Irene Wong’s love letter to the Island

Each year, North Tabor Farm welcomes a visiting chef to run its farm-to-table kitchen and create dishes for the farmstand. This season, Irene Wong took on the role, trading a 26-year career in New York City food television production for the unpredictable rhythms of a family-owned and locally loved farm in Chilmark.

The transition came after industry shifts during the pandemic prompted Wong to explore new opportunities. Though the move to seasonal culinary work was a significant departure from her previous career, she said the experience reinforced the importance of keeping an open mind and embracing the unknown.

The last time Wong had visited Martha’s Vineyard was three years before accepting the position, spending a week on the Island with a friend during the summer. During that trip, she stopped at North Tabor Farm and met Rebecca and Matthew Dix, the farm’s owners, as well as Gina Citarella, who was cooking in the kitchen. 

At the time, Wong never imagined she would one day return to run the farm’s kitchen. But this year, after a phone interview and a visit to the farm during a February snowstorm, Wong accepted a position as lead cook, and moved to Chilmark in May. Moving from home cooking into a professional kitchen quickly revealed the demands of 12- to 14-hour workdays in the kitchen.

Over the course of the season, Wong prepared takeaway meals for the farmstand and the twice-weekly farmers market. Unlike the television sets she was accustomed to, where responsibilities were divided among specialized teams, the farm kitchen required her to oversee nearly everything herself — “all the prepping, ordering ingredients that we might need, figuring out what inventory is coming from the farm, cooking all the food, packaging, labeling, and doing dishes. I’m constantly doing dishes all day long.” 

The repetitive work required its own kind of endurance. Wong described hand-shaping 100 biscuits and caramelizing 10 pounds of onions as exercises in “mental athleticism.” And when a dish became popular, she had to make it all over again.

“It’s several hours of work, and when you’re done, you’re like, ‘Oh, last label, out into the farmstand, we’re good’ — but then, the following week comes, you got to do it again, and you got to do it again,” said Wong.

At the height of summer, she was producing 400 containers of food a week. “It was the first time I thought, ‘Oh, there’s no light at the end of the tunnel.’ average of 300

“I think this was a good exercise in understanding how relentless the day can be,” said Wong. “Anyone who works in the food service industry or the hospitality industry — it is tireless, it is relentless, and it is grueling. Yeah, and it makes you recognize that people who are in it do it because they love it.”

Beyond the demands of the kitchen, Wong was learning how to cook for a community with its own traditions and tastes. She recognized the importance of respecting the distinction between visitors and Islanders, while finding room for her own culinary style: “I have to remember that I am a visitor, but I have to quickly learn what’s important for folks who live here, what they really strive to maintain, and how do I blend in and also do that? But how do I also interject my own personality, my experiences, my joy for cooking, my enthusiasm, my relentless work ethic.”

That balance was made easier by the people she met along the way. Regular customers who had long-standing relationships with the Dix family introduced themselves, asked about her work, and offered their help. Wong described them as an “automatic welcome committee.”

“It’s a tight-knit community,” said Wong. “I couldn’t believe the amount of people who were not just saying hello, but were being proactive about engaging at a future date.”

The curiosity went both ways. Customers wanted to meet the new chef and see what she would do with ingredients they had known and enjoyed for years. Wong used Instagram to share her dishes and connect with customers, and now estimates that roughly 80 percent of her farmers market customers told her they had discovered her through social media.

Wong also found support among the Island’s chefs, who were quick to offer advice and assistance. “That’s what I love about the chef community, is that everyone is trying to help each other and support each other,” said Wong. 

Throughout the summer, the farm hosted events, including a fundraiser dinner for Island Grown Initiative and weekly pizza nights featuring its wood-burning oven. After helping with those gatherings, Wong asked the Dix family whether she could organize two events of her own.

She conceptualized her departure as a “two-part season finale,” beginning with a pizza party featuring a menu of her own design. For her final gathering, she wanted to create something that would bring people together in a different way.

The cookie swap was inspired by an annual holiday party Wong hosts in New York City, where guests gather to share homemade cookies. For the Vineyard gathering, all of the proceeds benefited the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society.

“The relationship that the [Ag] Society has with all the farmers here on the Island is remarkable,” said Wong. “This would be my way to contribute to the society, because the best thing that I can do is offer my talents, which is to cook, invite the community, and gather everyone, and then we’re supporting an organization that is very meaningful to the Island, but we’re doing [it] in a very fun and festive way.”

All together, 40 guests arrived, each with 36 cookies of their own, filling the table with more than 1,100 cookies, including Coconut Pecan Salted Caramel Sandwich Cookies, Ube Matcha Coconut Sugar Cookies, Mexican Wedding Cakes, Black Sesame Rice Krispie Treats, and many more festive goodies. The event raised $1,625 for the Agricultural Society.

Alongside the cookies, Wong served Caesar Salad, Lasagna Bolognese, and Butternut Squash Summer Pesto Lasagna, sourcing fresh pasta sheets from Martha’s Vineyard Pasta. The sheets were made using eggs from the farm, bringing together local ingredients and the skills of Island producers. “If I can’t do it, someone on the Island who’s very skilled can,” said Wong.

Throughout the season, Wong saw the power that food has to bring people together. “Food is always a way to just meet somebody, maybe develop a relationship, and then hopefully you have more meals together.”

That spirit of collaboration also shaped Wong’s approach to her farmstand and farmers market creations. Drawing on her Chinese background, she experimented with flavors and ingredients she hoped would introduce customers to something new: “Hopefully I’m introducing them to new ingredients, new flavors, new cooking techniques, so it continues to tickle their palate with intrigue.”

She also adapted recipes to accommodate dietary restrictions, including those associated with alpha-gal syndrome, a condition that can cause allergic reactions to certain products from mammals. One standout was a pistachio almond olive oil cake that was both alpha-gal-friendly and gluten-free. Made with almond flour, eggs, and olive oil, the cake featured icing colored with dragon-fruit powder, giving it a vibrant magenta finish.

Another creation was a dairy-free ricotta made with almond milk, whipped with water and olive oil into a silky spread and served with slow-roasted tomatoes.

As the season ended, Wong found herself reflecting on how much had changed since the pandemic first pushed her to reconsider her career. Her time at the farm reminded her that a carefully laid plan does not always survive unexpected turns — and that new opportunities can emerge when people remain open to them.

“When you focus so much on looking for a job, it’s easy to be isolated from the rest of the world, because that’s a priority. And being here, what I really am grateful for is that every day, I woke up to people on the farm. I can hear the sound of the tractors. I can hear the chickens. I can hear the dogs barking, and already life is happening.”

As for her next chapter, Wong was candid about the uncertainty: “I really have no idea. And you know, that unknown used to really frighten me. I’m not as scared — but it’s still there.”