Sarah Chase

3 days ago | ack.net | Sarah Chase

(June 5, 2025) A while back, I wrote a column expressing my dismay over a difficulty in the sourcing of the tiny pasta shape know as acini di pepe, frequently referred to as pastina in America. Acini di pepe translates from Italian into English as “peppercorn” or “seeds of pepper,” and it is the tiniest of all pasta shapes.

2 weeks ago | ack.net | Sarah Chase

(May 22, 2025) Ever since Denis Toner founded the Nantucket Wine Festival in 1996, I have strived to be a part of the uniqueness, education and fabulous wine and food fun it brings to Nantucket from many parts of the world every May. One of the newspaper articles I wrote and remember quite fondly was entitled “Days of Wine and Cherry Blossoms” since the festival almost always coincides with the profuse pink blossoming of our island’s numerous Japanese cherry trees.

2 weeks ago | ack.net | Sarah Chase

(May 22, 2025) This past Saturday, I decided to glance at Nantucket’s weather forecast for the upcoming week on my iPhone. The dreary forecast displaying the wind icon for three days straight, followed by the cloudy and rainy icon for another three days straight, was one of the few things that could manage to dampen the ebullient mood I was in after attending a couple of indulgent and bubbly oyster and caviar extravaganzas over the weekend at this year’s Nantucket Wine & Food Festival.

3 weeks ago | ack.net | Sarah Chase

(May 15, 2025) I am writing this column from an area in Maine that, back in the 1970s, became a mecca for many young people embracing the back-to-the-land movement. At the time, Euell Gibbons’ book “Stalking the Wild Asparagus” (David McKay Co., 1962) was pretty much required reading for anyone, hippie or not, interested in culinary pursuits.

1 month ago | ack.net | Sarah Chase

(May 8, 2025) A couple of weeks ago, some new friends from Los Angeles who were visiting Cape Cod mentioned a day trip they had taken to Providence, R.I. to see an exhibit on the art of French wallpaper design at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum. I honestly did not know that RISD had a museum, but immediately knew I wanted to go to this exhibit before it ended on Mother’s Day, May 11.