The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

Talking with a restaurateur in the town of Dayton today, about the behavior of some small town retailers who copy one another's ideas and seem to go about their merry way never realizing everyone in town is aware of their blunder.

In the case of someone stealing another's menu ideas or successful product lines to serve in their own shops, it just shows a lack of respect for other retailers and one's own creativity. Have you perpetrators forgotten your own truth in the term, "culinary arts?"

Back in 2002, no one in the entire Touchet Valley had a Chicken Caesar Salad on their menu, until Wildberries Cafe showed huge success serving our Chicken Caesar, using a hand whisked dressing over crisp organic greens picked fresh each morning from Wild Bill's Patit Street Organic Garden.

Suddenly, every one between Dayton and Prescott was serving Chicken Caesar Salad, and not very good ones at that. Instead of getting angry, I had to turn the cheek and say to myself, this must be what they mean by a backhanded compliment.

All I am saying here is to wake up. We know who you are and we don't like it. If you were found stealing another cook's ideas in a large town, you'd be run out of town. Never mind New York City, where you'd be found with your stove tied around your waist at the bottom of the Brooklyn Bridge.

There's plenty more ideas where someone else's idea came from. Like I said, you need to look at your own truth. Besides being unacceptable, like my four-year-old grandson says, "it's creepy" to continue this way.

Onward and upwardhellip;This weekend, I had a book publisher from San Francisco at my dinner table. She wanted to taste my Pastrami Salmon Dish. As the season would have it, I could honestly find fresh salmon from my local fish monger. While in downtown Walla Walla, I stopped at Forgeron Cellars, 33 West Birsch, where Marie Eve Gilles, an extraordinary Burgundian winemaker resides. I bought a couple of Forgeron Chardonnays to serve with my salmon dinner. Marie's '09 Chardonnay, a 100 percent French Barreled white, is so feminine. What I mean by feminine is that this Chardonnay is made in a well-structured manner, with a tender delivery starting with the approachable aromatics of familiar ripe peaches, cheeks swathed in crushed vanilla bean, and a pineapple cream frappe wraps around your tongue like a long French kiss.

What more can I say? Because you are in touch with your feminine side and know how to go deep into the recesses of your creative mind and process those delicious Burgundian nuances in this wine, Marie Eve Gilles, you have received 98 points from Wine and Country Living, Congratulations! Until next week, "eat art, drink imagination!"

Chardonnay Frappe with Peaches and Cream Serves 2

½-cup ice

¼-cup chardonnay wine

3-tablespoons powdered sugar

1-tablespoon corn starch

½-teaspoon each: ginger, cinnamon

1-peach skinned and cut in half

½-cup heavy cream

Method: In a food processor, add ice and blend to crushed. Quickly add all other ingredient and blend until thick. Serve in frozen glasses with peach wedge garnish in red cellophane straws.

Hear Judith's Web Cast with photos and recipes @www.chefjudithhenderson.com