Editor’s Note: Starting today, Sandy Oliver, author of “Saltwater Food Ways” and publisher of the newsletter “Food History News” will write this weekly column from her home in Islesboro.

So many times, we have heard upset friends saying things like, “My grandmother made the best chocolate cake, and I know she used sour cream in it. If only I could find a recipe like hers! I would love to make that cake.” Every Saturday, Taste Buds will print such queries and tap BDN readers for recipes and answers to other food-related mysteries. We know someone out there has just the recipe and is willing to send it along. We’ll go hunting for it, too, try it out, and then share it with you here.

Because we are just getting started, here is a question a neighbor asked me the other day. Maggy Reynolds of Islesboro wondered if I had a recipe for steamed chocolate pudding. Her husband Sonny wistfully reminisces about the rich pudding his mother used to make for him as a child growing up in mid-coast Maine in the 1950s, and Maggy wanted to make one for him.

Any suggestions?

Looking for …

. Maggy Reynolds remembers that her mother used to make two chicken dishes for her family when she was growing up in Rockport. One was spicy and tomato-based, and the other was a creamy white creation served over biscuits. She wrote: “One was cacciatore and the other was fricassee, but I don’t know which was which. As I work full-time plus, it would be wonderful to have recipes that either don’t take all day to cook or can be done in a crockpot.”

. Reynolds added, “My husband has a five-trap lobster license and occasionally brings in more lobsters than we can eat or give away. I would like to know the best way to freeze cooked lobster meat.”

. Evelyn Whitehouse of Islesboro would like a recipe for biscuits that would rise more than an inch. And her husband, Chuck, would like a recipe for chicken and biscuitlike dumplings that you can put in the oven and that will get a crisp top, and that especially “won’t sink.”

. Cathy Bean of Searsmont wants to know what happened to that old-fashioned cafeteria apple crisp she remembers from grade school. It used to taste like “heaven” she writes, and her recollection was it didn’t seem to have so much brown sugar in it. If she had a recipe, she would try to make it herself.

Send queries or answers to Sandy Oliver, 1061 Main Road, Islesboro 04848. For recipes, tell us where they came from. List ingredients, specify number of servings and do not abbreviate measurements. Include name, address and daytime phone number.