Amazon.com Review
Inside the Pike Place Market by Braiden Rex-Johnson is as fresh and vibrant as the famed Seattle marketplace itself. The country's oldest continuously operating farmer's market is miraculously captured in two dimensions: its nooks and thoroughfares, its personalities, and the found items that define the essence of Pike Place. With 20 market recipes, vivid photographs, and behind-the-scene tales of fish buyers, street musicians, organic farmers, herbalists, and tattoo artists,
Inside the Pike Place Market relates the stories of this bustling urban village as if you were discovering them for yourself.
The book is a hybrid guidebook, photographic essay, narrative, and cookbook--and in this lies its success. Recipes, such as Fusion Flank Steak, Pear Vinaigrette, and Strawberry-Rhubarb Fool, mingle with Paul Sounders's intimate and colorful photographs and Rex-Johnson's succinct vignettes. Together they reveal the rich diversity that infuses the market. Most notably, humanity and tradition live throughout these pages. Meet Louie DeLaurenti, whose family has been in the market since 1928. Survey baby romaine lettuce, vine-ripened tomatoes, Chinese greens, and hot French pastries. Duck into a meatlocker. Listen to Demetrios Moraitis strum his bouzouki. Dodge the low-flying fish, then rendezvous with friends at the brass pig named Rachel. Open this book, and you step into Seattle's soul--and stomach! --Byron Ricks
Review
"'When my husband and I moved to Seattle, we chose to live half a block from Pike Place Market,' says author (and Northwest Palate contributor) Braiden Rex-Johnson. 'We've lived there for over nine years.' In that time, she has produces two Pike Place Market cookbooks, but in her latest book, she turns her attention to the market's businesses and vendors, focusing on the chefs, artisans, farmers, "highstallers," and fishmongers who have helped make the market a national treasure. Snippets of local history (the market's LaSalle Apartments once housed a bordello) and 20 new recipes are scattered throughout the text. If you can't make regular visits to the market, Rex-Johnson's stories and Paul Souder's richly colored photos make this volume the next best thing to being there." --
Northwest Palate, November/December 1999"...makes the Pike Place Market more thrilling to discover than ever before." --
City Food"Since its opening day in 1907, the Pike Place Market has gradually established itself as Seattle's best-loved landmark. Today, most locals couldn't imagine this city without the cramped alleys of the market buzzing with vendors, artists and gawking tourists. In her new book, Braiden Rex-Johnson has woven together painstaking research and honest appreciation into a portrait of Seattle's premier farmers market. Impressively detailed historical articles describe the origins of the life-size bronze piggy bank, the flying fish spectacle and failed attempts by local business owners to close the market. the remotest corners of the market are brought to light with entertaining profiles of hard-to-find shops and longtime vendors, and a few recipes are included for those wondering what to do with all the fresh ingredients available. The book's photographs, by Paul Souders, highlight the colorful diversity that makes the market so popular. Lovingly written and well designed, Inside the Pike Place Market effectively captures the market and its well-earned place in Seattle's history." --
Cara Gill (Seattle Homes and Lifestyles, October 1999
