“Wandering & Feasting- A Washington Cookbook” by Mary Houser Caditz features over 200 recipes with local items, separated by region, and then by individual cities and towns. Not surprisingly, there is more than one salmon recipe in the book, several recipes dedicated to seafood, and plenty of desserts.

In addition to the recipes, the book provides little maps, tacky clip-art, and brief histories of each of the regional areas. Unlike many cookbooks, there aren’t any photographs of the food; instead, there are a few old-fashioned photographs pictured to represent a few of the regions and towns. Typical of any book devoted to Washington state, the book isn’t printed in black and white, but green and white.

That said, I have tried some of the recipes, which are of course, the most important part of a cook book. The recipes in “Wandering and Feasting” are easy to prepare, taste delicious, and with the exception of the desserts, seem fairly healthy. I prepared the “Whole Baked Salmon with Three Dill Sauces” today.  As an inexperienced cook, it was one of my more successful cooking attempts thus far as the salmon tasted more on the gourmet side when compared with some alternative salmon recipes I’ve tried.

Some of the specialties aren’t very interesting and were more than likely included because the author had run out of recipes that actually included local flavor- I don’t necessarily see the reason for Mary Caditz’ inclusion of deviled eggs in the cook book or why exactly “Old-Fashioned Pot-Roast” represents Ritzville, but I am all in favor of artistic license. I’m also uncertain how many pioneers were eating chutney in the old days, but the chutney recipes in “Wandering and Feasting” don’t look all that bad.

The best-looking recipes in the book are the sea-food recipes, primarily because seafood and salmon are some of the main staples of what is often termed as Pacific Northwest Cuisine. In fact, I would not be surprised if the state of Washington (particularly the greater Seattle area) had more salmon menu items per capita than anywhere else in the entire world.

In conclusion, “Wandering and Feasting” has all the benefits of a regional cook book in that all of the ingredients are readily available- I appreciate the fact that I don’t have to drive all around town to seventeen different  specialty stores just to get the ingredients. The recipes are easy to prepare.