I think farmed salmon was the first food that a change in labeling made me stop eating. Once they started having to label it "color added", I couldn't buy it. Even though I eat things full of dyes and artificial colors on a regular basis.

Of course, this turned salmon into very much a sometimes food, as Cookie Monster would say if he were, um, a Salmon Monster. But sometimes wild salmon is in season, and sometimes during that season it's kind of affordable.

Two weeks ago, wild sockeye salmon was $16/lb at Costco. Out of range. Last week, it was $12.99/lb at Costco, which is out of range in Costco quantities, but Cub had it for the same price. When it's about a pound at that price, then that works out much better.

That purchase led to what you see above - one version of salmon + farm. It's got a chilled salad made with roasted beets, blanched green beans, and a mustard viniagrette. And then Cathy made a cauliflower pie with a potato crust she took from her Moosewood cookbook, modified with mushrooms because we had mushrooms.

The salmon, I did not fuck with. Hot pan, salt, pepper, oil, done. 3-4 minutes on the skin side, then 1-2 minutes on the flesh side to finish. Sometimes you don't need anything else.

This week, the salmon was on sale at Costco for $9/lb. That puts a couple of large fillets in the rough area of my budget, so I grabbed some, portioned it out, froze most of it, and used the rest for dinner last night.

I tried to do a bit more with it this time. I made a marinade of orange juice, lemon juice, sriracha, green garlic, salt, and a bit of fresh cilantro. But with all that acid, I didn't want to cook the salmon in it, so I only marinated it for about 10 minutes. Enough to season it and give it some citrus flavor, but not much else came through and I probably could have skipped it. Used the same cooking technique, though, because, well, it works.

To go along with that, I boiled the red potatoes from this week's CSA box, and dressed them with butter, white wine vinegar, mustard, and garlic chives. Then just a basic salad of lettuce (CSA), cucumbers (CSA, of course), tomato and red bell pepper, dressed in a quick soy and sweet chili dressing.

There aren't a lot of tricks to working with salmon, but there's one I find invaluable. Make sure all your dishes are done before you start, and do all your dishes as soon as your done. Nothing stanks up a kitchen like salmon. And the more you clean and the faster you clean it, the less salmon stank you'll endure.