Tom Douglas
Tom Douglas

Sweet, delicious Dungeness crab is always a treat.

Tom Douglas
Tom Douglas

If you want something beautiful to put on the dinner table, pick up a sockeye, the salmon species with the most vivid red flesh.

Tom Douglas
Tom Douglas

I have an affinity for the old Seattle coffee shops, places like the Green Onion and the Copper Kettle, the classic kind of coffee bar - little places that served breakfast, lunch and dinner and have pretty much disappeared.

Tom Douglas
Tom Douglas

If you just feel lazy and don't want to cook, then don't cook.

Tom Douglas
Tom Douglas

To shuck oysters, you'll need an oyster knife, a handy tool with a sturdy handle and a short, rigid blade which you can pick up for about ten bucks in a kitchenware shop or fish market. A quick trip online will yield any number of videos and slide shows with step-by-step instructions on how to shuck an oyster.

Tom Douglas
Tom Douglas

My wife and I decided to try and kick start our kitchens to a $15 minimum wage for cooks. I've probably had to go through and raise every menu price now by 50 cents because it took away my profit. I just underestimated what it was going to cost.

Tom Douglas
Tom Douglas

While it's typical to find steamed clam recipes which include a bit of bacon or sausage, you might not think of adding shredded ham hock, but it's another way to pair the lusty, smoky flavor of animal fat with the briny ocean flavor of shellfish.

Tom Douglas
Tom Douglas

The classic Italian green sauce, salsa verde, is easy to make and especially nice in the spring when bunches of fresh herbs start appearing in the farmers market or in your garden.

Tom Douglas
Tom Douglas

Cooks are an undervalued, awesome profession.

Tom Douglas
Tom Douglas

Another way I like to barbecue king salmon is as a whole fish stuffed, literally to the gills, with sweet onions, sliced lemons, and summer sage.

Tom Douglas
Tom Douglas

Who doesn't love digging into a plate of crab cakes or going after a chilled cracked crab with crab cracker, cocktail fork and a plastic bib for protection?

Tom Douglas
Tom Douglas

My own favorite way to cook and eat razor clams is to simply dredge them in a mix of seasoned flour and cornmeal, then pan fry them in butter until crisp and golden. Be careful not to overcook them so they stay tender, not tough and chewy.

Tom Douglas
Tom Douglas

Support a small chef. Not these big chains... but support the people who are out there trying to do things right and working hard to do that.

Tom Douglas
Tom Douglas

Catfish's mild taste adapts well to a wide array of flavors, especially strong assertive ones, which is why you used to see it 'blackened' Cajun style on so many restaurant menus - a trick which soon became a tired cliche.

Tom Douglas
Tom Douglas

In my 'Big Dinners' cookbook, I recreated my mother's recipe for crab dip. The creamy dressing for this dip, made with mayonnaise, tomato paste, a touch of honey, sliced chives, lemon juice and zest, horseradish and Tabasco, is reminiscent of Thousand Island dressing.

Tom Douglas
Tom Douglas

The two things that are going to make you a better baker without even trying are a scale and a thermometer in your oven.

Tom Douglas
Tom Douglas

Over the years I've tweaked my stuffing recipe many times, adding a variety of ingredients like sauteed wild mushrooms, dried cherries, fresh chevre, toasted hazelnuts, chopped ham hock meat, and other taste treats.

Tom Douglas
Tom Douglas

If deep-frying catfish, try a dredge of seasoned flour and cornmeal and add some bacon fat to the oil.

Tom Douglas
Tom Douglas

Often we eat squid fried, so it's fun to grill it for a change. To grill squid, slice the cleaned bodies open into two flat pieces and thread them, along with the tentacles, onto skewers, then grill quickly over a direct fire with the coals as close as possible to the grate, turning the squid several times.

Tom Douglas
Tom Douglas

Some versions of crab cakes are mostly crabmeat lightly bound with egg, but I'm a firm believer that a crab cake should contain bread crumbs.