This week’s media dinner at Oceanaiare was a surprise. Chef Eric Donnelly’s food is surprisingly good – young chef, chain restaurant is usually a recipe for average, overpriced food. Not in this case.

 

Chef was challenged to prepare a multi course “Salmon” dinner for a bunch of snotty journalists who are already full to the gills with our region’s favorite flesh.

 

Appetizer – Copper River Sockeye Sausage.

Salad – Lightly Smoked Yukon King Salmon

3^rd Course – Yukon River King Salmon Sashimi, loved the pickled vegetables

Entrée – What’s up? The invitation said Alaskan Salmon Tasting Trio – Yukon King, Stikine King and Copper River King!

 

Well, the crisis of healthy runs of West Coast salmon has finally reached our plates as well as our pocketbooks. Fisheries are closing before they can even open.

 

Copper River King, Copper River Coho and Kenai King were substituted for the original menu. Why?

 

According to local tastemaster Jon Rowley there is sad news out of the Yukon fishery, which is devastating to the native Yup’iks on the Lower Yukon who rely on the fish for income and subsistence. The $7.50 per gallon for outboard gas is only a deterrent to harvesting the fish. There are no fish to harvest! In addition to the lessened numbers of returning fish, apparently the king salmon are a by-catch for big boat Pollock catching operations in the Bering Sea.

 

We have loved our salmon too much.

 

 

 

This week I spent some time in the fields of Olmstead Orchards in Grandview, Washington checking out this year’s late cherry crop. The cooler weather, even in Eastern Washington, has pushed back picking a couple of weeks. But the fruit is there and they expect to start full scale picking today. The Olmsteads explained that the reason Rainier cherries, which they almost exclusively grow, cost more. Not only is the fruit delicate and susceptible to bruising they only pick the sweetest most perfect fruit. To accomplish this, trees are “picked” four or five times during the season.

Growers, including the folks at Rainier Fruit Company, also told me that they are growing larger fruit.

The best lesson learned.....get a cherry pitter to best enjoy the crop!