This time of year in Maine you can throw a rock just about anywhere and hit some kind of seafood shack.

If you’d like to re-create the ambience of a seafood shack at home – or in February, when you’re dying for a dose of summer sunshine – pick up a copy of “The Summer Shack Cookbook: The Complete Guide to Shore Food” by Jasper White (W.W. Norton & Co., $25). White, owner of the Summer Shack restaurants in Massachusetts and Connecticut, teaches you how to make everything from Portuguese Fisherman’s Stew to boardwalk fries. (And yes, he includes lobster rolls, clam cakes, blueberry pie and whoopie pies.)

The chapters are divided into Eat It Raw (oyster shooters, clams on the half shell); Kettle Cooking (steamers, mussels, clam chowder); From the Icebox (retro shrimp cocktail); Hot Off the Grill (grilled sausages); Indoor Cooking (crab cakes and scallop and bacon hors d’oeuvres); Boardwalk and Shack favorites (fish and chips); and the Morning Oven (strawberry shortcake, Boston brown bread).

Wash it all down with White’s suggestions for refreshing drinks, including raspberry lime rickeys and watermelon margaritas.

Now that’s the taste of summer.

 

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