I had a lovely day trip up to Maine this weekend; it was warm, dry, sunny, perfect. The air smelled sweet. We had planned to visit a friend and then stop for some seafood on the way home. Time got away from us, so we never got around to the seafood, and now I've got unfulfilled clam cravings! So, time for a little browse in the cookbook section.

Look up cookbooks in the catalog and you'll get a few dozen results. But we actually have a lot of cookbooks under the subject heading of "cookery," which is the official term. We have more than a thousand books under "cookery." We can narrow the search down for seafood by telling the computer to find cookery and seafood--that gives us about 20 books. Two very tempting books that come up are:

The New England clam shack cookbook : favorite recipes from clam shacks, lobster pounds, & chowder houses / Brooke Dojny ; foreword by Susan Herrmann Loomis.

The new Legal Sea Foods cookbook / Roger Berkowitz and Jane Doerfer ; illustrated by Edward Koren.

Since I'm a little wary of cooking fish, though, it might be more helpful to go straight to the travel books, which often contain restaurant reviews. A lot of people ask us where the travel books are kept. We have them in a couple of spots in the library. The newest books will be on display in the New Arrivals section, just to the right of the door to the children's department. For editions that are more than six months old, you'll want to check the adult nonfiction section in the 910-920 area. Books are shelved by travel destination. To pinpoint one in the catalog, search for the destination and the word "guidebook." For travel books on New England in general, I'd search for "New England guidebooks." This lets me know that we have the Mobil New England travel guide at 917.1 M. If I go more specific and search for "Maine guidebooks," I find that we have the latest Fodor's Guide to Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire at 917.4 F. These should let me know what restaurants the experts recommend to satisfy my need for seafood.

Of course, word-of-mouth is a great way to find restaurants, too. Have a favorite clam shack you want us to know about? Leave us a comment!