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Review of

A Chef’s Bounty Celebrating Oregon’s Cuisine

By William King and Rick Schafer

Arnica Publishing, Portland, Oregon 196 pages, $29.95

I love January; bad weather and new Christmas cookbooks go hand in hand at our house, as do new recipes and dishes. This year “Santa” left A Great American Cook by Jonathan Waxman, Lidia’s Italy by Lidia Bastianich, and A Chef’s Bounty Celebrating Oregon’s Cuisine by William King and Rick Schafer. With a roaring fire and a glass of pinot noir I’m reviewing King and Schafer’s new book.

“Sustainable and Organic” have morphed into “Farm to Plate” as the new buzz phrase being thrown around the food industry for responsible eating. King and Schafer have divided Oregon into seven agricultural regions delving into each area’s unique food products that make Oregon a culinary rich state. King is a chef and a transplanted east coast native. Schafer is a fifth generation Oregonian who has been photographing the Pacific Northwest for over twenty five years. They have melded their love and expertise together creating a comprehensive selection of over 150 recipes from fifty chefs all over the state. The chapters range from appetizers to desserts with a map on each recipe highlighting where the food and recipe originates.

Throughout the book there are detailed side notes on producers and products. From the Northeastern corner where we have copious wheat farms (Oregon is the country’s eighteenth largest wheat-production state) to the Willamette Valley (where Oregon produces more than 30 percent of all mint grown in the States) to our wide open spaces (where Painted Hills Natural Beef is raised), this book illustrates with beautiful pictures and facts that can’t help but make you excited about what is on our culinary doorstep.

 Now I’m sure anyone who has spent more than one year in Oregon has a recipe for Dungeness crab cakes. But do you have the recipe for Spicy Dungeness Crab Cakes with Green Papaya Salad as served at Saucebox in Portland? This dish is a perfect balance of Asian flavors that will brighten even the dreariest of Northwest days. Homemade red curry paste is added to the crabmeat along with kaffir lime leaves, cilantro, scallions and mayonnaise to bind. The papaya salad includes raw green beans and cherry tomatoes and then it is dressed with a zesty dressing using Thai chiles, dried shrimp, a dash of fish sauce and lime juice. Finally there is a sweet chile dipping sauce to finish the plate. The symphony of flavors works in unison to create a stunning dish.

Not to be outdone there is a “gourmetizing” of macaroni and cheese by Hayden’s Lakefront Grill in Tualatin with the addition of (you guessed it!) Dungeness crab, Tillamook cheese and pepper Jack cheese. Add a salad of Roasted Beet Salad from Lauro Kitchen in Portland and you have a perfect winter meal for easy entertaining.

I keep meaning to take a trip to the Joel Palmer House in Dayton. Jack Czarnecki is the mushroom king around these parts and I can’t wait to sample his food. But until I can make the short trip, I’ll satisfy my mushroom fix with Heidi’s Three Mushroom Tart, weighing in with four cups of mushrooms, a bit of curry powder and thickened with an egg custard. Yumm.

Using this book and a road map it’s easy to plan your own culinary adventure in Oregon. Begin somewhere on our 362 miles of coastline with salmon, crab, razor clams, and cheese. The Stephanie Inn at Cannon Beach serves up Lemon Curd-Stuffed French Toast for a decadent breakfast.  Proceed to the Willamette Valley home to berries, hazelnuts and pinot noir grapes. Enjoy a meal at Higgins, one of the original chefs who put “local and seasonal” on the dinner plate here in Oregon. When traveling south, add some culture to your trip with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and a tour of the Rogue Creamery and a sampling of their award winning blue cheese. The Columbia Gorge region is the home of orchard fruits and many irrigated crops such as onions, potatoes, and watermelon as well as wheat and alfalfa hay. Indulge yourself at the historic 1921 Columbia Gorge Hotel with a Blackberry Pistachio Bombe. The southeast will take you to cowboy country and the home of our cattle industry. Make a reservation at the Cowboy Dinner Tree in Silver Lake for a night’s stay and cowboy dinner for two- it’s only one hundred dollars! No matter what region you want to explore there is a sampling of recipes from that area.

There are so many levels to enjoy this book. Visually the photography is sterling. The food is captured at its succulent best. Sweeping travel photos unfold our state’s beauty. And then there are the recipes that illustrate our chefs’ creativity with Oregon’s bounty. In the back of the book there is a handy list of seasonality and availability with peak seasons for our most prominent food crops.  I know throughout the year I will be coming back to this book to make many of these dishes as our growing season changes.

“This cookbook is a celebration of the wonderfully talented chefs that have chosen to make this state their home. It is also a celebration of the hard-working farmers, ranchers, and their families that work year-round to produce one of the finest agricultural bounties found anywhere.”

Read! Eat! Enjoy!

And Travel Oregon!

Judith Bishop

www.ingoodtastestore.com

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