It took a few days in Vancouver, British Columbia to introduce me to Agassiz, an agricultural town 75 miles to the east in the Fraser River Valley. Doing research for a recent feature in Alaska Airlines Magazine, I ate my way through Vancouver and saw Agassiz pop up in a number of contexts. At Les Amis du Fromage cheese shop, my cheese tasting included the Pyramide goat cheese from Farm House Natural Cheeses (that’s one of their Swiss Brown cows in the photo). In Granville Market we came across wild chanterelles foraged in the area. On another menu, it was fresh wasabi grown at Swift Aquaculture (where Bruce Swift also raises coho salmon and crawfish).

On a recent weekend, my husband and I made the 3- hour drive from Seattle to spend time in and around Agassiz. We timed the trip to coincide with the second annual Taste of Agassiz event which featured dozens of dishes highlighting products from the region, including salmon carpaccio with wasabi aioli, squab roasted in cream sauce, stinging nettle quiche and hazelnut/cranberry bars. The evening was testament to the bounty available here and makes me think we’ll be hearing a lot more about this part of Fraser Valley as a food-lover’s destination in years to come.

We explored some non-agricultural spots in the area as well. Bridal Veil Falls is spectacular, seen from many vantage points in the area. A quick hop off Highway 1, the broad veil-like cascade is an easy 15 minute hike up from the parking lot. We also visited Minter Gardens, a beautiful spread of dozens of display gardens, and the nearby Cheam Lake Wetlands Regional Park, a serene marsh and lake setting ideal for birdwatching. In the town of Harrison Hot Springs (where my family spent many a Thanksgiving at the resort when I was a kid, a tradition we’ve rekindled recently), the lakeside beach features a summer-long display of phenomenal sand sculptures to view for a nominal fee.

It’s a magical spot, this part of British Columbia, the lush river valley giving way to Harrison Lake at one side and mountain peaks at another, quite a dramatic Northwest landscape. This recent weekend visit, clouds clung determinately to the mountaintops, obscuring the 7000-foot tip of Mt. Cheam. But on a clear day, that peak serves as visual hallmark of the area.

Gone are the mix-and-match pieces of patio furniture that came with the house when we bought it. Finally, we have some grown-up outdoor furniture, a simple set of freshly-oiled teak now takes their place. Inaugurating the new furniture was reason enough to stoke up the charcoal this past weekend, the first of the season’s lazy backyard meals.

I opted for “mixed grill,” the ideal choice for the decision-challenged (me, on a Sunday afternoon). A packet of Bruce Aidell’s sausages (artichoke & garlic), some lamb leg steaks, chicken breast and chicken legs caught my eye at the store. I mixed fresh lime juice, olive oil, minced garlic and Siracha pepper sauce to marinate the chicken for a couple of hours. The lamb steaks I marinated in red wine, garlic, olive oil and pepper. Because the bronze fennel plant at the side of my house is going gang-busters, I minced up a bunch of that for the lamb as well. Sausages, as is. Everything grilled happily side-by-side.

We also grilled some baby artichokes, portobello mushrooms and onions to serve alongside. Friends brought some Washington rosé wine and a big spinach salad. I grilled slices of baguette to serve with the fresh goat cheese and heirloom tomatoes I’d bought at the farmers market. We sprinkled the tomatoes with herbed salt another friend brought me from Italy—redolent with rosemary and sage.

Dessert was nothing more than a bowl of first-of-the-season Chelan cherries from Matawa in Eastern Washington. What a meal. And what a way to kick off the summer.

Two years ago this month I made an amazing, memorable trip to the Yukon River area in the far north of Alaska. It was my last leg of travel doing research for my Salmon cookbook in the Northwest Homegrown Cookbook Series. My good pal, photographer Scott Wellsandt, made the long trip to the village of Emmonak with me. From this vantage, near the Yukon River delta, we spend a magnificent few days learning about the timeless tradition of subsistence fishing and gained a little more respect for this awesome fish that carries such deep meaning in the Northwest.

We spent a lot of time on the river, fish camps here spread out miles from one another in this incredibly vast, seemingly unending (and surprisingly flat) landscape. We were there before the commercial fishing season was opened (as of today, Fish & Game in the Yukon region has yet to open the fishery for this 2006 commercial season, though it’s expected to do so any day now). Families were catching their subsistence allotments, fish they would be drying, curing and smoking to sustain them through the dark, cold winters.

The ultimate irony of the visit was that I didn’t have one bite of salmon during the stay, the fish far too valuable as a winter food source to just be throwing on the grill for dinner. We ate whatever the crews back in Emmonak were cooking for dinner, drank a lot of Mountain Dew (did I mention this is a dry community??) and played countless games of cribbage between fish trips.

But after Scott and I returned home, the kind folks at K wik’pak (who distribute much of the fish caught on the Yukon) sent us a couple of fish. Here’s a recipe I’d recommend for any wonderful piece of wild Pacific salmon this summer, with a quick and flavorful peach chutney that deliciously complements the character of the fish.

The second annual Incredible Feast is around the corner on August 20, a farmer-driven event put on by the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance (the folks behind the University District, West Seattle, Columbia City and other neighborhood markets in town). The event will be held at the Phinney Neighborhood Center, raising funds to help set up the new farmers market that will be launched there next year. A couple dozen of Seattle's top chefs are paired up with local farmers, offering a feast of the best of summertime produce, cheeses, meats and other products. Tickets sold out in advance last year, so don't dilly-dally. Info is available at the NFMA web site

Peach Melba and Melba toast. Can you imagine two dishes at more extremes than those? One, artfully dried bread. The other, a more decadent combination of lightly poached peaches, vanilla ice cream and raspberry sauce. The twain rarely would meet, except in considering the biography of one Dame Nellie Melba, a famous Australian opera singer of her era (the late 19th and early 20th century).

The illustrious French chef August Escoffier was clearly a big fan of Dame Melba and showed his appreciation by naming not one but two creations after her: Melba toast and peach Melba. At the time he was chef at the Ritz Hotel in London, not far from Covent Garden Opera House where Dame Melba frequently performed. The toast apparently helped sustain her through an illness in the late 1800s. The upscale ice cream was a celebration dish that Escoffier created in her honor.

Mr. Ben Schott isn't convinced that the Melba toast was much of a culinary achievement for Monsieur Escoffier, which may well be true: it was more the christening of fancy toast for a fancy lady than a great culinary contribution. His Schott's Food & Drink Miscellany, which I just came across recently, is a wild, chaotic little adventure in obscure food trivia, including his reflections on the roots of Melba toast. I open the book randomly and find, for instance, a spread that offers menus from two royal banquets, a brief history of the Chiquita banana jingle (including lyrics, which I hate to say will be in my head for the rest of the day), roasting times for various meats (including wild boar and pheasant) and Latin names for popular herbs and spices. Practical, it is not, but an addictive page-turner nonetheless. A little brain candy for the food lover.