I have a passion for smoked salmon. But that’s not surprising. Even as a little kid, I happily ate fish, lobsters, clams, and mussels. I honestly think this taste for fish grew out of my love of fishing and the great taste of fresh-caught fish. Fishing was central to the summers of my youth. At an early age, my Uncle John taught me fly-fishing in idyllic Montana streams and lakes. (I still remember the taste of my Aunt Tia’s panfried trout.) I always summered with my extended family on MacMahan Island off the coast of Maine and my brothers, cousins, and I regularly brought home striped bass, mackerel, flounder, clams, and mussels for the communal dinner table. But it wasn’t until I worked college summers in the kitchen of Martha Vineyard’s Ocean Club that I first tasted smoked salmon. I was hooked!

After seemingly endless experiments pitting Atlantic against Pacific salmon, balancing salt and sweet, time and temperature, and testing a variety of wood chips, I arrived at smoked salmon just to my liking. This is it. – Max