Maine and a Seafood Salad

For me, J. Courtney Sullivan's Maine was a particularly well suited summer read.  The book is about a family house in Cape Neddick, Maine and the trials and tribulations of four of the women who are part of the dysfunctional family, the Kellehers, that own the house.  As it turns out, my family owns a summer house a stone's throw from Cape Neddick,  Maine, and I must admit that our family, like all families, has its share of dysfunction.  With that background, I was understandably excited about the book, and while I liked it a lot, it did not totally live up to my expectations.   My real complaint is that the book took too long for all the characters to get up to Maine  - once they were there and interacting I really enjoyed the book, but I think Sullivan took too long to tell us everyone's back stories.  More about the book after the jump.  The seafood salad pictured above is my go to dish for when I have friends visit me in Maine.  It is both fancy, because of the lobster, but very easy and down to earth as well, and it screams Maine in the summer.  At least in the Northeast, lobster prices are low this summer, so for your labor day weekend, make this dish as a goodbye kiss to summer.

The four women that are the focus of J. Courtney Sullivan's Maine are each very different than each other.  We first meet Alice, the matriarch of the Kelleher family - she is beautiful, icy and cruel and quietly feared by her children and grandchildren.  Alice is one of those women that never took to motherhood, and still, 50 years after the event, is still haunted by her sister's death at the Coconut Grove club fire in Boston.  Maggie, Alice's granddaughter is the youngest character in the book.  She is just about 30, a somewhat rudderless New Yorker who has simultaneously discovered she is pregnant and her boyfriend is a jackass.  Maggie's mother is Kathleen, the Kelleher sibling with the most fractured relationship with her mother.  After she hit bottom as an alcoholic and got clean, she escaped to the West Coast, starting a hippy worm farm with a new love.  Finally we have Ann Marie, Alice's daughter in law and the wife of the Kelleher golden child, Patrick.  Ann Marie lives a perfect life in a perfect home with perfect children, but of course under the surface nothing is perfect.  Ann Marie is the self appointed martyr of the family and it largely falls on her to spend time with the toxic Alice.  Fittingly, Ann Marie is obsessed with decorating doll houses  - creating her own little perfect world.  For the first half of the book, Sullivan introduces us to these characters separately in their own worlds.  It is clear from the start that the family has some real issues, and the way they treat the house in Maine is an illustration of the family's dysfunction.  The ocean front land was won in a bet by Daniel Kelleher, Alice's husband and the heart of the family.  Once Daniel built a house his whole extended family and Alice's whole family spent time in the cottage all together, kids running around wild, big family cookouts and a sense of happy chaos.  After Alice and Daniel's kids grow up, the resentment between siblings begins.  Patrick, the most successful Kelleher kid builds a fancy new house on the property for his parents.  From Alice's perspective he just built the house so when he inherited the property he could live in it rather than the ragged old cottage.  Then, after Daniel dies (and Alice lives in the new house), the three Kelleher siblings divide up the cottage by month - each sibling getting the cottage for one month  - June, July and August.  The parts of the book that spoke to me most were when the characters reflected on the importance of the Maine house to their family and lives and how it had lost a lot of the joy that used to be associated with it.  As a kid my house in Maine was also filled with family (usually three generations at a time) and chaos, too many people living under one roof (with only two small bathrooms) perhaps but enjoying the family time nonetheless.   Now that my parents are gone the house has a different feeling for me, and while we have not divided up the house by month, sometimes it seems like it would be better if we did.   Anyway, when Maggie, Alice, Ann Marie and Kathleen all find end up at the house in Maine at the same time, fireworks ensue when Maggie and Alice drop bombs that sends the family reeling.  For me, I felt that Alice and Ann Marie were the only fully realized characters in the book, especially Alice.  Sullivan created a really honest portrait of a difficult woman, and then through her recollections explained why Alice turned out the way she did.  Ann Marie was a great kooky character  - I felt like I knew her, that I could see her shopping in a Vera Bradley boutique in some Boston suburb.   When I finished the book I immediately wanted to read about the author and whether she had a family house in Maine.  I was disappointed when I read she didn't have a family house in Maine though her family had rented one once and felt that the book was less authentic because of that.  But of course this was a work of fiction, so my reaction was silly.  While the book was not everything I had hoped it would be, it  did inspire me to do is start writing some stories of my own about a family summer house in Maine and the dysfunctional family that filled it for generations.  I always thought about doing this - my family has a lot of good, happy and sad stories that would make a great book.  We'll see if I can stick with it.  

Seafood Salad (Lobster, Scallops and Mussels with Tomato Garlic Vinaigrette), adapted from Epicurious.com
(printable recipe)

This salad is easy and elegant and a great way to stretch lobster as well.

Ingredients
4 lobsters, 1 and 1/2 pounds each, hardshell if you can get them
1/2 cup white wine
1 and 1/2 cups water
1 and 1/2 pounds scallops, if large, cut in half horizontally
2 lbs mussels, scrubbed well and beards removed
2/3 cups olive oil
3-4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
5 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 pound grape tomatoes

Directions:

1. To cook lobsters, bring 8 to 10 quarts of water to a boil in a large stock pot.  Plunge two of the lobsters into the boiling water headfirst.  Boil, covered, for 6-10 minutes.  They will be bright red.  Since I am paranoid I often overcook lobsters a bit, but 8 minutes is a good sweet spot.  Remove the lobsters from the water with tongs and set aside to cool.  Repeat with the other two lobsters.
2. When lobsters are cool enough to handle, remove the meat and chop the tails, or if you like, leave them whole as special treats.  Put lobster in a large bowl.
3. Bring wine, water and 1/2 teaspoon of salt to a simmer in a medium, deep pot.  Add the scallops and cook until opaque, 3 to 4 minutes and no more.  Remove scallops with a slotted spoon and put in bowl with lobster.
4. Add the mussels to the pot and bring back to a simmer, cover, and cook until mussels are open, 4-6 minutes.  Throw out any mussels not opened after 6 minutes.
5. Transfer the mussels with a slotted spoon to the bowl with the lobster and scallops.
6. Strain the cooking liquid through a sieve lined with paper towels to remove any sand and other gunk.  Return the liquid to the pot, bring to a boil and reduce until it is about 1 cup, 8-10 minutes.
7. In a sauce pan, heat the oil, garlic, vinegar, 1/2 cup cooking liquid and 1/2 teaspoon of salt over medium heat for 3 minutes.  Add tomatoes and cook until they just begin to wilt, 3 - 5 minutes.
8. Pour hot sauce over the seafood and toss to coat.  
9. Marinate chilled for 2 hours, but no more than 4.
10. Serve and enjoy.