Crab lovers will delight in a new cookbook by Christine Quinn.

Thirty years ago, Grandfather Quinn invented a device that cleanly cracks crab.

With an eye toward marketing, his son Will made some design changes and daughter-in-law Christine set about writing a booklet to accompany the ones they sell.

“The Crab Cracker” now is handcrafted from exotic hardwoods – Panamanian Blood wood, Australian lacewood and African wenge – on the Olympic Peninsula. The booklet grew into a just-published, 178-page homage called “A Craving for Crab Cookbook.”

“I started and I couldn’t stop,” Christine Quinn said. “My husband finally said I had to. I love to do research. I got so involved.”

A former cooking instructor, Quinn lives with her husband in a circa 1913 cottage on Rockaway Beach. They use pots to catch crab in the water 39 steps outside their door and enjoy it year round, thanks to Christine’s seemingly endless repertoire of recipes.

She has loved crab since childhood, when her family made annual treks from their home in California to Florida. She likes all kinds, from blue to Dungeness, although the big boys are her favorites.

Quinn never tires of eating crab, whether at home or in restaurants, which amazes her friends. She adores crab cakes and samples every one she sees.

For the main ingredient, she lures Dungeness with fish heads, carries them home and kills them by pulling off their backs.

“Then you don’t have to clean them,” she said. “My husband can’t do it. (But) I think it’s more humane than boiling them to death.”

Will Quinn throws the crab in a 10-gallon deep turkey fryer, which is essential when one has a lot of crab to cook, as the Quinns generally do.

The 70-plus recipes in her cookbook run the gamut from salsa to the more elaborate Crab Stuffed Roasted Poblanos With Red Bell Pepper Sauce. Regardless of the complexity, Quinn provides step-by-step instructions with notes on ingredients and preparation tips.

The illustrated book is a treat that showcases Quinn’s knowledge of all things crab and attention to detail.

The information she includes –from the types of crabs to sources for buying ingredients and crabbing gear – makes this an indispensable resource.

She includes online resources, crabbing regulations by state and even lists clinics, classes and crabbing adventures

Illustrations by Idaho artist Jennifer Bellinger and food-related quotes dress up the recipe pages.

Bellinger’s other drawings lend visual aid to such explanations as handling crab and types of crab-catching gear.

Quinn offers sections on butters, dips and sauces, the perfect side dishes and, pro that she is, including a recipe for key lime pie, which she calls “the perfect ending.”

Best fresh

Although Quinn has no problem using frozen crab, she eagerly awaits crab season, which this year starts July 1. She doesn’t mind adhering to a crab limit, but does lament the shorter seasons the area has faced the past few years.

Gathering friends for a crab feed is one of Quinn’s pleasures, whether they’re gathered on Bainbridge or in the couple’s winter digs in Laguna Beach.

Quinn has nationwide distributors for her self-published cookbook.

She had a publisher for her well-received first book, “Things to Do With Kids in San Diego,” and learned that she wanted to retain control of her product and the revenues.

While in San Diego she was an instructor for a cooking school and a social worker.

Quinn tested every recipe and conducted all the research for the book herself. Then she had “a person who doesn’t cook” retest everything.

“One of the hardest things in doing the cookbook was deciding what shortcuts to take,” Quinn said. “I laid awake nights deciding what to leave out.

“You want to feel like I was there with you.”

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Get cracking

Christine Quinn’s “A Craving for Crab Cookbook” ($19.95, Island Publishing) is available at Town & Country Market, Eagle Harbor Book Co. and by contacting (360) 301-0882 or here atcrabcookbook.com

To order the wood Crab Cracker, $39.95, call or go online.

Quinn will conduct a cooking demonstration and sign books 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. May 30 at Town & Country.