s Research Experience for Undergraduates.
REU has been led for the past dozen years by MMA director of astronomy, Dr. Vladimir Strelnitski. In keeping with Mitchell’s legacy, Strelnitski works closely with a select group of mixed gender but female-dominated undergraduate scientists to conduct individual and team projects. The program also gives students an early start to develop their communication and teaching skills, experiences that they might otherwise acquire during much later periods in their careers.
Maria Mitchell’s objectives and track record have put it at the forefront of Nantucket’s cultural, scientific and heritage-related institutions. In addition to preserving its founder’s heritage, the association provides “exploration, education and enjoyment of Nantucket’s land, waters and skies beyond.” It uses the Island as an exceptional natural laboratory in which to study science and the environment, and maintains research and or representative collections of Nantucket’s biodiversity.
Under the leadership of Executive Director Janet Schulte and Strelnitski, this seemingly quaint island organization has claimed its lasting place not only on the national but the cosmic stage. For more information, visit www.mmo.org.
A Taste of Nantucket
By Homa Nasab
Renaissance man Don DeMarco is celebrating the 30th anniversary of his namesake Nantucket restaurant, DeMarco. In 1979, after an adventurous two-year period of recreating a mid 19th-century townhouse at 9 India Street, DeMarco opened the doors of his Northern Italian eatery with help from his brothers.
This son of Italian immigrants brings the same level of aesthetic sensibility to his mouth-watering recipes as he does to his delightfully atmospheric restaurant, which DeMarco devotes to accentuating high standards of Northern Italian cuisine in a charming and casual manner.
DeMarco also happens to be one of the most colorful gourmands that Nantucket has seen. A cultivated sensualist, he paints, writes poetry and composes music. Several years ago he penned a musical that was performed on Nantucket and in New York City, his family’s off-island home. An engaging conversationalist, DeMarco comfortably discusses topics ranging from Tuscan cultural traditions to contemporary American politics. He has counted among his friends or has played host at the restaurant to local and national politicians including Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and Senator Edward Kennedy and such luminaries as Pierre Salinger and Bianca Jagger.
In anticipation of starting his fourth decade on Nantucket, last year DeMarco published his philosophical musings on a variety of topics from comfort food to Herodotus’ theory of change. Nantucket Taste Memories, The DeMarco Restaurant Cookbook is more than a cookbook. In the words of renowned historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, the book is “much more than a collection of recipes. It is also a thought-provoking commentary on American culture, food and wine.”
As with any loyal patron, Goodwin affectionately continues, “DeMarco has created a place where friends and families return over and over, not simply for the excellent food and wine, but for the warm atmosphere that encourages people to feel free to open up to one another.”
In this age of fast food and cyber networking, little else compensates for a roundtable communal meal, which “is a building block of culture,” DeMarco asserts. Dinning is “a time for relaxing, for sharing the events of the day, for talking over problems.”
DeMarco’s main partners are Therese, his naturally graceful and distinctly intelligent wife who until recently was a longtime publishing executive, and Little Donald, their one-and-a-half year old son, who typically greets visitors with big blue eyes, Romanesque curly blond hair and a welcoming smile. One can easily imagine him stepping into dad’s shoes in the future. For more on DeMarco and the restaurant, call 508-228-1836 or see www.demarcorestaurant.com.
Written Well
By William Ferrall
Two of Nantucket’s leading women of letters continued their prolific ways this summer with new novels.
“Summer House”, the 19th book from Nancy Thayer, tells the story of three generations of women in a wealthy family with Nantucket at its center. “It’s a big, fortunate family,” said Thayer, “with stuff about being the perfect wife or daughter, about being good or bad.” So far, reviewers are focused on the good. New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin wrote that Summer House is a “well-wrought, appealing book… packed with literally down-to-earth charm…”
Known widely for her series of four similarly themed books starting in 2003 with “The Hot Flash Club”, Thayer especially appreciates the positive reviews for this book. “In many ways, this is my most personal,” she said.
In fact, Thayer has written about the intimacy of family life since her first book “Stepping” in 1980. Her writings continually show her concern with intergenerational relationships between women, a theme she highlights on her Website www.nancythayer.com with photos of her mother’s 90th birthday this year and the recent release of the first novel by her daughter Samantha Wilde, a look at the foibles of young motherhood, “The Little Mommy Stayed Home.”
Husband Charlie Walters, Samantha’s step-father and owner of Nantucket’s former Musicall record store, recently expanded the family’s literary ouevre by completing a travelogue about the old coast-to-coast driving road Route 20. Thayer noted that in coming weeks her book tour takes her down virtual roads through an Internet “blog tour,” reflecting her increasing practice of communicating with fans over the Internet.
Fellow Nantucket author Elin Hilderbrand could soon be following both Thayer’s virtual and actual book tours. Hilderbrand’s tenth novel “The Castaways” arrived in early June.
Following the sales and booklist success of last year’s “A Summer Affair”, Hilderbrand’s newest book was nearing top ten best seller lists by late July.
As best-selling authors of so-called “chick lit” and living close by, Hilderbrand and Thayer are well acquainted with each other. In fact, Hilderbrand supplied one of the blurbs for Thayer’s book cover, and the two “get together occasionally,” said Thayer “We share a lot of the same readers,” noted Thayer, “and we’re both writing about Nantucket, family and friendships.”
Shake A Leg
By William Ferrall
This has been a banner year for helping disabled children and adults learn to sail at Shake-A-Leg, a national leader in therapeutic sailing programs. Last fall, the group acquired the 12-metre Easterner, a classic yacht known for its history of competition in the famed America’s Cup race. Donated by Arthur Schlossman of Rhode Island, where the group keeps its headquarters at the sailing capitol of Newport, the boat has been outfitted with new steering and trim features to allow sailors of varying abilities to join able-bodied crewmembers in training and racing programs.
Shake-A-Leg CEO Paul Callahan, himself a member of the 2000 U.S. Paralympic Team and a frequent Nantucket visitor, called the donation a “breakthrough of monstrous proportions” for sailors like him.
Formed in 1982 as part of Newport’s Adaptive Sailing program, the group plans to bring Easterner to Nantucket during Nantucket RaceWeek.
Nantucket Community Sailing, sponsor and beneficiary of Nantucket Race Week and the legendary Opera House Cup Regatta for all wooden-hull boats, conducts a similar program for youth during the summer with Access Sport America.
This year’s Race Week runs from Saturday, August 15 through Sunday, August, 16, with the Opera House Cup kicking off at noon on the final day. For more on Shake-A-Leg and Easterner, visit www.shakealeg.org. For this year’s lineup of events and programs during Nantucket Race Week, visit www.nantucketraceweek.org or call 508-228-6600.
Kitchen Scholars
By William Ferrall
Two Nantucket High School students will be off to pursue their culinary studies come fall with help from the Nantucket Culinary Arts Foundation.
Brittany Watson and Carl Johnsen were awarded scholarships of $2,500 to her and $500 to him at the end of this past school year. The two had been first place finishers last fall during the first Nantucket Junior Chef Competition, the closing event of Nantucket Restaurant Week. Proceeds from the annual Kickoff Gala for Restaurant Week are used to fund the Culinary Arts Foundation scholarships.
Now in its fourth year, Nantucket Restaurant Week expanded this year to include a weeklong spring session. This year’s fall week launches with the Kickoff Gala at Great Harbor Yacht Club on Sunday, September 27. This year’s Junior Chef Competition is Sunday, October 4 at Cisco Brewery.
Jenny Johnson, Boston television personality and executive producer-host of TV Diner on NECN, plans to emcee this year’s Junior Chef. Junior Chef pairs Nantucket High School students in the Culinary Arts Program, which has won numerous awards in national competitions, with working chefs from Nantucket’s many fine restaurants. For the spring session Restaurant Week, more than two dozen Nantucket restaurants participated, with a similar number expected to join in this fall. For tickets to the Kick-off Gala and to the Junior Chef Competition, call 508-228-1700 or see www.nantucketrestaurantweek.com.
