Tom Douglas

Most of America doesn't pay dishwashers $10.

It's just an American tradition to make sure people don't leave hungry. The worst thing is to have them say, 'Great dinner, but now I have to go get a burger.'

Some of the best things you do are the things you don't do.

I can't believe how many people don't have time to cook but have time to watch football and 'The Voice.' They're certainly making a choice.

We've become such a restaurant society.

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

I didn't go to university. I didn't go to culinary school, barely made it through high school.

I was once made honorary mayor of my hometown of Newark, Del.

I don't answer my phone in a restaurant.

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.

Catfish has a nice firm texture and mild flavor.

Most of the catfish you find at the fish counter has been farmed. Though I usually prefer to buy and eat wild fish, farmed catfish taste cleaner, without the muddy taste of their wild relatives.

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

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.

The key to great fried squid is 'flash-frying' in hot oil for only a few minutes, which keeps it tender.

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.

The simplest way to prepare Dungeness crabs is to boil them in the shell and set them in front of your guests with crab crackers or crab hammers, cocktail forks, and plenty of napkins.

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.

It's always a good idea to chill your crab cake mixture for a few hours, or even overnight, before frying because they'll hold together better.

Thanks to the abundance of shellfish in Puget Sound, Washington State is the largest oyster producer in the country.

Oysters, such as Dabobs, Quilcenes, Westcotts, and Willapas, to name just a few, are often named after the place they are harvested.

It's important that your shucked oyster is clean and pristine.

Albacore tuna has a mild flavor that's delicious served raw or seared briefly on the outside so that it's still rare on the inside.

One of my favorite ways to eat albacore is tuna poke.

A chunk of seared albacore tuna, salted and peppered, then seared rare in a little oil in a hot skillet for just a minute or so per side, is the perfect addition to a savory plate of fried rice. Just slice the tuna across the grain and fan those mild, meaty slices over the top of the rice.

Cooks are an undervalued, awesome profession.

I'm not exactly the best capitalist ever.

Razor clams are large, oblong clams, although not as big as geoducks.

My longtime friend Steven Steinbock, who has worked with me for more than thirty years, is a master at panfrying fish and seafood.

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.

Maybe there are too many restaurants. Maybe some of mine need to close. So be it. I'll live with the market place.

When I wrote my cookbook, 'I Love Crab Cakes,' I asked some of my best chef buddies to contribute recipes.

At the fishmonger, choose fish with bright scales and clear eyes.

Coho or silver salmon are very common and easy to get for a good price.

For a group of friends or a family dinner, fish tacos are popular and fun to make.

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.

Around the time I opened my second restaurant, Etta's, I had just finished judging at the Jack Daniels World Invitational BBQ Championship in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Back home in Seattle, my goal was to recreate the sweet and smoky taste of that BBQ using our local wild king salmon instead of pig.

The flesh of king salmon, which varies in color from white to pink to red, has a high fat content, making it perfect for grilling.

Sweet Washington cherries and Walla Walla onions are two of my favorite local treats.

Spooning a seasonal fruit relish onto a plate of grilled king salmon is very much my style - flavorful, straightforward, and unfussy. I also like the way fresh, ripe fruit balances the richness of the salmon.

Steaming is a great way to cook any firm fleshed fish, but it's often overlooked by the home cook.

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

I don't ever preach to people.

Farm to table is a personal choice.

Cooking with your kids is a remarkable exercise to let them in on the purchasing part of the process - kids love to shop, and its great to take them to these ethnic places where people don't always speak the language.

I don't know too many kids who ask to weed the garden.

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.

After being cooked, ling cod tends to bleed out some moisture, so, before serving, let it rest a few moments on a plate. Once the moisture has been released, you can carefully pick up the fillet with a slotted spatula and transfer it to another plate for saucing. This way, you won't sog out your beautiful sauce.

Ling cod is a mild-flavored and somewhat delicate fish that takes well to poaching, braising and pan-roasting.

Salsa verde is delicious with trout or most any fish.