Brooke Dojny

[Jason Perlow]

About the Book

You haven’t had lobster until you’ve walked into a Maine waterfront lobster pound and placed your order against the musical backdrop of gurgling lobster tanks, and the clank of boat rigging.

Brooke Dojny has spent her life eating great seafood in the informal, summer-only clam shacks, lobster pounds, and chowder houses of New England. Now, in The New England Clamshack Cookbook, she directs readers to 25 of her favorite Yankee eateries, delivering more than 80 world-class recipes.

The charm of this book lies in more than the recipes. There is the local folklore, the pride of families who have operated these places for generations, not to mention the regional rivalries of chefs who are certain that theirs is the only authentic New England fare. Dojny includes fascinating sidebars that spotlight restaurant history, and local culinary and seafaring lore; she profiles fishermen, clam diggers, and cooks. She even weighs in on the “Great New England Seafood Debates:” whole belly clams vs. clam strips; red chowder vs. white chowder vs. clear chowder; batter fried clams vs. crumb fried clams.

At heart, this cookbook is a roll call of classic Yankee cuisine. Sweet lobster boiled in seawater. Fresh, succulent cod filets fried golden brown. Delicious New England crab. Broiled mackerel. Garlicky mussels. And those wonderful lobster rolls, prepared both plain and “Frenchified.” Dojny includes recipes that showcase the extra zing Italian and Portuguese immigrants to New England gave to the old seafood recipes. Then there are the side dishes: perfect cole slaw and onion rings, pickled beets and red bliss potato salad. And finally, an entire chapter on those famous New England desserts—apple crisp, Indian pudding, giant oatmeal cookies, and whoopie pies.

Here is a book that strikes a perfect balance between pinpointing great places to eat—such as The Clam Shack in Ipswich, Aunt Carrie’s in Narragansett, and Thurston’s Lobster Pound on Mount Desert Island—and offering down-to-earth advice on how to prepare great seafood in your own kitchen.

No matter how you shuck it, seafood doesn’t get any better than this.

About the Author

Brooke Dojny is a respected journalist, food writer, and food consultant. Since 1990 she has co authored Every Night Cooking, a regular monthly column in Bon Appetit with Melanie Barnard. Dojny is also the co-author of over a dozen cookbooks, including the James Beard Book Award-winning AMA Family Health Cookbook (Pocket Books), Beard Award nominees Parties! (HarperCollins) and Let’s Eat In (Prentice Hall Press), and IACP Julia Child Cookbook Award Nominee Sunday Suppers (Prentice Hall Press), as well as Full of Beans (HarperPerennial), The Best of New Orleans (Collins San Francisco), The Best of Chocolate (Collins San Francisco), The 5 in 10 Chicken Breast Cookbook (Morrow Fireside), Cheap Eats (HarperPerennial), The Crabtree and Evelyn Cookbook (Stewart, Tabori, and Chang), and Pasta Made Easy (Longmeadow Press). She has written articles for Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Cook’s Illustrated, Chocolatier, Yankee Magazine, Family Circle, and was the co-author of a nationally syndicated newspaper column entitled “The After Work Gourmet” from 1987-1992.

Dojny has extensive media experience and has conducted five national media tours for her cookbooks, in addition to the national media exposure she gained during her time as spokesman for Oscar Mayer Products in 1995-1996.

In addition to her writing and media experience, Dojny has also operated her own catering business and was chef and catering director for Martha Stewart, Inc. She has worked as a recipe tester, photographic assistant/food stylist, and a kitchen appliance tester. In 1996, she won the Newman’s Own Recipe Contest in the Food Professional Category. Dojny is a member of the International Association of Cooking Professionals and a Founding Member of the Connecticut Women’s Culinary Alliance. She lives in Westport, Connecticut, with her husband, and spends summers on the coast of Maine.

About the Q&A

This Q&A will be unmoderated (no Queue) and will start on May 5. At the conclusion, Brooke will pick the 3 best questions asked, and those winners will recieve a copy of the New England Clamshack cookbook. Thanks Brooke!