Cookbook I

Michael Salmon is a chef who trusts his instincts. His cooking, influenced by local New England ingredients, French techniques and his love for Caribbean cuisine, is inspired and astonishing and all about taste. His culinary range is vast, capturing the flavors and essence of many cuisines from Thailand to Italy. His passion for cooking is contagious.

Each day, Michael provided his guests with a memorable dining experience—a leisurely pace with pleasing-to-the-eye courses and to-die-for-flavors. His cookbook, regardless of your level of expertise in the kitchen, invites you to re-create his kind of dining in your own home. Whether you’re making pistachio pound cake or seared Maine diver scallops or more demanding recipes like Michael’s renowned soufflés with a crème anglaise or Thai pork dumplings, Michael’s instructions for cooking are straightforward. Michael offers useful information about cooking with fresh herbs and unusual spices, plating presentation, even where to order cookware and specialty products. For making extraordinarily good food created by a masterful chef, this is a cookbook to come back to again and again.

Michael Salmon began daydreaming about kitchens at the age of six and at the age of 15 began cooking in a French bistro in his Minnesota hometown. Seven years later, he graduated from the acclaimed Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY, and went on to develop a distinguished career as executive chef in international resort hotels. In 1996, Michael was named Caribbean Chef of the Year in a competition sponsored by Food & Wine magazine and American Express. For twenty three years, Michael turned his attention to the intimate dining experience he and his wife, Mary Jo, purposefully created at the Hartstone Inn in Camden, Maine.