Product Description

Escape to the Maine seashore, an exquisite summer sanctuary where vacations stretch out forever during long, golden days and food is the stuff from which memories are made.

The summers that acclaimed chef Rebecca Charles and her family spent swimming in the Atlantic, scouring the beach for shells, and eating shore dinners inspired her to open the famed Greenwich Village restaurant Pearl Oyster Bar. In this heartwarming memoir, Rebecca combines more than seventy of her favorite recipes with captivating family stories.

Rebecca's adventurous granduncle Sam Goldsmith first took the family from the sweltering summer streets of Brooklyn to the exclusive seaside resort of Kennebunkport. But it was his sister–in–law Pearle Goldsmith, Pearl Oyster Bar's namesake and an opera singer with the Metropolitan and New York City operas, who fell in love with the rugged coast of Maine. Pearle passed this love on to her daughter, Eleanor, and her granddaughter, Rebecca.

Rebecca recounts her family's three–generation love affair with the small Yankee fishing village and shares the recipes that have New Yorkers waiting in line for hours to taste what food writer Ed Levine described as "the best lobster roll I have ever eaten."

Rebecca breathes new life into classic beach food. Whether re–creating an old–time clambake or grilling a whole pompano, she imparts the expertise that has made her one of the foremost seafood chefs in the country.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #253882 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-01
• Released on: 2006-03-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Half seafood cookbook and half family history, this volume's greatest strength is in the recipes for over 70 dishes that define New England summers-corn on the cob, salt-crusted shrimp, and lots of lobster-reproduced here in honor of Charles's family's summertime trips to Maine. Charles, owner and head chef of the widely hailed Pearl Oyster Bar in Manhattan, offers her hard-drinking, quick-learning adventures in the restaurant business in the memoir portion of the book, and though they will be nothing new to Kitchen Confidential fans, they make for a piquant prelude to her recipes. The book gets a little bogged down, however, in the chapters that detail early family trips to Maine. Although Charles's desire to tell her family's story is heartfelt, she often leaves out important details, such as dates and introductions to the characters, that would make the narrative easier to follow. The story alternates from intriguing family explorations (how did the author's family locate the one hotel in the Kennebunk region of Maine that accepted Jews in the 1920's?) to textbook historical notes that don't quite mesh with the personal tone. Readers will wonder, too, about such asides as when she mentions her one-time estrangement from both parents ("I discovered my father's death in the late 1980s quite by accident"). Still, when the focus is on the food that Charles loves, the book is an accessible and authoritative guide to seafood preparation, as Charles offers not only divine recipes, from Pearl Oyster Bar Cocktail Sauce to Blueberry Crumble Pie, but tips on selecting (never buy wet scallops), cleaning (leverage is the key to shucking oysters) and preparing (don't marinate fish much more than 30 minutes) all types of seafood. B&w and color photos.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"A book bound to leave readers feeling that summer just can’t come soon enough." -- Los Angeles Times

"A charming, well written account of three generations of women and their summer adventures in Kennebunkport." -- Portland Phoenix

"A homespun travelogue that’s breezy, practical and likely to charm even armchair gourmands not partial to the beach." -- Baltimore Sun

"A pleasure to read. . . . You’ll have this book plastered open on your kitchen counter all summer." -- New York Times

"A satisfying mix of memoir and cookbook." -- Boston Globe

"An interesting, mouth-watering read." -- Bangor Daily News

"Deliciously entertaining. A novel with recipes." -- USA Weekend

"I remember Rebecca’s grandmother Pearle...made the best shortbread cookies, and Rebecca’s book is just as delicious as those cookies!" -- Beverly Sills

"Personal and evocative." -- San Francisco Examiner

"Will remind you of the best summers you ever had." -- O, The Oprah Magazine

Review
"Personal and evocative." (San Francisco Examiner )

"A satisfying mix of memoir and cookbook." (Boston Globe )

"A charming, well written account of three generations of women and their summer adventures in Kennebunkport." (Portland Phoenix )

"A book bound to leave readers feeling that summer just can't come soon enough." (Los Angeles Times )

"A homespun travelogue that's breezy, practical and likely to charm even armchair gourmands not partial to the beach." (Baltimore Sun )

"A pleasure to read. . . . You'll have this book plastered open on your kitchen counter all summer." (New York Times )

"An interesting, mouth-watering read." (Bangor Daily News )

"I remember Rebecca's grandmother Pearle...made the best shortbread cookies, and Rebecca's book is just as delicious as those cookies!" (Beverly Sills )

"Will remind you of the best summers you ever had." (O, The Oprah Magazine )

"Deliciously entertaining. A novel with recipes." (USA Weekend )

"A charming memoir of summers spent on the coast of Maine." (Daily News )

Customer Reviews

Exquisite, mouthwatering recipes and photography!
Even the title LOBSTER ROLLS AND BLUEBERRY PIE makes our mouths water! What a gorgeous book, filled with exquisite stories and photography and, best of all, recipes from one of our very favorite restaurants in New York City. Chef-owner Rebecca Charles of Pearl Oyster Bar on Cornelia Street in Manhattan is a passionate cook, and her passion comes through on every page of this very special book. We're planning to give it as gifts to friends who we know would share our enjoyment of a virtual getaway to the Maine Coast. Bravo, Rebecca and Deborah!

--James Beard Award-winning authors Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page

Stellar Shellfish Fare
I'm not certain what book reviewer Laura Cella bought, but there are more than 75 recipes in this fabulous book, INCLUDING the Pearl Oyster Bar LOBSTER ROLL (page # 209) and their famous BLUEBERRY CRUMBLE PIE (page # 108.) My cover has a photo of the blueberry crumble pie right on the front. The oyster roll recipe also appears in the book, as well as a wonderful Blackberry Nectarine Crisp (which I just made using peaches instead of nectarinses and it came out great!) and all of the recipes for which Pearl Oyster Bar has been named one of the best restaurants in New York City. I travel to NYC once a month and never miss the chance to eat there. This book was a joy from beginning to end. Ms. Cella's review should be immediately removed for erroneous information. Buy the book, you'll love it!

Great cookbook
The recipes in this book are excellent. Simple and down-to-earth, but surprisingly not available in other more encyclopedic books on seafood cooking. The book is beautifully laid out. As to the family history and personal biography, for my taste the book would have been better without them. I'm sure that page after page of minutiae about her relatives is fascinating to Ms. Charles, but believe me, the rest of the world is no better for them. Five stars as a cookbook, one star for effort as a memoir/family history.