Cinnamon Starship may sound more like the name of a jam band than a food CSA, but oddly and fantastically enough, they are baking up some of the best bread on the Island. The woman behind Cinnamon Starship is Olivia Pattison, who bakes artisan breads out of the Scottish Bakehouse kitchen once a week for her bread CSA members. “I have a great relationship with Daniele [Dominick, Bakehouse owner] and she’s amazingly flexible and open to new things,” Ms. Pattison said.
Ms. Pattison isn’t baking your usual loaves of bread. Her ever-changing menu includes a variety of rustic loaves. Currently, you can taste her pain de lodève (classic peasant bread) and oatmeal buckwheat loaf made with Maine-grown oats, as well as speciality loaves which change weekly, like an MV rye caraway loaf. Previous specials, like her purple sweet potato and mixed seeds loaf, were just as popular. Ms. Pattison actively seeks feedback because interacting with the consumer is her favorite part of the job. “Talking to the people that eat the bread themselves…that’s what it’s all about,” she said.
Originally from Troy, N.Y., and calling Martha’s Vineyard home for now, Ms. Pattison balances her bread baking with a part-time job as a line cook at the Dock Street Cafe in Edgartown. “I want to be in the food industry, and what better place than Dock Street to learn how to stay organized, be efficient, and still make the perfect egg?” Ms. Pattison said. “Because eggs…they’re not as easy as one thinks!”
In addition to her obsession with making the perfect eggs and baking some of the best bread you’ll ever taste, Ms. Pattison is a Fine Arts student. She draws an animal every day, which she posts on her Instagram account (user name: animaleveryday). She also loves to photocopy slices of her bread, and is a fan of Captain America. All things that make a great bread baker, don’t you agree?
To sign up for her bread CSA, email cinnamonstarship@gmail.com. This CSA meets weekly on Saturday mornings between 10 am and 12 noon at the Scottish Bakehouse on State Road in Vineyard Haven for pick up. ($6/loaf).
