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Great
Northwest Cuisine
This
month we celebrate the great Northwest by featuring many of the
region’s natural fruits, vegetables and its great abundance
of fish and shellfish. Our home in Washington State is also the
home of world famous Northwest salmon, dungeness crab, apples,
pears, cherries, hazelnuts, mushrooms, berries and many other
delicious natural foods.
The
rich agricultural region of Eastern Washington and Idaho produces
wheat, potatoes and peas but is most noted for its world-class
fruit production. Washington apples are world-renowned and exported
all over the globe. Red delicious, Fuji, Braeburn, Golden Delicious,
Gala, Granny Smith and Jonagold are some of the varieties that
have made this region famous. Soft fruits like pears, cherries
and peaches also abound and grace our tables towards the end of
summer.
Summer in the northwest is a long awaited season and not only
for the glorious weather. August brings one of my favorite events,
the ripening of blackberries. Our home on San Juan Island explodes
with fresh blackberries in August every year. So August is the
time we make blackberry sauce
for salmon, blackberry cream
cheese crepes, chicken with
blackberry sauce, blackberry tarts and just about anything
we can think of that will give us a reason to eat blackberries.
The
Skagit Valley, north of Seattle, is known for more than just its
beautiful tulips. It is a fertile area that produces strawberries,
raspberries, blueberries, cranberries and huckleberries.
Although
the northwest abounds with incredible fresh fruits and vegetables,
the area is best known for its seafood. Tourists visit our coastal
cities each year anxious to sample Northwest Chinook salmon, either
cooked in the traditional method of the Northwest Indians, or
in a multitude of preparations. Dungeness crab, oysters, clams,
scallops, shrimp and mussels are frequent ingredients in a northwest
diet. Other fish that are common to the region besides salmon
are lingcod, snapper, halibut and Petrole sole.
Besides
all this wonderful food, what else does the area have to offer?
Wine. The northwest is quickly becoming renowned for its thriving
wine industry. Washington produces award winning, respectable
wines that compete very nicely with Napa Valley varieties. The
northwest has perfect weather and soil for wine grapes. Drive
through the eastern part of Washington and you will see the landscape
decorated with rolling hills of grapevines. Washington produces
crisp Chardonnay’s to full-bodied cabernets.
Sample
our recipes in this month’s issue and enjoy a taste of the
Great Northwest.
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Glutenfreeda
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