'Upstream: Searching for Wild Salmon, from River to Table'

SEASIDE — Author and food writer Langdon Cook visits the Seaside Library’s Community Room at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 23, for a talk, book sales and signings.

We will explore the Pacific Northwest via Langdon’s adventures in utilizing wild food and discover a regional stew of cuisine, natural history, and oddball characters. Cook is not just your typical grocery-cart-toting dad. For him, gourmet delicacies abound, free for the taking if we just open our eyes.

As a result, he finds himself free-diving in icy Puget Sound in hopes of spearing a snaggletooth lingcod, armed with nothing more than a “Hawaiian sling.” He tempts fate by eating mushrooms that may or may not be poisonous. He strings up a fly rod to chase after sea-run trout. He even pulls on the gardening gloves to collect stinging nettles.

He traces his journey from wrangler of prepackaged calories to connoisseur of coveted wild edibles. Structured around the seasons of the year, Cook will focus on specific food types and will conclude with recipes featuring the author’s hard-won bounty.

Cook was a senior book editor at Amazon.com until, in 2004, he left the corporate world to live in a cabin off the grid with his wife and son. Now a freelance writer and editor, Langdon has written for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Outside, Gray’s Sporting Journal, Fly Fisherman, the Stranger, Seattle Metropolitan, and Conservation Magazine.

The Seaside Public Library is located at 1131 Broadway. For more information call 503-738-6742 or visit at www.seasidelibrary.org