Living and Eating in Walla Walla

Sweet Onion Sausage

I had all these grand expectations that I was going to be cooking up a storm and blogging like a mad lady once I moved to Walla Walla. But I forgot one thing: I am also working a full-time job for the first time in two years (not that being a student and working 20 hours a week wasn’t time consuming, but it’s different). I am also settling into a new town and a new life, one in which, frankly, I don’t know anyone and have been going through the gamut of emotional reactions to starting anew. All of this to say, oops. Sorry! I promised, and I didn’t deliver.

This unexpected busy-ness is compounded by the fact that I’ve been having a bit of a disastrous time in the kitchen. Adjusting to the electric stove is proving trickier than I expected. And things have been turning out, if not bad tasting, decidedly un-photogenic. And uninteresting. And certainly not worth sharing. I have even (gasp!) wondered if I wanted to keep doing this blog, instead of just cooking for myself (and, yeah, for myself, because I don’t even have a dog to feed these days). No need for alarm, though. As Miss Crystal reminded me last weekend, when I visited her in Portland, I just have to ease up and give myself time to settle in and get used to this new life o’ mine. Then I’m sure I’ll be back in fine form, and concocting all kinds of things I can’t wait to share.
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Grilled Salmon Livornese

Salmon Livornese

Whew. It has been awhile. The move across the country put a longer hold on my blogging than I expected, but I’m here, in Walla Walla, WA, and getting settled in quite nicely. I’m more homesick for Boston than I ever thought I would be, but am quickly finding that Walla Walla ain’t a bad place to be, even though the whole town does shut down at 10 on weekends. The Farmers Market today played a pretty big part in convincing me I might be just fine here, and if you come back later this week you’ll find out what I’m planning to do with my bounty. Today is also the Walla Walla Sweet Onion Festival, but I have to admit I haven’t bought any sweet onions yet, largely because I only saw them for sale in five, ten, or fifty pound bags, and frankly, I do not need that many onions.

What I’m going to tell you about today has nothing to do with Walla Walla, really, other than that this was the first meal I cooked in my new house, and on my new grill. Daddy-o kindly showed me how to light a charcoal grill, and hopefully I won’t be too afraid to do it on my own in the future, because this grilled salmon was pretty spectacular and I definitely would like to do it at again.
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