Cookbook Review: "Lobster At Home"

One of New England's most acclaimed chefs, Jasper White, has a new cookbook out, and if you're a lover of lobster, you're sure to find it a real page turner. In "Lobster at Home," this Culinary Institute of America-trained chef and restaurateur demystifies New England's best-loved crustacean, making lobster accessible for those who want to bring the clawed creatures home for cooking.

The cookbook opens with a "Lobster Primer," an overview of everything from lobster fishing to buying lobsters to selecting the best specimens--White says he looks for lobsters with a "lively disposition"! He also includes a chart called "The Lobster Year" that pinpoints month by month variations in lobster quality and price so that you'll know when the best times are to include lobster on your home cooking menu. By the time you reach the end of Chapter 1, you may know more about lobsters than you'd ever imagined--including separating the "boys from the girls" (only of major importance if a recipe calls for roe, a.k.a. lobster eggs), all of the lobster "parts," and how to transport and store lobsters.

In Chapter 2, White delves into basic cooking techniques--grilling, boiling, steaming, and microwaving. Step-by-step instructions take the mystery out of working with live lobsters. There's also a great section on "How to Eat a Whole Lobster (Like a Yankee, not a Tourist!)," in which White reminds readers, "Eating lobster is, above all, a sensual experience."

Recipe chapters include:

- Soups, Broths, Chowders & A Bisque
- Hot Appetizers & Small Dishes
- Lobster Salads, Sandwiches, Cold Plates & Composed Salads
- Classic Main Courses

Eight pages of color photos will whet your appetite, and there's even a bonus chapter that features lobster recipes from other great chefs, including:

- Edward Brown of The SeaGrill at New York's Rockefeller Center, one of America's foremost seafood chefs (Bouillabaisse)

- Gerald Clare of The Belmont in Camden, Maine (Lobster Pad Thai)

- Larry Forgione of New York City's An American Place and The Grill Room and Rhinebeck, New York's The Beekman 1766 Tavern (Lobster & Wild Rice Risotto)

- TV Food Network favorite and restaurateur Emeril Lagasse (Emeril's Portuguese Lobster).

Author Jasper White rose to prominence in the early 1980s as a chef at Season's Restaurant in Boston. In 1983, he opened Jasper's on Boston's waterfront with his wife, Nancy. He made "Food & Wine"'s honor roll in 1983 and "Cook's" Who's Who in 1984, and Jasper's was named "Best Restaurant in Boston" by "Boston Magazine" for eleven of the twelve years it was operated by the Whites. Chef White was also the 1991 winner of the James Beard Best Chef in the Northeast Award. Currently, he lives in Lincoln, Massachusetts, and serves as consulting chef to Legal Sea Foods in Boston.

Did You Know?

The meat in a 1-lb. lobster has only 98 calories and 13 milligrams of cholesterol (less than an equivalent portion of skinless chicken).

from "Lobster at Home," by Jasper White

1. Buy lobsters the day you cook them, and transport and store them carefully.

2. Locate the best source for the most recently caught lobsters.

3. Determine the right size of lobster for you.

4. Choose a healthy, lively, freshly caught lobster.

5. Always buy the hardest-shelled lobsters you can find.

6. Never stick your hand into a bag of lobsters.

7. Be environmentally responsible.