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Good Enough to Make Yourself by Tara Hayes

From our region’s famed seafood to its spectacular wine and organic produce, the Northwest’s bounty is rich and varied. We’re also blessed with exceptional authors who excel at teaching us how to create a meal or cocktail that will even impress the “foodies” we invite over. Here are four local cookbook authors you should definitely get to know.

KATHY CASEY: A FLUID CAREER

Casey’s career began at the age of 15 when she took a job cooking for the nuns at a local convent. They liked what she made and from there Casey worked her way up through the culinary ranks, attending Seattle Central Community College’s culinary arts program and eventually becoming one of the youngest female executive chefs in the country.

Despite her hard-won success in the kitchen, Casey wanted more room to be creative, to put together a whole concept, but “there were no jobs like that back then.” Writing about food never occurred to her until a friend — a cookbook editor and agent — brought it up.

Her first cookbook Pacific Northwest the Beautiful, came out in 1995, and Casey wrote her “Dishing” column for the Seattle Times for 12 years, creating recipes for her readership. Her ninth and latest cookbook project, to be released in late spring, is Sips and Apps — cocktails paired with appetizers.

“There’s a definite Northwest slant to what I do. We live in a great place because we have so many great products. When you pick it or you forage it, it tastes better,” she says. Some of her favorite pastimes include huckleberry picking and wild mushroom hunting and her work studios have an urban garden.

“Writing cookbooks is probably about a tenth of what I do. It’s not a huge part, but it’s a big passion.” As a cookbook author, Casey prides herself on testing recipes thoroughly, so that readers will meet with success when they try them out. She wants her work to be fun and approachable, and loves the stories she gets in return, like the one from the young man who put together an entire Kathy Casey dinner — wowing his girlfriend in the process.

Whether it’s writing about seasonal foods, or creating a whole dinner party, says Casey, “I want people to feel like it’s me talking to them. I want to inspire people to get into the kitchen, or bar, or garden. I’m writing about things people can relate to.”

Kathy Casey’s Sweet & Spicy Hazelnuts
Makes 3 cups
1 pound hazelnuts (about 3 cups)
1 egg white
1 tablespoon water
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Preheat an oven to 350°F. Spread the nuts on a large, rimmed baking sheet and bake for about 6 to 8 minutes or until they are lightly roasted and the skin is starting to come off. Remove from the oven and let cool. With a clean, non-fuzzy dish towel, rub the skins off the nuts. Reserve the baking sheet.

Meanwhile, reduce the oven heat to 250°F. In a medium bowl, whisk the egg white and water until foamy. Add the hazelnuts and toss to coat well.

Transfer the nuts to a sieve, shake, and then drain for at least 2 minutes.

Mix all the remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Add the drained nuts and toss to coat thoroughly.

On the baking sheet, spread the nuts out in a single layer. Bake for 30 minutes. Stir with a spatula, spread the nuts out again, and bake 25 to 30 minutes longer, or until the nuts are dry.
Loosen the nuts from the baking sheet, then let them cool to room temperature on the sheet. Be sure to let the nuts cool completely and become crisp before putting them away. They can be stored for up to 1 month in an airtight container.

Chef’s Note: These nuts are also lovely to package in pretty jars or decorative tins for holiday gifts.

“Sweet & Spicy Hazelnuts” from Kathy Casey’s Northwest Table, Copyright© 2006 by Kathy Casey, reprinted with permission from the author. Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 232 pages, $35.00.

CYNTHIA NIMS: DETAIL ORIENTED

“One of the things about food writing” says Cynthia Nims, “it’s a self-directed career path. Everyone’s story is a little different.” For Nims, who was raised in Edmonds, the story began with neither food nor writing. Food, though she loved it, was something “just for fun.” And she by far preferred math theorems and physics problems to writing prose.

But it was a minor in French and a study abroad opportunity that opened the door to new career possibilities. “I got to go to one of the great culinary cultures of the world. It was surprising how flavorful a ham and cheese sandwich could be.” Nims returned to France to attend the famous La Varenne cooking school for a two-month stint and ended up staying more than two years, getting an on-the-job education at the school in recipe development, food writing and photography.

Ultimately, the Northwest was home and Nims returned, taking on various roles — as a magazine food editor, a gatherer and reviewer of recipes for the popular Best Places guidebook series and, eventually, the creator of her own recipes for the Northwest Homegrown Cookbook series in which she explored single ingredients – crab, mushrooms and salmon, a role that allowed her to lavish attention on the local foods she loved.

“The Northwest story is always one that I’ll want to tell.” says Nims, pointing out that not many areas of the country have the variety that’s available here. And she thinks that other areas of the country take some of their cues from Northwest cuisine.

In her own recipes, Nims focuses on communicating the possibilities of a meal in a straightforward manner. “I tend to shy away from recipes that have 24 ingredients,” she says. She wants a glance at a recipe to show that it is doable in an evening or as a weekend day project. With all her culinary experience she chooses not to use a professional kitchen, instead doing all of her testing at home.

“The real home cook is going to wonder where to put that pot of brine” she points out. It’s this attention to each step — traced back to her days as a math major — that she credits with much of her success in recipe development. “It made me really detail oriented,” she says, “There’s certainly a lot of creativity in development, but you can’t live by creativity alone when it comes to writing books.”

Nor is having a good selection of recipes enough to get a cookbook published today, says Nims. Publishing is changing, and high-profile cookbooks come from high-profile personalities. Online accessibility of recipes means a book of great recipes may not be as bankable, and cookbook publishers are cautious. “It’s fascinating and terrifying to imagine where food writing is going. It’s a big transition for some of us.”

Cynthia Nims’ Wild Mushroom Tempura

For the most dazzling presentation, use a variety of mushrooms of different shapes and textures, such as chanterelles, oyster mushrooms, porcini, cauliflower mushrooms, morels — a wide range is well suited to this recipe. Also feel free to add other ingredients — such as onion, shrimp, strips of fish, zucchini slices, or asparagus — to accompany the mushrooms. There is easily enough tempura batter to accommodate such additions.

This thin batter fries up light and allows you to see the mushrooms and other items beneath the crisp batter veil. It won’t coat the foods as generously as beer batter might, for instance.

Makes 4 servings
1 to 1 1/2 pounds mixed wild mushrooms, brushed clean
1 bunch green onions, trimmed
Vegetable oil, for deep-frying

DIPPING SAUCE
1/3 cup mirin (sweet rice wine) or sake
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup dashi, vegetable broth, or water
1 tablespoon finely grated daikon
(white radish)
1 teaspoon grated ginger

TEMPURA BATTER
1 egg
1 cup ice water, more if needed
1 cup rice flour or all-purpose flour

For the dipping sauce, combine the mirin, soy sauce, dashi, daikon, and ginger in a small saucepan and bring just to a simmer. Take from the heat and let cool. The sauce may be made a day or two in advance and refrigerated, but let the sauce come to room temperature before serving.

Trim any tough stems from the mushrooms. Cut the mushrooms into pieces no more than 1/2 inch thick. For cauliflower mushrooms, simply trim into smaller clusters. Morels can be fried whole, though if quite large you should halve them. Cut the green onions in half crosswise.

Heat about 3 inches of the oil in a large, heavy saucepan (the oil should not come more than halfway up the sides of the pan) over medium-high heat to about 375°F.

When the oil is hot, make the batter. Beat the egg with a fork in a medium bowl, then beat in the ice water. Add the flour gradually, beating gently as you go. You want to mix the batter only lightly to avoid making it stiff. It should be thin enough to just delicately coat the vegetables. If it’s a bit too thick, beat in another tablespoon or two of ice water.

Working with 5 or 6 mushroom pieces at a time, drop them into the batter and lift them out one by one with the fork, allowing excess batter to drip off. Gently add the coated mushrooms to the hot oil and fry until crisp and lightly browned, 2 to 3 minutes. Scoop them out with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. Keep the fried mushrooms warm in a low oven while frying the rest. Stir the batter gently between batches, especially if using rice flour which quickly settles in the bowl. Fry the green onion pieces in the same way.

Stir the dipping sauce to mix and pour it into individual bowls. Arrange the mushrooms and green onions on individual plates, setting the dipping sauce alongside, and serve right away.

“Wild Mushroom Tempura” from Wild Mushrooms, Copyright© 2004 by Cynthia Nims, reprinted with permission from WestWinds Press. 96 pages, $14.95.

BRAIDEN REX-JOHNSON: NORTHWEST DISCOVERY

After years as a writer — in the corporate world, as a freelancer and as an unpublished author of screenplays and romance novels, Braiden Rex-Johnson moved to Seattle with her husband and found her writing niche right next door. She lived half a block from the Pike Place Market and sought a way to bring the market to a wider audience. “It was the right time,” she says.
So she took a cookbook writing course and started educating herself in food and the art of writing cookbooks. Eighteen years later Rex-Johnson is the author of seven books on food and wine from the Pike Place Market and the Pacific Northwest, and she currently writes about food for the Seattle Times.

“I do what are called collaborative or community cookbooks,” she says, meaning she primarily collects recipes from local chefs and puts them together in a cohesive form. For Rex-Johnson, almost every meal is grounds for research — like one birthday dinner she attended that turned into an hours-long conversation with the restaurateur about all of the details of the meal: the wine she was drinking, the winemaker and the forager of the mushrooms. At the end of the evening she had pages of notes. “Thank heavens I like my work,” she says. “It’s my life.”

It’s also an ongoing education, particularly for someone not coming from a traditional culinary background. Rex-Johnson learned on the job and feels that not having that training gives her a unique perspective and sympathy for the home chef. She tests recipes with people like herself, people with regular kitchens and appliances. “I don’t have a lot of fancy tools, because home chefs don’t have those things.”

She also aims to tell the story of food through the people who provide it, the farmers, winemakers, cheesemakers, chefs. She has found that the desire in the Northwest to eat close to the earth by eating locally has been around for a long time, and this differentiates it from other parts of the United States. The rest of the country is just catching up to the idea. “I have a passion for Northwest cuisine because it’s taking the best local ingredients and then not doing too much to them.” This ethos is expressed in her most recent book, Pacific Northwest Wining and Dining, a look at local food and wine region by region.

Even with her success, Rex-Johnson knows that cookbook publishing is changing. Now, she says, if you don’t have a whole platform — a James Beard Award, a television show and a line of companion products — it can be difficult to gain entry. But she’ll continue to write about her favorite topic, most recently on her blog. “It’s a more immediate way to get the word out and keep people current on the food and wine scene.”

Braiden Rex-Johnson’s Blue Cheesecake

1 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup medium-grind cornmeal
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 tablespoon dried basil, crumbled (optional)
1 1/2 teaspoons herbes de Provence, crumbled
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
Three 8-ounce packages cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 pound Oregon Blue Vein, Oregonzola, Gorgonzola, Roquefort, or other high-quality blue cheese, cut into chunks, at room temperature
3 large eggs
1/4 cup (1 ounce) freshly shredded Parmesan cheese
1 head garlic, cloves separated and roasted
1/2 cup whole hazelnuts, pine nuts, or almonds toasted
Crostini

Bring the water to a boil in a small saucepan. Slowly stir in the cornmeal, stirring in one direction to avoid lumps, then add the garlic, basil, if using, herbes de Provence, and salt. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until smooth and creamy, stirring occasionally and adjusting the heat as necessary so the polenta doesn’t overcook or bubble up and splatter, 10 to 15 minutes.

While the polenta is cooking, place the cream cheese and blue cheese in a large mixing bowl. Add the eggs one at a time and mix by hand (if you are very strong!) or beat with an electric mixer until the eggs are thoroughly incorporated. Set aside.

Arrange the oven rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 325° F. Lightly oil a 9-inch springform pan or spray with nonstick cooking spray.

When the polenta is done, remove it from the heat and stir in the Parmesan cheese. Let cool for 5 minutes. With a rubber spatula, press the polenta into the bottom of the prepared springform pan and set aside.

Pour the reserved cheese filling evenly over the polenta crust. Tap the pan lightly on the counter to remove any bubbles. Squeeze the garlic cloves from their skins and arrange them around the perimeter of the pan at equal distances. Sprinkle the hazelnuts evenly in the center of the cheesecake.

Place the cheesecake on a baking sheet to catch any drips, transfer to the oven, and bake for 1 hour, or until the cake springs back when lightly jiggled and the internal temperature on an instant-read thermometer reaches 160° F. Cool on a wire rack for at least 1 hour.

To serve, release and remove the sides of the springform pan. Serve the cheesecake warm or at room temperature, cut into slices as an appetizer or spread onto crostini crackers for a more rustic look. The cheesecake can be covered and kept in the refrigerator for up to 1 week (its flavors meld and deepen the longer it sits). If serving from the refrigerator, slice and warm in a 350°F oven or microwave briefly before serving.

Cook’s Hint: To roast individual cloves of garlic, preheat the oven to 375° F. Remove as much skin as possible from each clove, place in a small baking dish without crowding (a pie plate also works for this), cover tightly with aluminum foil, and bake until the garlic is very tender and easily squeezed from the skin, 35 minutes.

“Blue Cheesecake” from Pacific Northwest Wining and Dining, Copyright © 2007 by Braiden Rex-Johnson, reprinted with permission from the author. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 288 pages, $14.95.

KERRY COLBURN: COMMON GROUND COCKTAILS

When Kerry Colburn goes out with friends who might be having a bad day, she loves to figure out what each person might like to drink. Perhaps they’re in the mood for something tall and fruity with lots of ice in it? This was the approach she took when writing her new cocktail book, Good Drinks for Bad Days — taking unfortunate situations — in everything from work and love to life in general — and pairing them with appropriately named drinks that might ease the pain a bit.

Colburn worked for many years in publishing, editing other people’s books. She published several of her own, but this is her first book of cocktails, and, she says, it only saw the light of day in a competitive market because of its unique twist on the genre. “A traditional cocktail book would think about the drink and ingredients. I had to come at it backwards — starting with thinking about the event and the day.”

Colburn wants to make cocktails accessible to people. She’s had the experience of approaching large bar guides and finding herself overwhelmed. “I find that those are the books that stay on the shelf,” she says. She wanted her own book to be user friendly, a new way to think about classic cocktails.

Colburn says that her success in getting the book published shows there’s still room out there for people to write about food and drink, even if they aren’t experts on the topic. “You can always find an angle that speaks to you and successfully pursue it.” She plans to follow up this book of cocktails with a second about good drinks for bad holidays. Her goal with these cocktails is to give people a way to treat themselves — in a way that is accessible to most of us. “It’s a happy subject for most people,” she says. “It inspires them to try new things, and it’s within most people’s grasp to do and try.”

Given that eating and drinking are two things we all do — and that most of us enjoy! — we’re fortunate here in the Northwest to have both the resources and local talent to satisfy our appetites for flavorful dishes. Few joys parallel those of feeding ourselves and our loved ones well, especially when we have some knowledgeable help along the way.

Kerry Colburn’s Good Drinks for Bad Days

Bad Day: Cranky Relatives Staying with You
Good Drink: Quaalude
1 ounce vodka
1 ounce hazelnut liqueur
1 ounce coffee liqueur
1 splash milk
Pour the vodka, hazelnut liqueur, coffee liqueur, and milk into an old-fashioned glass filled with ice, and serve — to yourself, not your guests!

“Bad Day: Cranky Relatives Staying with You; Good Drink: Quaalude,” from Good Drinks for Bad Days, Copyright© 2008 by Kerry Colburn, reprinted with permission from Sasquatch Books. 128 pages, $14.95.

Tara Hayes is a frequent contributor to Seattle Woman.

©2008 Caliope Publishing Company