America, it seems, never gets enough of the Kennedys and that Camelot mystique from the presidency of JFK.

For 12 years, Neil Connolly was part of that storied world, presiding over matriarch Rose Kennedy’s kitchen in the family’s Cape Cod compound in Hyannis Port.

As both a chef and an observer, he offers a selection of recipes, as well as photos and memories from those days in a new book, In the Kennedy Kitchen: Recipes and Recollections of a Great American Family (DK Publishing, $35).

Within its 256 colorful pages, this is equal parts coffee table book and recipe treasure. Who wouldn’t want to make sweet corn chowder with fresh cobs and tasty bacon? But how much more interesting the recipe becomes when you learn he made it for a wedding week luncheon for Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Connolly was executive chef at Dunfey’s in Hyannis when the Kennedy family chef fell ill in 1983. A call to the restaurant resulted in Connolly preparing dinner for 60 at Hyannis Port that same night. He impressed the hosts so much, Sen. Edward Kennedy offered him the job to work as personal chef for his mother who lived on the Cape year-round.

When Rose Kennedy celebrated her 100th birthday in 1990, Connolly baked the oversized cake topped with 100 candles. She loved chocolate, and soufflés were one of the family’s favorite dinner party desserts. He shares the recipe.

He did the clambakes for 200 and made the lunches for the boat trips the senator took on his schooner, the Mya. (His clam chowder was always a hit at the boat lunches.)

He served Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners for the family. He consulted with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis as she prepared for her daughter Caroline’s 1986 wedding to Ed Schlossberg at the compound.

This is no tell-all book, rather it is about all the joy Connolly had serving the Kennedys and their “parade of dignitaries, artists and celebrities” which included Walter Cronkite, the prime minister of Ireland, and Carly Simon and James Taylor. While many of the photographs are familiar and professional records of the Kennedys, there are personal snapshots too from a man who loved his work and took pride in feeding a family that just happened to be famous.

He wrote a lovely look at the wedding week of Maria and Arnold back in 1986. Her maid of honor, Caroline Kennedy, with her mother Jackie, hosted a buffet lunch the day before the nuptials in the president’s house on the compound. While Connolly made his corn chowder, Caroline, with a sense of humor, made Chowderhead mugs with the date and the couple’s name embossed on each. Each of the 80 guests, including Oprah Winfrey, got one for a souvenir.

gciampa@projo.com