Description:
The special ingredients of the Pacific Northwest invite good cooking. Of the growing spate of cookbooks that celebrate the region and its products, Schuyler Ingle and Sharon Kramis's Northwest Bounty presents a particularly well-chosen recipe selection framed in a set of skillfully crafted essays full of culinary interest. The book, first published in 1988 and revised in 1999, is a good introduction to the region through its food, and should appeal to general readers as well as those looking for simple, delicious dishes that require little work to fix. Because the ingredients are the defining aspect of Northwest cooking, the book is organized by them. Chapters devoted to shellfish, meat and poultry, tree fruit, and berries, among others, yield more than 275 enticing traditional and contemporary recipes, such as Medallions of Lamb with Pinot Noir and Hazelnut Sauce, Dungeness Crab Cakes with Tarragon Mayonnaise, Cloud Biscuits, Whole Baked Salmon in Cucumber Sauce, and Huckleberry Nectarine Pie. The essays (provided by Ingle) treat an array of topics, from oyster farming, pig raising, community gardening, local hot-sauce production, and more. With fish and shellfish ingredient glossaries, a vegetable availability calendar, and a note on tools for the kitchen, the book reveals the true culinary glory of one of America's most bounteous regions. --Arthur Boehm
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