Publisher's Note

September and October have long been considered the very best months to be on Nantucket. Never mind that most people visit in the warm summer months. That has more to do with the school calendar than anything else. Anyone who is not bound by the structure of the academic year and who has a love of the island finds a way to get here in these golden months.

Fall is the time to be out and about on the landscape. Sure the beach still beckons and the water is often warm into the middle of September, but there is also a snap to the air that encourages one to don a sweater and head to the far ends of the island. Conservation interests protect over 50 percent of Nantucket, and so in spite of the current pressures of development, there is plenty of open land to explore. 

Some of the people exploring that land are a growing number of island scientists who are conducting research on these conservation properties. We have profiled scientists from four organizations: Sarah Oktay, from the UMass Field Station, Karen Beattie and her co-workers from the Nantucket Conservation Foundation, Bob Kennedy from the Maria Mitchell Association and Ernie Steinauer from Mass Audubon. Each scientist has his or her own specialty. We invite you to turn to page 50 to learn more about them and the important work they are doing on Nantucket.     

The Nantucket Arts Council sponsors the fall arts festival the end of September and the beginning of October. Reggie Levine, current president and a founder of the festival, has played a pivotal role in the island arts scene for most of his life and is to be credited for pushing arts to the forefront of our island community. Turn to page 100 to find out more about this remarkable man.

September also heralds the beginning of school and fall sports, and on pages 14-18 we teamed up with members of the Lady Whalers field hockey team who went back-to-school shopping in several of Nantucket’s stores and model the hottest trends for teens today.

Cooler fall weather also sends many of us back to our kitchens, poring through favorite recipes and cookbooks old and new. One must-have cookbook for the Nantucket kitchen is Sarah Leah Chase’s “Nantucket Open-House Cookbook,” which she first penned 20 years ago. Turn to page 70 for a retrospective of this much-loved volume and a selection of  Sarah’s favorite fall recipes from that cookbook.

If you would rather make reservations than set foot in the kitchen, then check out Erin Chandler’s picks for the best breakfasts on Nantucket on page 64. Find out who has the best pancakes, the best huevos rancheros and where you can go for “the mom’s breakfast.”

Finally, a correction to last month’s issue should be noted here. In reporting on the winners of the 2006 Opera House Cup Race we neglected to mention Garry Hoyt, skipper of the Owl, in the Lyman Perry story in the August issue. We regret the error and offer our sincere apologies to Mr. Hoyt.

Marianne R. Stanton

Editor and Publisher

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