For a Maine girl who grew up spending summers on the coast of Maine, and as an actual grown-up (sort of) who has lived either on or near the coast for more years than I care to disclose, lobster is a familiar subject.

During my preteen and teenage years I spent summers at my family cottage in Cushing, walking, always barefoot, on the rocks along the edge of the ocean, through the woods to the blueberry field where my mother picked blueberries when she was a kid, and boating to islands where we’d spend days lazing around, cooking hot dogs over a fire, and walking around the island. It was a rule that we had to walk around the entire island on the rocks, whether it was a quarter mile or two.

That was before cell phones. I won’t get into that.

Okay I will. There’s something disturbing about kids, and adults, not just, well, being, without texting and taking photos with their iPhones. As I’ve said before, I’m old. And I’m just as guilty as the next guy.

So anyway, lobsters.

At the cottage we’d often fall asleep to the sound of the fog horn at the Marshall Point lighthouse in Port Clyde, and wake to the sound of lobster boats slowly puttering their way out to haul traps for the day. I liked the ones with diesel engines that made a glug-glug-glug sound.

My grandfather had some lobster traps, and sometimes he’d pull up in front of our cottage and pick up one or two of us kids to go out hauling with him. Most often it was my younger brother and sister, Peter and Wendy, as I was above that kind of thing, being a sophisticated teenager. Plus he used to take the big crabs that had made their way into the traps and smash them against the boat rail. He hated those crabs. I hated watching him kill them.

We had lobsters often. There were summers when I couldn’t stomach the thought of eating another one when it came time to close up the cottage and head back to Sanford for the winter.

When my grandfather didn’t give us lobsters we’d walk down the dirt road, barefoot of course, to John Olson’s wharf. He was a real lobsterman. Still is. He’s in his mid 90s now and still lobsters out of his small motorboat. He hauls his traps by hand. John’s son, Sammy, who grew up lobstering alongside his father, now has a big wharf where he buys and sells lobsters big-time. Last I knew he was selling to Red Lobster. Should have married him when I had the chance. I wouldn’t have to be slaving away writing these silly food stories every week. I really never had the chance, but I like saying that.

As a young teenager I waitressed at the small restaurant John Olson and his wife, Betty (she was a rig), built on their lobster wharf. It was called Our Place. When it wasn’t busy I’d take off my sneakers and hang out on the wharf with Sammy and Jonathan Milord, a summer kid from Connecticut. We would actually dangle our legs over the edge of the wharf and watch the lobster boats come and go, just like in old movies.

Not to beat a dead horse (hate that phrase), but kids don’t simply hang out on wharves these days watching boats go by. They’re too busy texting.

Anyway, lobster dinners at the cottage. We boiled the lobsters. (Well, my mother did. I usually ran outside with my ears covered while that slaughter went on.) Of course we always had melted butter, and usually some corn on the cob and some good bread. And strawberry cream pie for dessert. And if it wasn’t raining, or buggy, we ate outside on a picnic table. Lobsters are meant to be eaten outside, on a wharf, or at least somewhere next to the ocean.

Oh. And wine. A lot of wine. Sparkling white, Champagne or Prosecco, preferably.

I love lobster rolls too. And lobster stew. On the off chance there’s any leftovers.

Lobster stew is simple: Sauté the lobster in as much butter as you want, for just a minute or two. Too long will toughen it, and the lobster is already cooked. The sautéing is really just to bring out the sweetness and create that beautiful orangey color floating on the top of the stew. Pour milk or cream, preferably at room temperature, s-l-o-w-l-y into the cooled lobster, until you reach your desired ratio of lobster and liquid.

Let it cool, cover the pot, and stick it in the fridge overnight. Just walk away. It will have so much more flavor the next day, the day after that, and the day after that.

Mary Brewer knows lobster, and lobster stew. She makes hers in a big frying pan. She starts with evaporated milk that she has let the “ragged bodies,” the shells, sit in for a while, for flavor. She sautés the lobster and lets it cool, then s-l-o-w-l-y pours the evaporated, and some whole milk, in, while stirring. “And I always let it sit overnight,” she said. “It’s best when it’s been heated up three or four times.”

Some buttermilk biscuits would be perfect with it.

If you choose to make lobster rolls instead of stew, use the white-sided hot dog rolls, grilled in a little butter. And lobster and mayonnaise. Do NOT use lettuce. Lobster and mayonnaise. And there needs to be tail meat in there. Do not ever give me a lobster roll with just claw meat. Never. I’m serious. I don’t even like claw meat. And what do those restaurants who cheat you out of tail meat do with it?

Anyway, after those lobster dinners at the cottage it was usually my job to take the buckets of shells down the steps to the landing and throw them back into the ocean, from whence they came. Wasn’t really my job. I just liked to do it. I still do.

Just don’t ever expect me to throw the lobsters into the pot. Mary Tyler Moore may be a little over the top, but I empathize with her about killing lobsters. I can eat ‘em but I can’t kill ‘em.

I’m not a chef. I lay no claim to being an authority on food or cooking. I’m a good cook, and a lover of good food. And I know how to spell and put a sentence together. This column is simply meant to be fun, and hopefully inspiring. So to anyone reading this whose hackles are raised because you know more about the subject of food than I, relax. I believe you.