I went to college in Walla Walla, WA, just as a revolution in food and wine was taking place in that area. When I started college, the only dining choices in town were grubby old diners, a couple mediocre pubs and and fast food. By the time I graduated, the area was awash with tasting rooms, upscale restaurants and excellent bars serving the best in hand-cut french fries and hormone-free burgers. Walla Walla was just one example of the revolution taking place all across the Pacific Northwest in the area of wine and food. In Pacific Northwest Wining & Dining, Braiden Rex-Johnson captures examples of that revolution all over the region and condenses the best of the offerings down into a pleasure-filled book.

Organized by region, Rex-Johnson presents food through engrossing stories that evoke the place and setting before finally ponying up the recipes. By giving so much backstory she makes the food come alive and seem more accessible that if she had simply created a volume of recipes.

It isn't an everyday cookbook, but is the kind of thing that is fun to page through on a Saturday morning while you drink a cup of coffee and plot out a trip to a farmers market. But the time you are a few pages in, you'll be awash with ideas and will be mentally planning an impromptu dinner party so that you can make the Mixed Greens with Fallen Cheese Souffles and Champagne Viniagrette or the Sea Scallops with Spiced Carrot-Dill Sauce. While it's designed around the food and wine of the Pacific Northwest, many of the recipes are easily transferrable to regions all across the country. While some of the seafood might not be quite as available, many of the other ingredients are. Don't let the regionality of this book prevent you from checking it out. It might just stir up a desire in you to visit Washington, Oregon or Idaho and that's not such a bad thing, is it?