This lovely cookbook features 60 delicious, easy-fixing recipes from The Saltry Restaurant in Halibut Cove, 30 of Marian Beck’s vibrant paintings, and wonderful petite stories accompanying each painting that describe life in Halibut Cove, where the locals fish out the front door, gather their own coal from the beach, and go clamming in the dark of night when winter’s minus tides fall.

Marian’s favorite recipes: Sable Fish Chowder, Smoked Salmon Yam Yums, Pesto Halibut, Shiitake Potato Cakes, Mom’s Rhubarb Custard Pie.

"Halibut Cove, Alaska: There's art in the life, and life in the art. In this lovely book, the Saltry's recipes, the colorful paintings by Marian Tillion Beck, and the descriptions of cove life past and present blend like the finest seafood ingredients into a true feast."
    ----Nancy Lord, author of Fishcamp and former Alaska Writer Laureate

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Marian believes that her art is inextricably linked with her environment—that the two things can not be separated. She draws inspiration from living in Halibut Cove. Working on fishing boats, riding horses, and island life are all recurrent themes in her paintings. Marian explains art as an expression of the sensuality of life—a catalyst for evoking smells and emotions. She believes that life itself is art, an organic sculpture shifting within the different frames of the artist’s perceptions.

Marian Tillion was born in 1953 in Seldovia, Alaska. Her parents, Clem and Diana, had recently settled in Halibut Cove, and Marian was the first child born into the ghost town that remained after the collapse of the herring fishery. Much of her childhood was spent on the water. She started fishing with her father when she was ten—after proving she was strong enough by picking him up. Horses have always been a ruling passion in Marian’s life. Her first horse was brought to the island on a barge when she was twelve.

Marian attended college at Cal Poly University in San Luis Obispo, California, earning a degree in animal science. To pay for college she obtained her 100-ton marine license in 1974 and began skippering commercial boats.

While at Cal Poly University, Marian also studied art and later attended the Art Students League in New York City. Further art education included studies in clay with potters Al Tennant, Mark Ervice, and Alex Combs, and classes and workshops in watercolor, silk screen, monotypes, batik, and painting from life.

Marian received her first Juror’s Choice Award for an opaque water color accepted into the 1985 juried art show at the Pratt Museum in Homer. Since that first award in 1985 she has received many Juror’s Choice Awards and Honorable Mentions, as well as several State and Museum purchase awards. Her first solo exhibition of size was at the Pratt Museum in 1990. Although in recent years Marian has concentrated on painting, she has also created clay sculpture and wearable art, and each year decorates 90 to 100 platters for her restaurant.

When Marian and her husband, Dave Beck, built the Saltry in 1984, it provided another avenue for artistic expression. Marian considers the Saltry a piece of functioning art—smooth against rough, exquisite dining against a rugged backdrop. The building itself is an artistic structure, housing handmade plates, mosaic tables, and creatively presented food.