O pioneers! - six of Northwestern States' top tastemakers

Sunset, August, 1997 by Schuyler Ingle

The Pacific Northwest just may have the best food in the nation. Meet six of the tastemakers who shaped this triumphant regional cuisine

Each year the Pacific Northwest's Native Americans celebrate the coming of First Salmon - chosen symbol of all the fat, hook-nosed chinook salmon that arrive at the mouth of the Columbia River. First Salmon's return is a signal that winter has ended and spring returned to shake off wet skies the color of cutlery. It has always been this way in the Pacific Northwest. Good food floods the region - stone fruits and berries, greens and root vegetables, new potatoes stolen from volcanic soil, game birds and venison, lamb and pork and beef, wild mushrooms, and the abundance of the sea - it's like a table set for a feast.

But it wasn't until relatively recently that creative cooks, restaurateurs, and growers and sellers of food came together to sing a culinary song distinct to the Northwest. Beginning in the late 1970s, these pioneers began to import food ideas from Asia and Europe and make them their own, using the region's bounty to speak with a common voice, saying, "Here in this place, this is the way it is, this is how it smells and tastes." It is a process that continues today and will continue well past tomorrow.

In the following pages are but six of the pioneers who have shaped the Pacific Northwest way with food. Master chefs, a baker, a seller of seafood, a brewer of coffee, and a maker of brandies - all have helped to create a regional cuisine unmatched by any in the country.

For the Pacific Northwest is an overflowing cornucopia. The magic happens where the cook and the bounteous food come together. When people in the Pacific Northwest gather, they make exciting food happen. It can be a simple meal among family and friends, or a feast celebrating the return of First Salmon. Whether feast or snack, there's no mistaking where you are.

GWENYTH BASSETTI GRAND CENTRAL BAKERY

For two days this summer, Grand Central Bakery gave away silver dollar-size rolls for free. The bakery was celebrating its birth 25 years ago, when Gwenyth Bassetti and two partners opened a shop in Seattle's Pioneer Square. Called the Bakery, it was the '70s personified, featuring whole-grain pan breads that exemplified the era's love of hearty natural foods.

In 1988, after a hiatus that included breeding national champion sheep, Bassetti came back to refocus the Bakery, which had gotten a little dowdy. She changed its name to Grand Central Bakery. And, inspired by Carol Field's seminal cookbook, The Italian Baker, she handed Seattle a whole new world of Old World bread - slow-rising, hand-formed loaves that could have been baked in a wood-fired brick oven in a French or Italian village.

"The minute we started, we were overwhelmed by requests for bread," Bassetti recalls. The scene at the bakery looked like a page out of the old Soviet Union, with customers lined up out the door. The limit in those early days was two loaves per customer.

Today, Grand Central Bakery has branched out to Portland, where it's called Grand Central Baking Company, and Bassetti's son Ben Davis runs the show. Together the bakeries put out 10,000 pounds of bread a day, for retail and restaurant customers alike. Each and every loaf is made with natural ingredients and formed by hand - and they still rise as slowly as possible for that incredible flavor.

Grand Central Bakery. 214 First Ave. S., Seattle; (206) 622-3644. 138 107th Ave. N.E., Bellevue; (425) 454-9661.

Grand Central Baking Company. 2230 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd., Portland; (503) 232-0575. 3425 S.W. Multnomah Blvd., Portland; (503) 977-2024. 1444 N.E. Weidler St., Portland; (503) 288-1614.

CORY SCHREIBER WILDWOOD RESTAURANT

Somehow people born and raised in the Pacific Northwest always seem to come back home, no matter how far they might stray. Such is the case with Cory Schreiber of Wildwood Restaurant. Such is the luck of Portland.

Schreiber is a fifth-generation Oregonian who grew up in the food business. Until recently, his family owned the Oregon Oyster Company, a century-old oyster purveyor. At age 11, Schreiber began working at another longtime Portland institution, Dan & Louis' Oyster Bar. His culinary education continued at Portland's Benson Hotel, where he learned the workings of a big kitchen. "What I got in that initial apprenticeship," Schreiber explains, "was the discipline that comes from learning the basics of cooking, the French tradition. It's that discipline that underlies creativity in the kitchen."

Schreiber then left Portland to work in San Francisco, Boston, and Chicago before coming home with a reputation as one of America's great up-and-coming chefs. In the course of his continuing food education, he was able to work with and learn from Lydia Shire, Gordon Sinclair, and Bradley Ogden. He also found the kindred souls (Krista Anderson, chef de cuisine; Hal Finkelstein, general manager; Randy Goodman, director of service and wine program) who came back to Portland with him to open Wildwood in 1994. It's a sleek, unpretentious restaurant that states the case for a Pacific Northwest culinary identity, with dishes like Willamette Valley lamb shank with smoked bacon and white beans, and Hood River pear tart with apple brandy.