Sherry Pocknett, is getting yet another accolade after a year of recognition for her Indigenous cuisine-focused restaurant in Rhode Island.
USA Today announced last month that Sherry was one of the Women of the Year for 2024. Pocknett, who grew up in Mashpee but now lives in Connecticut, was also named Connecticut’s Woman of the Year, awarded by the Norwich Bulletin, a Gannett newspaper.
“Sherry, along with her fellow nominees, has made a significant impact through their activism, igniting positive change on a broad scale to benefit our country and global community,” a release said.
Honorees include 55 representatives from each state, Washington DC, and Puerto Rico, as well as five national honorees.
Two of the national honorees have Massachusetts connections: Dr. Melissa Gilliam, Boston University’s first female president and first Black woman to lead the school, and Aly Raisman, a retired gymnast and two-time Olympian who grew up in Needham.Last year’s women honored were from a variety of fields, including Gov. Maura Healey, former First Lady Michelle Obama, and the late Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
Nominees are submitted by readers, staff, and a panel of experts, and have included other women who work in food like Sherry.
The news comes on the heels of a year full of acclaim for Pocknett and her restaurant, located in Charlestown. Her restaurant was also listed as Rhode Island’s best restaurant in USA Today’s list of best restaurants in each state.
During last year’s James Beard award season — the Oscar’s of the restaurant industry — she won Best Chef for the Northeast for Sly Fox Den Too. Sherry is the first Indigenous woman to receive an award from the foundation.
“A lot of people don’t know about Native food,” Pocknett told the Bulletin in her Women of the Year interview. “They really do know about it, but they don’t know that it’s Native food. Everyone loves scrod, and it comes from the bays of Cape Cod.”
Sherry has been in the process for some time now of renovating a space she hopes to turn into Sly Fox Den, without the “Too,” as a bigger restaurant, event space, and culture center in Preston, Connecticut. In an interview with the Globe, she said she was hopeful it would open some time this year.
By Katelyn Umholtz
