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The Inspired Lives (and Kitchens) of Bob and Melinda Blanchard
Yankee Magazine Early snows have fallen in the hills around Norwich, Vermont, though some leaves still cling to the trees outside Melinda Blanchard’s kitchen window. The sun peeks through the clouds here and there, casting a shifting light patchwork over the rolling hills to the east. The remaining leaves shimmer for a moment, but then the clouds pass over and the landscape goes quiet again. Inside the house, it’s another story. Melinda races between her kitchen, where she’s mashing sweet potatoes, and her office, where she’s wrapping up a book project. Her husband, Bob, selects ingredients for her while fielding calls from the staff at their beachfront restaurant, Blanchards, half a world away on Anguilla, a tiny island in the eastern Caribbean. The restaurant’s kitchen is being renovated, and one of the walls has suddenly collapsed. Meanwhile, the tourist season opens in a few weeks. In the next few days, the Blanchards must a finish a cookbook, pack up their lives in Vermont, and return to Anguilla for six months. Melinda will resume her chef duties at the restaurant, and Bob, a skilled carpenter, will patch up the kitchen and then return to running the restaurant and wine cellar. It’s a routine they’ve perfected in the 11 years since they first moved to the island. ”We don’t have a lot time down time,” Melinda says with a shrug. “But in truth, we like to be busy.” There are aisles of self-help books devoted to a single message: “Do what you love and the rest will follow.” Lifestyle gurus chant “Follow your bliss” over and over until it becomes a tired cliché, something reserved for Oprah fans and inheritors of great wealth. But to spend a day with Bob and Melinda Blanchard is to wonder why you haven’t dusted off every secret dream you’ve ever had and made it real. And not just real, glowingly successful. Inspirational. In the 30 years since the first met as social work students in Vermont, Bob and Melinda have built a life on the notion that there’s no point in doing anything they a)don’t enjoy and b)can’t do together. They’ve launched eight business, among them Blanchard & Blanchard & Son, the award-winning line of specialty dressings and sauces that made them darlings of the small business world in the 1980s. They’ve followed hunches, stumbled in the dark, and trusted their instincts. They raised a son, Jesse, now an artist, and designed and built two houses themselves, including their current Vermont home, a stunning 4,500-square-foot Colonial, whose rooms are filled with Jesse’s artwork and Bob’s custom cabinetry. Their most recent adventure is perhaps their greatest feat. After selling the majority stake in Blanchard & Blanchard & Son in the late 1980s, on vacation in Anguilla, Melinda and Bob fell in love with the island and, on a whim, decided to stay, sell most of their possessions and their home, leave their community, and open a restaurant. They were Vermonters-Bob’s a seventh generation native who grew up in his father’s general store in Peacham, and Melinda had called the state home for more than 20 years. But something about Anguilla felt right, and out of the experience of settling in, surviving a devastating hurricane, finding a new community, and learning to live on island time, came a new life. And thanks to a regular restaurant customer who was also a New York literary agent, came two books: A Trip to the Beach: Living on Island Time in the Caribbean, (reprint, Three Rivers Press, 2001), an autobiography of their move, and At Blanchard’s Table: A Trip to the Beach Cookbook (Clarkson Potter, 2003). “Our publisher calls A Trip to the Beach, ‘the little blue book that could,’ ” Melinda says.”We intended to simply tell the story of how we moved from Vermont to a tropical island, but it turned out to be much more of an inspirational book than anyone ever anticipated.” Of course, you can’t risk everything without the occasional disaster. Hurricane Luis destroyed the restaurant in 1995, and they had to rebuild their lives once more. There were other times when they didn’t know what their next move would be. In the early 1980s, following the failure of their toy store, they buried their last $4,000 in savings under Jesse’s swing set in the backyard. They weren’t allowed to touch the money until they had a new idea. Bob took construction jobs to pay the bills, and the buried money eventually became the starting capital for Blanchard & Blanchard & Son. They faced another challenge nearly 20 years later when, after giving up their life in Vermont and living in Anguilla for six years, they became homesick. “We missed just going to a movie or having Chinese food,” Melinda says. “We contemplated selling the business and moving on. Only we couldn’t quite do it. Part of it is the people down there. They’re not just employees. They’ve become central to our whole existence.” So they trained the staff to manage without them during the off-season, built their house with Jesse’s help, and began coming back to Vermont for half of each year. “Our two worlds aren’t that different, really,” Melinda says. “We live in two small towns where we know everyone. At our general stores, everyone toots and waves. Here, there are maple trees and apple orchards. In Anguilla, it’s sand and palm trees.” Standing in the living room, Bob gestures to the walls lined with bookshelves. “I really rely heavily on books,” he says proudly. “You can find most anything you want to know.” At first, this notion sounds naive. Can you really learn that much from a how-to book? Do people actually change their lives based on books? His answer lies in the titles and categories: books on hospitality management and writing business proposals sit near The Complete Guide to Designing Your Own Home and Windows on the World Complete Wine Course. Melinda’s dog-eared cookbooks dominate one kitchen wall and trace her evolution as a chef, from Mastering the Art of French Cooking to books on Caribbean flavor. “Take this span,” Bob says, pointing to a beam on the ceiling that runs between the kitchen and the living room. “This is a steel beam that supports the entire second floor. I was having a hard time designing it, but in this book I could look up how much weight the wood joists beneath it could bear, and then go to a steel company to engineer it for me.” And as he talks, you think, Yes, how simple it is to build a house. Or move to an island. Or open a restaurant. In some ways, the restaurant was just a rather steep step on an existing trajectory-one Melinda chronicles honestly and often hilariously in A Trip to the Beach. She is a mostly self-taught cook. “I never planned to cook for a living,” she says. “I was going to be a social worker.” But she knew she could cook well, and, honing her skills as she developed dozens of products for the Blanchard & Blanchard & Son lines, she began to imagine what it would take to run a restaurant kitchen. With time, practice, and research she figured it out. “There’s so much information out there,” Melinda says. “If you’re interested in doing something–opening a retail store, being a chef in the Caribbean-you have to do a little research and talk with people and learn. But I believe it’s not as risky as people think it is.” And this is the great appeal of the Blanchards–one that has led their publisher to sign on for not only another cookbook, but another, more directly inspirational tome, due in 2005. They make everything seem possible. “I think too many people spend their lives doing what they don’t want to do,” Bob says. “What’s the point?” And with that, he and Melinda sit down for a break in a big white chair in front of the windows overlooking the patchwork hills. Melinda visibly relaxes, dropping her head to Bob’s shoulder. “Nap time,” she announces. And within 15 minutes, they’re on to the next project. What’s Next for the Blanchards? Look for two new books from Bob and Melinda in 2005. The first, a cookbook, celebrates simple meals for family and friends. The second, as Melinda puts it, “has anecdotes and stories from all of our adventures together. And each story offers a lesson meant to encourage readers to follow their own dreams.” They have also taped two pledge shows for Boston public television station WGBH on cooking for friends and family, as well as two episodes of Victory Garden. At press time, they were also working on an as-yet-unnamed new series for PBS that expands on the theme of “live what you love.”} About the recipes The recipes here come from At Blanchards Table and demonstrate Melinda’s penchant for bold flavors and New England-Caribbean combinations. It sounds like an odd combination, but it works, and the recipes are also very easy to make. “I’m not a fussy person.” Melinda says. “I don’t make fussy food. I think that’s the reason why the restaurant has been so successful.” Caribbean Corn Bread Total time: 1 hour; active time: 15 minutes Moist and rich, this bread is a Thanksgiving favorite at the restaurant. 1 cup all-purpose flour 1 cup cornmeal 2 tablespoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 2 sticks (½ pound) unsalted butter, at room temperature ¾ cup sugar 4 eggs 1 ½ cups canned cream-style corn ½ cup canned crushed pineapple, drained 1 cup shredded Monterey Jack or mild white cheddar cheese Preheat oven to 325′. Butter and flour a 9-inch-square glass cake pan. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt, then set aside. In a mixer, cream together butter and sugar. While the mixer is running, add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add corn, pineapple, and cheese, and mix to blend. On a low speed, add the dry ingredients and mix until blended well. Pour batter into the prepared pan and bake until golden brown around the edges and a tester stuck into the center comes out clean, about 1 hour. Yield: 8 servings Vermont Cheddar Soup Total time: 40 minutes; active time: 25 minutes Bob’s dad used to tease the tourists at his general store by cutting their chunks of cheddar slightly crooked, saying that standing on hills all day made the cows lopsided. “Lopsided cows produce lopsided cheese,” he’d insist. ¾ stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter 1 cup finely chopped onion (about 1 large) 1 cup finely chopped carrot (about 3) 1 cup finely chopped celery (about 3 stalks) ½ cup all-purpose flour 4 cups chicken broth 2 cups heavy cream 10 drops hot sauce 1 ½ pounds Vermont white cheddar cheese, grated Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste Garnish: minced jalapeno pepper Melt the butter in a 4-quart pot over medium heat, then sauté onion, carrot and celery until soft, but not brown, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle flour over the vegetables and stir well. Let cook 4 to 5 minutes. Increase heat to medium high and add the chicken broth a little at a time, whisking to blend well after each addition. Bring to a boil and cook until slightly thickened. Add the cream and whisk to blend. Heat until tiny bubbles form around the edge of the pot, but do not boil. Reduce heat to low. Add hot sauce and cheese and stir until melted. Season with salt and pepper. Ladle into soup bowls and garnish with minced jalapeno pepper. Yield: 8 to 10 servings Calypso Chicken with Lime Total time: 45 minutes; active time: 25 minutes 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts halves (about 10 ounces each) 3 tablespoons plus ¼ cup freshly squeezed lime juice (about 3 small limes) 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 cup unsweetened coconut milk ½ cup heavy cream 1 ½ tablespoons fresh grated lime peel 3 tablespoons minced peeled fresh ginger 1½ tablespoons salt ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper Garnish: 1/3 cup cilantro leaves, coarsely chopped, and 3 tablespoons shredded coconut (optional) Preheat your broiler or grill. In a large bowl, toss chicken with 3 tablespoons lime juice and oil. Marinate in refrigerator at least 30 minutes. In a medium saucepan, whisk together ¼ cup lime juice, coconut milk, cream, lime peel, ginger, salt, and pepper to make a sauce. Heat until small bubbles form around the edge of the pan; set aside. Remove chicken from marinade, then broil or grill until cooked through, about 6 to 8 minutes. Transfer chicken to individual plates, spoon warmed sauce over. Sprinkle with cilantro and coconut, if desired. Yield: 6 servings Sweet Potato Puree Total time: 1 hour 15 minutes; active time: 10 minutes Rather than boiling her potatoes for mashing, Melinda likes to bake them. It concentrates the flavors, giving a richer result. 3 pounds sweet potatoes ¼ cup (4 tablespoons) butter ½ cup sour cream 2 tablespoons light-brown sugar 2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar Salt and freshly ground black, pepper, to taste Preheat oven to 400°. Prick each potato several times with a fork. Bake on oven rack until tender, about 1 hour. Holding potatoes with a towel cut each in half lengthwise. Scoop out flesh and transfer to a bowl. Mash with a hand masher, then add the remaining ingredients. Yield: 6 servings Baked Apples with Cider and Rum Total time: 1 hour; active time: 15 minutes The flavors of Vermont and Anguilla come together in this delicious dessert. ¾ cup apple cider 2 tablespoons unsalted butter 1/3 cup light-brown sugar 4 whole cloves 3 tablespoons dark rum 6 large Golden Delicious apples 2 tablespoons dried cranberries Garnish: whipped cream Preheat oven to 375°. Butter a baking dish just large enough to hold the apples. Set aside. In a small saucepan, combine cider, butter, brown sugar, cloves, and rum. Cook over medium heat until butter is melted and sugar is dissolved. Cut off the top third (stems intact) of each apple and set aside. Using a teaspoon, scoop out the cores and a little of the flesh of each apple. Put apples in dish and place a few cranberries in each. Remove cloves from cider mixture and spoon some of the mixture over the cranberries. Pour the rest in dish around apples. Replace apple tops. Cover loosely with foil and bake about 45 minutes, until apples are tender but still hold their shape. Place apples in serving bowls and transfer liquid to a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and cook until slightly thickened, 2 to 3 minutes. Spoon sauce around apples and serve with whipped cream. Yield: 6 servings |
