Summer Solutions

Situation: you’re on the beach with your adorable children, who would so love to be satiated with yumminess, but you’re tired of red dye #-something and blurazzberri turning the skin from their nostrils to their chins into colors the splendor of an LA sunset. It’s about time for the children to get cranky on the blanket. Your phone vibrates—a new text. OMG! CCC ASAP! PNKLTNK! Thank God! You leave your kids under the watchful eye of a nice-enough-looking stranger on the beach, and jet to the Chilmark Community Center (CCC) where you’re just in time to snag some of the dwindling supply of Watermelon Kiwi and Mango-Blueberry Slant. Ignoring the condescending glares of your fellow shoppers, you beg the teenage staff at the snack bar to dig around the freezer one last time, just a little deeper, to produce the last coveted Espresso Coconut Latte Pop. Ahhh…

The Chocolate Banana has sold out for the day, but you’re not worried—Pinkletink Pops will return tomorrow to replenish the supply, likely toting some alternate flavors as well (perhaps even the Cucumber Jalapeño Lime!).

The entrepreneurial team who creates these treats by hand—Lisa Strachen and Anne Slater—met in the CCC Art Shack 25 years ago. This business reflects the culmination of over two decades of friendship and mutual support coming full circle, right back to the site of their initial connection in Chilmark. Lisa contributes her creative vision as a ceramic artist while Anne brings the ultimate quality control—her daughter Sasha. They wouldn’t dream of feeding Sasha anything that wasn’t as organic and low-sugar as possible. When Whippoorwill strawberries or home-picked blueberries are in season, add “local” to the list of adjectives that describe their top-notch ingredients as well.

They call their enterprise Pinkletink Pops after the Islanders’ name for the frogs others call Spring Peepers (Pseudacris crucifer). “When you hear the Pinkletinks, you know summer is here,” says Anne; and while they don’t yet have an ice cream truck with that unmistakable trill, kids abandon their high fructose corn syrup and/or sugar-laden Good Humor desserts to swarm Pinkletink’s fruit-jeweled treasures. This summer they expanded their market beyond the CCC. Look for Pinkletink Pops at Fiddlehead Farm and Menemsha Texaco. Rumor has it Lisa’s even perfecting the fudgsicle.