Alaska on Paper

The book's recipes are simple, many made from seafood available right outside the author's front door, like Lucinda's Baked Oysters and Kachemak Bay Blue Mussels. The directions read like a conversation with a cook, with reminders to keep an eye on the amount of liquid in the mussel pot, and to be careful not to overcook the cioppino.

• Photos

Far more than a simple cookbook, Beck's artwork takes up about half the pages in the 48-page book and provides the segue stories about the unusual aspects of living in Halibut Cove, such as gathering your own coal from the beach and clamming in the middle of the night when winter's minus tides fall.