Kathy Casey’s Northwest Table

"I love writing cookbooks!" Kathy’s enthusiasm, even on this her sixth book, is clear. "This one is so different than my other books. I normally don’t do text, but this book has fun stories in it." Stories as well as 100 recipes based on Northwest ingredients and style.

Behind the scenes, it’s a Northwest book as well. The editor, Ann Manley, has worked with Kathy for 14 years. They met at South Seattle Community College where Ann started a second career at cooking school. Chef Janice Vaughns of Dish D’Lish worked hard on the book as well, and the food photographs were taken by E. Jane Armstrong who lives in Seattle.

The book starts out with Casey’s take on what Northwest cuisine actually is and a look at the various regions—cities, valleys, coastal areas, mountains, desert. "I’m excited about doing another Northwest book," she says. "The geography part of the book was the most challenging for me. I tried to give each region of the Northwest it’s share of the limelight."

Included in the book are assumptions ("bell peppers are seeded and de-ribbed"), cuts ("dice: to cut foods into small cubes: the very even cuts make for even cooking"), and tips (how to de-beard mussels or roast peppers). The last section before recipes begin shares chefs’ secrets and tools that help you organize beforehand and present dishes in a more professional way.

Recipes take you from cocktails and appetizers right through dessert. Many offer suggestions on prepping ingredients in advance. As an example, in her "Bloody Mary Deviled Eggs," Kathy tells us we can boil eggs up to four days in advance, peel and halve them and make the filling one day in advance and assemble up to four hours before serving. Great tips to keep you from leaving everything to the last minute.

She also gives serving and substitute suggestions for main dishes. With her spicy coconut-braised lingcod, for instance, she suggests serving with steamed Jasmine rice and lets us know that mahi mahi makes a fine replacement if lingcod can’t be located.

And how is this a Northwest book, you ask? Just look at the ingredients used—Oregon pears in a Side Car cocktail, oysters from Washington and B.C., Dungeness crab, Oregon bay shrimp, seafood stew made with Columbia Crest Semillon-chardonnay, mashed potatoes made with Washington Yukon Gold potatoes and Walla Walla sweet onions. She also talks about the influence the Northwest has had from Asian and Hispanic cultures.

Ingredients are easy to find (surely!) pretty much anywhere in the Northwest. If they’re in the least unusual, there’s a secondary explanation, e.g., "smoked Spanish paprika (pimentón)." Steps are clear. "We test the heck out of recipes," explains Kathy. People can be confident that they can reproduce these dishes at home."

One of the nice things about this book is that it covers a lot of ground, not only geographically, but also recipe-wise. There’s a dish in here for every occasion. Fin fish, shellfish, short ribs, slow cooked pork in warm tortillas, Shepherd’s Pie (probably not like you know it), lamb burgers, Punjabi grilled chicken skewers. Whatever your taste buds are asking for, there will be an answer in Northwest Table.

Connie Adams/December 2006

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