Today’s Seattle Times has an informative profile of Jon Rowley, the food consultant who first brought us Copper River salmon. Say what you will about the marketing of Alaskan salmon—Rowley taught commercial fishermen how to handle their catch so the flavor and freshness wouldn’t be lost on the long trek to market. More recently he’s been behind the Northwest’s growing oyster trade.

Quote: He fished for a decade, taking winters off to travel in Europe. And the same question he had asked himself as a young man kept haunting him: Why did the food in Europe taste so much better than the food back home?

The article is written by Peter Lewis, former owner of Campagne.