Eating Between The Lines

Eating Between the Lines: A Maine Writers’ Cookbook is not a Mike Bowditch title or a conventional narrative work, but an edited cookbook that brings together recipes and writing from Maine authors. Edited by Paul Doiron and published by the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance in 1998, the book is built around the idea that food and literary life belong naturally together. Rather than following one storyline, it functions as a collaborative collection, using recipes as an entry point into the personalities, memories, humor, and regional character of the writers involved.

What makes the book’s premise distinctive is that it appears to be more than a straightforward recipe compilation. Contemporary descriptions present it as a cookbook that also shares stories, poetry, and reflections, giving it the feel of a literary anthology shaped through food. That means its appeal lies not only in what readers might cook, but in the sense of Maine as a cultural and creative place, seen through the voices of the writers contributing to it.

As a Paul Doiron-related title, the clearest way to understand Eating Between the Lines is as an editorial and regional-literary project from early in his career rather than a fiction work. It belongs more to the world of Maine letters and community publishing than to the crime fiction for which he later became known, making it an interesting outlier in his bibliography.

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