Burnt Cove Boil
A late summer day. The evening comes too quickly now, as does the chill.
Dinner at Burnt Cove Boil is the perfect blend of nostalgia - sincere and sweet - and something cheekier. The rocks that that weighed down our trays, the waitstaff informed us, would do double-duty as crackers. Not to worry, they had been freshly boiled. They were weighty and warm to the touch, and they did the job just fine. We leaned into the contrast and brought cut crystal glassware.
It is all very picturesque and elemental. The sun, the flame, the steam, the ocean’s edge. What can be said about shellfish, fresh from the sea, eaten in the fresh air, while the sun drops gold beyond the horizon line? It’s one kind of perfect. The shells were collected and thrown back to the water from whence they came, and a box of ice-cream sandwiches was passed around before the check arrived.
It is not romantic, yet it is. Even the bait buckets seem majestic, bathed in light.
Erin French hosts a winter pop-up at the Lost Kitchen with pristine oysters and refreshing wines.
We first came to Rockland in summertime. It was a heady season in our lives, though we felt so sturdy on our feet, a full year into our life together, a quarter-century into life itself. We were on the hunt for lighthouses and had seen pictures of Rockland Breakwater engulfed by the tide.