I love a good project list, so this year, I’m enjoying working through my summer lobster roll list. Is there a more perfect food for a New Englander in summer? I think not.
Yes, lobster rolls are expensive. Yes, it’s cheaper to get lobster from Market Basket (and they’ll steam em for you!) But making a quest out of it ensures that my ratio of spend to enjoyment as I build my body of “creative work” – a.k.a. the review list is balanced.
The Lobster Roll Short List:
This is not an exhaustive list of lobster rolls in the Boston area. There are some that aren’t on here (notably, I’m not an Eventide lobster roll fan – although I love lots of other things there! And I’ve eaten a few too many Cottage lobster sandwiches).
There are many more I’ll probably add as I go along – feel free to pass me along a suggestion if you have strong lobster roll feelings.
I prefer a cold lobster roll personally (mayo based), but I’ll not turn down a good option if presented to me. Additionally, I’m a fan of lobster in other forms, including lobster salad, lobster sandwiches (including the Alive + Kicking sandwich making it’s way as an interloper on this list), and lobster pasta.
A shout-out to my friend Rachael who put in a lot of heavy lifting in giving lobster roll suggestions, and also joined me at Cedar Hill Dairy Joy.
Legal Seafood (while I prefer the crab roll, this is always solid)
Beach Plum, NH – 10 ounce and Utz chips, eaten on the ocean
Rosewood Restaurant Bellingham MA
✅ Cedar Hill Dairy Joy, Weston MA
Clam Shack, Salem MA – spend the extra $1 to get it on the brioche bun
The Village Restaurant, Essex, MA – a hidden gem
The Knack, Orleans, MA
Neptune Oyster – Cold (I haven’t had this for YEARS, but it was spectacular)
Row 34, Seaport
✅ Shaking Crab, Newton
Pauli’s, North End – 3 sizes
✅ Alive + Kicking, Cambridge, MA (on bread)
James Hook + Co
Saltie Girl
Yankee Lobster
Luke’s Lobster
Steamers, Nonantum
Shea’s, Essex, MA
Beachcomber, Cahoon Hollow Beach, Welfleet, MA
Cousin’s Maine Lobster food truck – you can get CT (butter) or ME (mayo) style – they are small but very good and you can find them at different farmers markets around here (shout out to my high school alum, Jim Tselikis!
Keeping my Lobster Roll Quest notes
I keep a long note on my phone with updates. They look like this:
6/14 Dairy Joy, Weston Ma
Price: 25 + 5 included drink and very lovely fries!
Small buttered and griddled. 4ish ounces. With lettuce. Light Mayo and cold. Just a super strong contender. View is greenery and road. And picnic table vibe.
4.75/5 🦞🦞🦞🦞
5/14 Shaking Crab, Newton MA
Lots of lobster. Roll good not great. I found the filling too seasoned? Delivery: fries soggy but would be good crisped up in air fryer. Side of garlic noodles with shrimp.
3/🦞🦞🦞 out of 5.
If you’d like to join me on one of my quest outings, give me a shout!
Turkish Kabak Tatlısı Pumpkin in Syrup with Walnuts
We’re mid-way into January, and so far New England has seen a smattering of flurries. I’m not sure if we should all be concerned, but I’m enjoying the temperate enough weather and trying to get out as much as possible. I have an amaryllis that’s blooming which is a joy to watch, and a fresh bouquet of Irises.
I’ve been doing morning yoga every morning to start my day, and pairing with a liquid vitamin (MaryRuth’s Organic Liquid Morning vitamin.) I’m historically intermittent with vitamins, and not really sure they do much, but even the placebo in the winter is a nice ritual.
My stairwell and living room bathroom painting is done! The stairwell looks SO FRESH! (This unintentionally set off a saga with fire alarms, and another with a pup with an itchy eye; but we’re rolling with it!)
I went to the gym to participate in an off-session Barbell Betties, and lifted a back squat PR for myself unintentionally. It’s so nice to lift with barbells.
Acquisitions of note:
I “stocked up” on fresh undergarments. Friends with tatas, I’ve switched over almost exclusively to the True + Co Body Boost V Neck. (One of my yearly intentions was to continue with the undergarment refresh.)
I got myself a season pass to the Weston Ski Track, which is conveniently less than 11 minutes from my house, and offers night skiing! My first go was a little bit harrowing, as it’s been about 20 years since I last skied, and somehow I found myself in the MIDDLE OF A SKI RACE! I’m going to be taking a few lessons and looking forward to it.
I went to my friend Nat’s small business and friends mixer down the street. It included ice breakers (the best being – what piece of media have your recently enjoyed!) and a harmonica!
I went to a Female Founders and Funders event downtown at SVB. (Thank you Kristen and Meeta!) I also made it a point to connect with another founder in the same general space, and was kicking myself for not doing it sooner.
Good Reads: finished Ann Patchett’s lovely book The Dutch House. Took me about three years of audiobook to finish it, and still thinking about it. Picked up Danny Licht’s Cooking as Though You Might Cook Again, on Bettina’s recommendation list, which is a small and mighty little book to inspire you to cook and eat. Finally, a RomCom a month late – The Matzah Ballby Jean Meltzer – was delightful (and being turned into a film!)
Watched: Fire of Love– a National Geographic documentary on Disney+ about a pair of famous vulcanologists, Katia and Maurice Krafft. While I loved my geoscience and volcano research in college, I’m… also glad that I didn’t opt for a life of chasing live volcanos. (Their death is not a spoiler – you learn about it in the first 20 seconds of the film.) The footage is really quite remarkable.
Watching Fire of Love (and little Cone Boy)
{Good Eats}
Another great week in food! I’m still reading the 60-minute Gourmet Cookbook (Pierre Franey), Smitten Kitchen Keepers, and The Woks of Life. One of the fun things I did was crowdsource some favorite recipes from my Wellesley food people, so I’m compiling that into a list now. My Turkish recipe of the week was Kabak Tatlısı – a kind of candied pumpkin dessert. I also made myself a quality avocado toast.
Some highlights:
Kabak Tatlısı: the recipe is very simple, you cut approximately 2 lbs. of pumpkin (or squash! I used a Japanese squash this time) into squares in a wide shallow pan. You cover with 8 ounces of sugar, about 1/4 pint of water, and the juice of half a lemon (I use a whole lemon because I like it lemony). Cover and poach gently for an hour, basting every ten minutes or so. I usually turn the pumpkin over mid way to make sure it’s all cooked. You then leave it to cool in the pan, and sprinkle with walnuts.
Sardines Rice Bowl with Tomatoes, Cucumber, Pickled Ginger, and Furikake I each a version of this regularly – it’s one of my most satisfying meals. Sometimes I use tuna, or salmon, but I truly adore sardines.
Broccoli with Blue Cheese and Balsamic, tossed in some leftover Chicken + Kebabs: I get addicted to a combination, and then can’t stop eating it. Broccoli, blue cheese, balsamic, and toasted walnuts (if you remember) is really a perfect combination. I find myself eating the entire bag of broccoli this way.
101 Cookbooks: Christmas Lima Stew– this is a truly stellar recipe, and I cook up Rancho Gordo Christmas limas. This time around, I was planning on cooking the soup the day of, but I ended up taking myself skiing at the last minute, so when I came home, I simply made all the ingredients into a bean salad! Celery, Caraway, Olives, Lemon, Parsley. All delish.
Two bolo cheese sandwiches with açili I picked up these Portuguese sweet breads, and ended up making myself a late night cheese sandwich. My neighbor had given me a jar of her tomato and pepper condiment from her garden in Turkey, and I’ve been hoovering it this week.
Baked Fish with Crunchy Miso Mayo + Green Salad with Honey Goat Cheese. I usually eat fish on Wednesdays when I get it fresh from my farm share. This time though was Red’s Best Skate wings from my freezer. (The goat cheese was from the event I went to.)
Chicken thighs with tomato and bulgur (riff on the chicken and rice dish in Smitten Kitchen Keepers) – I always love homey dishes like this that are sort of stove top casserole and low effort. I ended up cooking some leeks and garlic with smokey Rancho Gordo paprika, cumin, chicken thighs, and then tomato, little honey vinegar, and Turkish bulgur with vermicelli.
Epicurious Kale Salad with Dates, Parmesan, and Almonds + Pork Chop. This is a PHENOMENAL salad. Honestly, might be up there in my top 3 salads of all time. MAKE THIS SALAD. It’s easy to make, and truly exceptional. I add a whole lemon instead of half.
May we all barrel roll with the JOY that Bertram brings to flinging himself and rolling in the grass.
Another year, another excuse to go back to “Week One” – which is a satisfying way to start again and renew for the year. One things I try to do at the end of every week is a pause for gratitude – taking a moment to do a little review of the week, how I felt, and what I experienced. Every time I do this activity (*every* *single* *time*) I’m reminded just how many really lovely moments I’ve had.
I spent a little bit of time on “systems upgrades” – reviewing my “Let’s Eat” spreadsheet, adding new recipes to my list to try, reviewing my “list of lists“, my January Intentions
I’ve kept a movie watching spreadsheet since 2019 (and an unorganized Letterboxd of most everything I’ve watched) – but this week as a gift to myself, I made a to-watch movie list with options for my favorite genres – primarily classics that I’ve missed.
I ran my first 5k of the year – I’ve run the Needham New Year’s 5k maybe for the past decade? (This year I had to tie both shoelaces..)
My stairwell and living room bathroom are being freshly painted
I’ve gone to bed by 11:30, and woken each morning to do some yoga or lift (I’m not usually a morning movement person, but I realized that I could get in 20 minutes without disrupting my morning coffee and reading.
My ProHort gardening and horticulture class kicked off! Looking forward to getting my gardening to the next level. (I also “accidentally” acquired some dahlia tubers from Five Forks)
Acquisitions of note: I sprung for a month of Youtube premium to see if it makes a massive experience difference.
Good Reads: we kicked off the year with The Bodyguard – Katherine Center (very fun romcom), 4000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman (2021, 129 pages) – strongly recommend!
Watched: The Menu (HBO) if you like watching Chef’s Table and dark comedic violence, you’ll likely be mostly satisfied. Wasn’t perfect, but enjoyed.
Chopped off about 5 inches of hair! And now it’s swishy!
{Good Eats}
It was a great week in food! I’ve been reading the 60-minute Gourmet Cookbook (Pierre Franey), Smitten Kitchen Keepers, and The Woks of Life – and been inspired to cook each evening (a working dishwasher, turns out, is the secret to my happiness cooking. Some highlights:
Ottolenghi Chicken Thighs with Fennel and Arak I’ve made this recipe maybe a dozen times over the past few years, and it’s always good. It’s also forgiving – you can swap different citrus out easily, and it’s a very simple recipe to make – you can marinate all the ingredients in a ziplock or even in the baking dish and just pop in the oven.
Cauliflower Gnocchi Deconstructed “Manti” (Turkish seasoned ground beef, yogurt sauce) I’m a fan of Trader Joe’s cauliflower gnocchi, and this makes me feel virtuous. You really simply season the ground beef (usually cumin, oregano, chile, or köfte seasoning). I air fried the gnocchi, and then tossed it in when the beef was done. You make a little yogurt sauce with some garlic to top it, and some more pepper on top.
Pierre Franey Mustard Mayo Flounder; leeks with red wine vinaigrette + tomato. Super simple mix of mustard, mayo, and parsley. You coat the fish and broil or bake. I had flounder from Red’s Best in my farm share. (The leeks were leftover from boiling a chicken over the weekend, and I made a red wine mustard vinaigrette to douse over everything.)
Pork Chops + Salad with Burrata, Tomato, Avocado, Dill Dressing. The air fryer makes perfect pork chops every time. (8 minutes or so at 390 and I let rest.) Big salad of everything in the fridge. Trader Joe’s vegan dill dressing.
Lemony Shrimp + Bean stew with Christmas limas and Argentinian red shrimp from TJs, lemon parsley + sour cream. This is a great stew base recipe! You really want to add extra lemon and parsley at the end.
Also this week? I remembered how easy it is to make good popcorn in the microwave?
The Second Lunch is a (mostly) food blog by Sam Tackeff about recipes, food writing, ingredient hunting, travel, healthy living, fitness, and everything in between.
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