The CulinaryWoman Reading Room, for Wednesday March 8

A beloved children’s book becomes a cookbook

The Maynard family hails from New England. Every time I’m back East, I feel very much at home. One of the happiest times I ever spent was on the Blue Hill Peninsula in Maine. My mother always wanted to see Maine, so instead of our usual trip to Cape Cod, we ventured north.

The Blue Hill Peninsula is beyond Maine’s most easily reached tourist towns, and south of Mount Desert Island, home to Bar Harbor and its grand cottages. Maybe because of its slightly isolated and picturesque location, it attracted a number of writers, including two beloved children’s authors. One was E.B. White, famed for Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web. The other was Robert McCloskey.