The Northwest Essentials Cookbook: Cooking with the Ingredients That Define a Regional Cuisine [Paperback]

Greg Atkinson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2003

Award-winning chef Greg Atkinson explores and savors the Northwest cuisines signature ingredients including oysters, Dungeness crabs, king salmon, cherries, and hazelnuts.

Without crisp apples, wild salmon, sweet hazelnuts, mint from the garden, and spot prawns, there would be no such thing as Northwest cuisine. In this big-hearted cookbook, Greg Atkinson celebrates these and other regional treasures with a cooks knowledge and a locals love of place. Join Atkinson on a culinary tour of these special ingredients as he explains which oysters can stand up to cooking, which apples make the best pies, and how to use cherries in both savory and sweet dishes. With more than 150 choice recipes, this is sure to become an essential cookbook.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Apples, salmon, wild mushrooms, and Dungeness crab--these are some of the ingredients celebrated in Greg Atkinson's The Northwest Essentials Cookbook, an exploration of regional bounty and the cooking it inspires. Atkinson, food writer and chef at Canlis in Seattle, offers 150 accessible recipes peppered with personal culinary narratives evoking his own Northwest "journey." Readers interested in one of the country's most fertile and gastronomically distinguished regions, and those seeking straightforward yet polished recipes for its cooking, should be delighted.

Organized by the ingredients (which, in addition to the above, include stone fruit, herbs, berries, oysters, and mussels, among other seafood), the book features recipes for the likes of Pork Tenderloin Sautéed with Morels, Grilled Singing Scallops on the Half Shell, and Warm Chocolate Hazelnut Cake. There's a definitive recipe for apple pie, a marvelous Dungeness crab gumbo and, among more modish offerings, Flame-Broiled Arctic Char with Cherry Salsa. If Atkinson's introductory essays on, for example, an early morning encounter with a wave-skimming salmon strain for effect, his recipes are always inviting and his culinary information comprehensive. Of particular interest and usefulness are his chapter-by-chapter investigations of apple, salmon, herb, and other food varieties (his discussion of apple types--he favors the jonagold for all-purpose use--is particularly good). Infused with a love of food and respect for ingredients treated simply, Atkinson's book does full justice to the richness of the culinary Northwest and its cooking. --Arthur Boehm

Review

"...the executive chef at Seattle's Canlis restaurant focuses on the local ingredients he uses the most. Much of this book's appeal lies in Atkinson's lyrical descriptions of food and its elevating role in his life. 'I imagine,' he writes, 'that...we are something between animals and angels, and food is the golden chain that keeps us connected to both worlds.'" -- Northwest Palate

"Not since James Beard or M.F.K. Fisher has anyone written about food so honestly." -- Willamette Week

"There are some foods we associate with things other than meals, and ingredients that flavor out lives as well as our cooking. Seattle Homes and Lifestyles contributing editor knows this, and has used his own experiences to put together a book of recipes that is both atechnically informative and intriguingly personal. This is a collection of recipes that utilize the foods we associate with the Northwest. Of course, seafood is covered in its many forms, from shellfish to salmon. Fruits, vegetables, and herbs that flavor local cuisine are described in detail and listed in recipes both basic and daring. The recipes themselves are inventive and never dull. But what really sets this book apart is Atkinson's own anecdotes and opinions about the ingredients he's included. He tells us how a meal of stuffed muchrooms made his future wife agree to marry him and how steamed oysters helped him cope with a family tragedy. Although the recipes are enough to inspir! ! e any chef, Atkinson's approach also inspires a deeper appreciation, of not only the finished product, but the importance of each ingredient." -- Seattle Homes and Lifestyles, October 1999

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Sasquatch Books (June 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570611793
• ISBN-13: 978-1570611797
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 6.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,622,602 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Greg Atkinson is a leading voice in Pacific Northwest Culinary trends. The author of several cookbooks and a lively food commentator, he is regularly featured in radio, television and print.

Atkinson can be heard weekly on "The Beat" on KUOW, Seattle's NPR affiliate. A Certified Culinary Professional (CCP), Greg is active in the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP), and has served as Convivium Leader for Slow Food Seattle. He was featured in the 2005 season of the James Beard Award winning PBS series Chefs A'field, and was the host of KCTS Chefs 2006.

Winner of the James Beard Foundation's M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award 2000, and a pair of American Food Journalism Awards in 2005 and 2006, Atkinson is a contributing editor to Food Arts, and he writes the Taste column for Pacific Northwest Magazine, Sunday newsmagazine of The Seattle Times.

He lives west of Seattle, on Bainbridge Island with his wife and two sons on a peaceful acre with a small orchard of century-old apple trees, fig trees, grape vines and an organic flower and vegetable garden.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful!, January 27, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Northwest Essentials Cookbook: Cooking with the Ingredients That Define a Regional Cuisine (Paperback)

I live on the northern california coast and we share many of the same wonderful foods that create the northwest flavor. This is a great cookbook, the recipes are simple and tasty. The book is broken down into chapters like salmon, prawns and crab, wild mushrooms, herbs, lentils split peas & chickapeas, and apples & pears. These are a few, but certainly not all. This is a book full of recipes at their best when you use the freshest of ingredients. I recommend!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A terrific regional cookbook!, March 3, 2000

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Northwest Essentials Cookbook: Cooking with the Ingredients That Define a Regional Cuisine (Paperback)

The Northwest Essentials Cookbook is a superbly produced regional cookbook that offers a culinary wealth of more than 150 recipes representing a delicious spectrum of flavors and tastes. From Warm Duck and Apple Salad, Poached Salmon with Tarragon, and Chocolate Almond Apricot Cake, to Oysters Mignonette, Savory Stuffed Mushroom Caps, and Simple Rockfish Stew, The Northwest Essentials Cookbook is a welcome addition to any kitchen cookbook shelf.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This cookbook gets to me where I live!, January 10, 2000

By 

B.J. Michaels - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Northwest Essentials Cookbook: Cooking with the Ingredients That Define a Regional Cuisine (Paperback)

- - - -In my heart, my palate, my stomach, memories of home and thoughts of wanting to visit the Seattle area! I really feel good about the support Greg Atkinson gives his recipes in the way of stories, personal experiences and appreciation of the people, places and tastes in his life. This book is a great experience before, during and after meals, for singles and families alike! I'm giving it to my friends!