The incredible edible Cape

CUMMAQUID -- Surrounded by the saltwater marshes and sheep pastures of the mid Cape, Doug and Dianne Langeland are doing what they love most: cooking, eating, and talking about food.

Two years ago, the Langelands left their corporate jobs to publish Edible Cape Cod, a quarterly magazine full of recipes and profiles devoted to the grass-roots promotion of local foods. The couple was the first East Coast publisher of a rapidly expanding group known as Edible Communities. Founded in Ojai, Calif., and now dispatched from 15 hot spots around the country, the group finds growers, producers, bakers, restaurateurs, and other food-related businesses to write about. ''We're trying to get consumers interested in eating the food that comes from the Cape and Islands," says Doug. ''Once we do that, it will be a lot easier to sustain our community of food artisans -- the farmers, chefs, and fishermen that make life here so rich."

When they're thinking big, the Langelands preach about the role Edible magazine could play in spotlighting the Cape's restaurants and helping this popular vacation spot emerge as a true eating destination. In the process of putting out the magazine, they've discovered all kinds of seafood places, earnest bakers, and organic growers.

The couple won't say what they paid for the franchise. Initially, their house here was a vacation home; they lived in New Jersey while Dianne, 50, was a marketing executive for a high-tech company, traveling back and forth to California; Doug, 45, worked for a pharmaceutical company based in New York.

Today their lives are quite different. Their shingled saltbox, now their primary residence, provides glimpses of the dunes and bay from their front yard. Doug, preppy and bookish in little round glasses, lights up and smiles with his whole body when he talks about food. Dianne, blond and handsome, has a brisk, no-nonsense attitude.

Before heading out for a typical day of culinary sleuthing recently, they relax over breakfast at home. A fire is going in the masonry stove, cats are curled on the sofa, and while Dianne sips coffee and tells stories, Doug mixes dough for the next day's baguette. To date, the couple has published seven Edible issues, which include stories on where to find day-boat cod and scallops at affordable prices and a series of profiles on farmers.

As they head out on this clear day, the first stop is Tim Friary's Cape Cod Organic Farm in Barnstable. Doug pulls up the long dirt driveway, scraping the bottom of his black BMW. ''I have the world's worst car for driving around farms," he says. Friary is busy digging potatoes that he had buried in straw-lined pits. After last summer's unusually productive crop, he had several tons more than usual and no place to put them until his Tibetan farm hands taught him to dig the primitive but functional storage pits they used back home. Shaking his head and grinning, Friary pulls back the straw to reveal a deep pit of perfect potatoes, mostly Rose Finn Apples and French Fingerlings. ''I can't believe how well those things are keeping down there." Once a week, the grower drives to Cambridge to deliver bags of potatoes to Craigie Street Bistrot and Formaggio Kitchen.

After leaving the farm, the Langelands make a quick stop to drop off copies of their magazine and buy a potato ricer at the All Cape Cook's Supply in Hyannis. Then they head around the corner to the Naked Oyster Bistro and Raw Bar for a lunch meeting. In a sunny corner, holding court and feasting on local oysters and scallops, the couple are joined by Les Hemmila, an oyster farmer and owner of Barnstable Seafarms; potato grower Friary; Tracy Anderson of the Wine List in Hyannis, the local wine shop; and Naked Oyster owner Rick Angelini.

The group discusses the struggling local farmers' markets. Doug maintains that there are too few farms on the Cape to support the demand. They come up with an idea to organize a chef's warehouse and distribution center for local produce and seafood. At the end of the lunch, they make plans to meet again for a recipe testing and wine dinner at the Langelands'. ''The recipe dinners are useful and a hell of a lot of fun," says Doug. ''I love the farming end and the restaurant end of what we do, but I really enjoy testing the recipes and cooking at home."

After lunch, the couple takes the long way to their next destinaction, weaving slowly past empty fields, stone walls, and cranberry bogs. With one hand on the wheel and the other holding Dianne's hand, Doug daydreams about special projects. Last year he got a recreational shellfishing permit from the town of Barnstable and found many of the locals' ''secret" spots. This summer he wants to buy a little skiff and drop a few lobster traps just outside the harbor. Dianne spent last summer organizing a farmers' market in downtown Hyannis. This year she wants to set up a harvest food festival for the fall. ''It's amazing how the magazine can fit so seamlessly into our lives," says Doug.

At Cape Cod Community College in West Barnstable, the Langelands drop in on Terri Horn and James Miller. Miller is the zany and passionate director of the college's hospitality program. Horn runs a tiny gourmet baking business out of its commercial kitchen. She's famous around the Cape for her Kayak Cookies, which are handmade, dense, and not too sweet, with a delightful taste of salt. Particularly good are the Chocolate Salty Oats, baked with local eggs and butter, lots of organic oats, and Callebaut chocolate. Halfway through baking, she sprinkles the cookies with a crackly layer of Maldon sea salt.

Horn says that the cookies were inspired by her cravings during offshore kayaking trips. ''The salt is there to give the cookies life and remind me of the sea," she says. The Langelands eat cookies -- they're hard to resist -- while they talk; they take a few bags for the road.

The last stop of the day is Island Merchant in downtown Hyannis. For years owners Joe and Beverly Dunn had spent summers on the Cape, dreaming about having a place of their own. They opened a Caribbean-themed pub last winter, and it has become a favorite late-night hangout. With Cape Cod Beer on tap, the place offers food every night until 1 a.m. Local chefs crowd the bar and order $2 hamburgers. In the summer, a backyard garden supplies the vegetables for the restaurant.

The Langelands order red wine and garlicky linguica with clams and crusty bread. A few minutes later, Todd Marcus, the ponytailed brewer of Cape Cod Beer, and Cynthia Cole, Dianne's partner on the Hyannis farmers' market project, joins them.

For the Langelands, this ''research" -- driving around the Cape eating and schmoozing with growers and chefs -- is something of a dream life. Before they left their corporate jobs for good, Doug took a sabbatical and enrolled at the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan. He loved working in the kitchen and knew that he wanted to do something in the food world but felt he was too old to become a restaurant chef.

They bought an apartment on Hanover Street in Boston's North End but spent a lot of time on the Cape. In 2004, still looking for something to do, they saw an item in Saveur magazine about Edible Communities. They wrote to Tracey Ryder and Carole Topalian, founders of the organization and publishers of Edible Ojai. The Langelands told them that they wanted to do an Edible magazine on the Cape. (In July Ilene Bezahler, the former marketing and wholesale manager at Brookline's Allendale Farm, will launch Edible Boston. Edible Midcoast Maine will start midsummer. )

Ryder and Topalian liked the idea of offering the Cape to the Langelands. The California magazine founders drove cross-country with their dogs and printers and cameras and helped the new publishers put out the first issue.

''It was like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride," says Dianne. ''It all happened so fast we didn't even have to time to think about what we were doing. After that first issue, we were worried that after we did stories on cranberries and cod there would be nothing else to write about.

''Well, two years later we still haven't written about cranberries or cod, and we're busier than we've ever been in our lives."

The trail continues . . .
Edible Cape Cod
P.O. Box 515, Cummaquid
508-375-9883
www.ediblecapecod.com

Cape Cod Organic Farm
4305 Main St., Cummaquid
508-362-5980

Produce available at farmer's markets in Hyannis, Provincetown, Orleans, and Harvard Square. Potatoes available through the spring at Formaggio Kitchen, 244 Huron Ave., Cambridge, 617-354-4750, and South End Formaggio, 268 Shawmut Ave., 617-350-6996.

The Wine List
65 Independence Drive, Hyannis
508-771-9463
www.the-wine-list.com

All Cape Cook's Supply
237 Main St., Hyannis, 508-790-8908
Barnstable Seafarms
P.O. Box 321, Cummaquid
508-362-4125
www.barnstableseafarms.com