“‘Red’s Eats: World’s Best Lobster Shack” (Down East, $14.95) by Virginia Wright and Debbie Gagnon Cronk is by no means a full-fledged cookbook. But it’s summer in Maine, and who can resist reading about the state’s best-known maker of lobster rolls?

Most of the recipes in the book are for things like Red’s cocktail sauce and cole slaw. The truly adventurous (and those not worried about calories or cholesterol) will be happy to see lead cook Cindy Collamore’s recipe for “The Puff Dog,” a Black Angus hot dog that is stuffed with cheese and bacon, then dipped in batter and fried.

The truly fun thing about this book is all the trivia you can score to impress your friends, such as, How many tons of lobster meat does Red’s go through between April and October? (Answer: 8.5 tons, enough to make 34,000 to 45,000 lobster rolls each season.)

There’s also a list of celebrities, including Robert Redford and Tom Cruise, who have been spotted at the Wiscasset takeout stand.

Perhaps most valuable is the reminder in the last chapter that it is, indeed, possible to “learn to love the line.” 

 

 

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