Chef Neil Connolly has spent a lifetime in professional kitchens, restaurants, hotels, and private clubs. Most recently, he opened a wildly successful restaurant in Orlando, Florida, called “Doc’s.” Connolly’s many previous awards include four gold medals at the Culinary Olympics in Germany, where he garnered a perfect score in the competition. He has been honored as a distinguished visiting chef at Johnson and Wales University and is a member of the James Beard Foundation, La Chaine des Rostisseur, and The Honorable Order of the Golden Tocque Society, to mention only a few of his associations. For a dozen years, from 1983 to 1995, Connolly served as Rose Kennedy’s private chef. He also functioned as executive chef for all major family entertaining and special events, especially at the Hyannis Port Compound.

Elizabeth Benedict is the author of five celebrated novels, including The Practice of Deceit and the bestseller Almost, which is set on an island near Cape Cod. Her first book, Slow Dancing, was nominated for a National Book Award. She was chosen to write the essay on Massachusetts for These United States: Original Essays by Leading American Writers and has taught for twenty years at various institutions, including Princeton, the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, MIT, the Harvard Extension, and the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. Her essays and journalism have appeared in many publications, including the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, and the American Prospect. Benedict divides her time between Boston and New York City. (www.elizabethbenedict.com) Photographs: front cover top: Stephen Connolly front cover bottom left and right: Ben Fink back cover: Jerry Schmeer

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Neil Connolly knows all about New England cooking. He was born and raised in Boston and cooked professionally in Vermont and on Cape Cod. It was while he was executive chef at Dunfey’s Hyannis Hotel, one of the most popular gathering places in town, that Senator Ted Kennedy hired him away to work as personal chef for his mother, Rose, at the Kennedy family compound. Connolly soon learned that when you worked at the Compound, you cooked for all the Kennedys. He also enjoyed the buzz of activity and the warm family spirit that overflowed into his working kitchen.

As challenging as everyday cooking for the Kennedys was—a casual family dinner for eight might suddenly turn into a formal dinner for 40—it was only part of Connolly’s job. He was also in charge of all special occasions, celebrity and fund-raising dinners, and elaborate star-studded clambakes on the beach. One especially exciting assignment was working with Caroline and Jackie Kennedy Onassis to throw a luncheon for cousin Maria Shriver, who was about to marry Arnold Schwarzenegger. Besides all the regular meals, dinner parties, brunches, wedding receptions, and birthday parties, Connolly kept the family refrigerator well stocked and catered boat lunches on board the Senator’s beloved sailboat, the Mya.

Big bowls of lobster salad and potato salad, corn and clam chowders, platters heaped with roasted chicken, chocolate chip cookies (John Jr.’s favorite), and brownies were standard fare in Rose’s kitchen, which was both a thoroughfare and gathering place for the family as they ran in and out of “The Big House,” shuttling between a visit with their grandmother and activities on the beach.

In this rare volume, Connolly brings nearly 175 favorite Kennedy recipes to your kitchen, including appetizers and hors d’oeuvres, soups and chowders, seafood and meaty main courses, side dishes and vegetables, salads, brunch dishes, and desserts. These include Cape Cod classics, Boston Irish family recipes, and French-inspired dishes that reflected the kind of food Jackie Kennedy had served in the White House. Seamlessly pairing these recipes with touching family stories and amusing anecdotes , the book also presents never-before-published family snapshots along with striking new food photography. All together, this unique book happily reveals the warmth and controlled chaos that surrounded the Kennedys, America’s perennial First Family, during their golden summers in Hyannis Port.