The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

Summer is over and after what felt like forever, our tomatoes have finally ripened. To celebrate, this week ripe tomatoes have made an appearance at every meal, in salads, on sandwiches, tossed in...

At the age of twelve, I attempted my first risotto. I stirred and stirred, carefully following the instructions in a copy of Bon Appétit magazine. Slightly panicked that it wasn't looking right, I...

When I lived in Seattle, one of my favorite spots for relaxed dining was Le Pichet on First Avenue, just up the hill from Pike Place Market. Watching traffic pass by, while enjoying refined bistro...

Last week, we were gifted a bountiful bowl of fresh local peaches. Few summer treats are as special as the first juicy bite of a perfectly ripe peach at peak season. With a family birthday coming up,...

Kohlrabi, with its funny name and alien appearance, is the type of overlooked vegetable that can seem intimidating to most home cooks. Originating from northern Europe, kohlrabi is in the brassica fam...

Often, my kitchen inspiration is based on what is ripe and ready for picking in the garden. Our backyard has provided an abundance of tomatillos and chili peppers this week, which instantly had me...

America has a love affair with cheeseburgers. From fast-food to fine dining, there are different versions of this national favorite in every region. Inspired by the bounty of green chilis ready for...

Included on my cookbook shelf is a small well-worn paperback copy of Elena's Secrets of Mexican Cooking by Elena Zelayeta. Originally published in 1958, this 1973 edition of the cookbook was a gift...

Every summer, without fail, I am surprised by how productive the zucchini plants are in our garden. With new zucchini sprouting up every night, there is always an abundance of the striped, green...

Living in wheat country, I feel a deep connection to the fields of grain that surround me, even though I'm not a farmer myself. The rolling hills give us a colorful reminder of the changing seasons:...

My two favorite things about summer are enjoying home-grown produce and that time of day when the sun sets, and the temperatures finally start to cool down. The back porch is my favorite setting for...

For a brief moment, my mother worried that I was a future sociopath...at the age of four. The discovery of a notebook full of drawings featuring a giant knife wielding woman in pearls would alarm any...

As a child in Los Angeles, I often spent weekends with my father who lived a block from Echo Park Lake, many years before it became the gentrified hipster neighborhood of today. We would walk around t...

Sometimes, after a long night serving $200 dinners (see my article about tasting menus on page 12) I would stop at the Aladdin Gyro-cery, in Seattle's University District, for a cheap late-night...

Having worked as a server at some of Seattle's best restaurants, I've had the honor of working for some of the finest chefs in the city. The more time you spend with great chefs, the better you...

In recent years the term farm-to-table has been overused and even parodied. As a server at some high-end farm-to-table restaurants in Seattle, there were some moments I felt as though I was living in...

Admittedly, behind the scenes of a perfectly styled food photo can be a little chaotic. While testing my recipe for Linguine Vongole, featured in the April 29th edition of The Times, I managed to use...

Sometimes, on a rare day off, I am known to binge episodes of the Food Network classic, Chopped. As contestant chefs brainstorm dishes on the fly, using the surprise "basket ingredients," I play...

As we move into the summer months, my culinary inspirations become increasingly influenced by what is ready to be picked in the garden. Compared to years past, the strawberry plant that runs along...

It's the season of backyard barbeques and neighborhood potlucks, a time when small gatherings can quickly turn into large parties. Amongst the various salads and grilled meats of your summer spreads,...

Julia Child is famous for noting that the quality of a cook can always be judged by how well they roast a chicken. In my quest for poultry perfection, I have tried countless variations and recipes...

In our garden, the nightshades have gone into the ground, and the countdown to tomato season has officially begun. There are few things about summer that I look forward to more than the first...

Too often, uninspired versions of this dish are slapped on restaurant menus, overdressed with bland mass-produced dressing. Originally created in 1924, by an Italian immigrant at his namesake restaura...

During my first spring living in Waitsburg, I quickly fell in love with the vibrant-green rolling hills, the abundance of flowering trees, and the discovery of what the locals simply call “salad...

Truth be told, I have always been one who craves savory over sweet. So perhaps it is of little surprise that my favorite desserts are those that include ingredients which act as a counterbalance to...