The last time you saw Lynne Curry in our region, she might have been cooking with Jerry Traunfeld at The Herbfarm or serving as assistant food editor at Seattle Magazine. Earlier, you might have found her as kitchen manager at the now-renowned Willows Inn on Lummi Island, harvesting Italian plums from the owner's trees and plucking borage for the salads while pursuing a graduate degree in education.

Tomorrow (Thursday), she's stopping by on a book tour for "Pure Beef: An Essential Guide to Artisan Meat With Recipes For Every Cut," which brings her disparate culinary, writing, and teaching skills together in one meaty package. She'll be at The Book Larder at 6:30 p.m. for a demonstration class on the differences between conventional and grass-fed beef and a tutorial on beef cuts and cooking techniques.

The book, with recipes from Tamarind Beef Satay to Deluxe Pimento Cheeseburgers, was informed by Curry's life in a tiny rural town in the mountains of eastern Oregon, where she and her husband moved in 2001. "For months I lamented the cafe's weak coffee, the processed restaurant food, and the grocery store that closed at 9 p.m. sharp," she wrote. But in time, she found word of mouth leading her to pastured eggs and raw milk or huckleberry harvests, to offers to pick out a young lamb for slaughter... and, eventually, to learning about the types and cuts and lives of the cattle being raised throughout the community.

"What's really amazing about the Wallowa Valley, where I live, is there's an invisible food system," she said. "My friend recently had her drakes picking on her hens. We had to knock off six of them. So I have a duck in my freezer. This (way of life) has always been there, but now it's something that people want to know about and want to do, which is precisely why I wrote my book."

The smaller-scale purchases eventually led to "cow-pooling," chipping in with neighbors to buy and share the meat from an entire Longhorn steer. She found herself with 87 pounds of beef in her freezer, from short ribs to soup bones. She cooked through it all -- and has kept up the practice every year since, piquing her interest in the meat's purported health benefits and in how it might differ from beef raised on an industrial scale.

The price per pound of the field-raised, grass-fed beef was the big incentive to cow-share. Buying in such bulk, it cost about the same as supermarket extra-lean ground beef. More than that, paying the same rate no matter what the cut had an equalizing effect.

If your shelves and file cabinets are as stuffed with cookbooks as mine are, you'll want to head out to the Cookbook Swap and Recipe Exchange from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday (May 13) at the Burke Museum. Organizers are hoping you'll come trade your old cookbooks for treasures from other shelves, talk about food, and maybe even take in the Burke's "Hungry Planet: What The World Eats" exhibit.

"It all started when Cathy (my wife and a fine cook of some renown) and Jackie Williams (historian and author of a couple of books on cooking in the Northwest in the 1800's) got together at Jackie's house and she brought out a couple of boxes of cookbooks she was getting rid of," wrote Carl Sander, the Burke's public programs manager.

"Cathy was delighted, they had fun, and an idea was born. While not planning it as a Mother's Day event, Mother's Day turned out to be one of the last remaining times we could host an event before the exhibit closed (on June 10)." (Moms, they'll have gifts for you if you vote for recipes over -- or after -- breakfast in bed.)

Sander expects at least 100 people to participate, and says the swap basket already includes desirables like "Skagit Valley Fare" by Lavone Newell, "Classic Indian Cooking" by Julie Sahni, "Feasting and Fasting with Lewis and Clark," 40 editions of "Food History News" and a collection of magazines from the East Coast on cooking in Colonial times. A Burke volunteer is also planning on bringing in old and novelty cookbooks to page through, through they're not part of the swap.

Want to play? You can set the terms of your trades; the only rule is that the books are to swap, not to sell. Any books left at the end of the day will be donated to the Friends of the Seattle Public Library.

Or, for a serious food challenge, head out a day earlier, from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Seattle Center Armory, to watch Seattle students and high-profile chefs wrestle with the TV-worthy challenge that's daily reality for the school district -- making a nutritious lunch that kids will eat that meets federal requirements. Oh, and the whole meal can't cost more than $1.25.

Seattle has been hard at work on improving its food, working with some grant dollars from King County and some serious volunteer help developing and taste-testing recipes from Tom Douglas Restaurants. The chef judges include Lisa Dupar, Jerry Traunfeld, Leslie Mackie, and a bunch more. Eating a school lunch would not normally be one of my top weekend choices, but I'd be curious to try the new curry-couscous entree developed by TDR that'll be taste-tested at the event.

Photo: One corner of one of Rebekah Denn's crowded cookbook shelves

For all its culinary delights, Seattle has never had an Indian restaurant the quality of Vij's in Vancouver, the famed fusion eatery hailed as one of the best in the world, where customers line up well before the doors open for a crack at warm hospitality, lamb popsicles, and jackfruit in black cardamom and cumin curry.

Seattle's shortfall is set to change in November, when some of the Vij family is coming to us, in the form of a new restaurant called Shanik. It'll be spearheaded by Meeru Dhalwala (who runs Vij's and sister restaurant Rangoli with husband Vikram Vij), in a partnership with Oguz Istif, who has been the equivalent of Vij's chief operating officer.

Look for the restaurant in a Vulcan building in South Lake Union to open by November if all goes well. (Original reports called it Vulcan-backed, but they're not financial partners.)

Rumors of a Seattle outpost from the family have circulated for years, mostly without cause. News that a restaurant is finally coming sent Seattle food-lovers into fits of delight, even though Shanik (named for the couple's younger daughter) will have a menu of its own rather than featuring the signatures of either the main Vij's or the more casual Rangoli.

Dhalwala started getting requests for opening night reservations as soon as the news broke. Sorry, fans -- Shanik, like the other Vij restaurants, will be first-come-first-served.

"We love the personality and ambience and what it means to have a restaurant that doesn't take reservations, where everyone is equal," Dhalwala said. They'll still pass hors d'oeuvres and house-made chai and provide a good atmosphere to hang out during the wait for those who miss the first seating.

"It brought really good energy to Vij's and I think it'll bring good energy to Shanik. People love it that Harrison Ford is waiting for a table along with everyone else, and he's been drinking his beer for an hour and a half."

Dhalwala made the decision to go forward witih the cross-border project after talking with both her 4-member home family and her 54-member restaurant family.

She told them what would be involved, and that if they said "No, Meeru, it's too much" that would be OK, and she put it to a vote. "They were resoundingly 'Yes, let's get a new sister on board!" she said.

She's already seeking out Washington farmers while starting the buildout on the roughly 70-seat restaurant.

Here's an edited, condensed version of our conversation:

When Matt Dillon's mom heard he was a finalist in the 2012 James Beard Awards, known as the Oscars of the food world, she warned him that this was the year of the women, so to wait and see.

In the end, the awards were a win all around.

Dillon ("being a man, but from a long line of feminists") took home the top honors and a gleaming medal as Best Chef: Northwest at the award ceremony at Lincoln Center. Tom Douglas was named the nation's Outstanding Restaurateur, inspiring cheers and jubilation (he'd been a finalist enough times to inspire Susan Lucci references.)

Dillon was thrilled for them both -- for what the honors meant for Seattle, and what they meant for the women in his life.

First, he talked to his mom. "She was the first person I called. Actually, she's the only person I've called," he said by phone from the ceremony.

From the stage, he paid tribute to Christina Choi, a former colleague and virtual family member who died this year, far too young. Her wonderful Nettletown restaurant had operated in the original Sitka and Spruce after Dillon moved his first restaurant to Capitol Hill. "Having Christina pass away this year...I couldn't think of any more reason to set my thoughts toward bringing (the award) home," he said. "She understood hunger and how to feed people in a way that I don't think many people really know...Hunger is the reason we do all this stuff, it's the reason restaurants exist, and she had a hold of that."

And he thanked Emily Crawford, his co-chef at The Corson Building, who he called "100 times the chef I'll ever be.

"She's always changed the way I thought about food, and I would be nowhere if it wasn't for her," he said. (I had to disagree about that part, admire Crawford as I do.)

"It really was the year of the women."

And for him?

The Beard is an honor, he said, but "I'm just a representative of the city." And he's happy to see the validation for Seattle, after all the times he's visited New York or Paris or other leading food meccas and thought what we had was every bit as stunning. "Seattle's got it," he said. And I'll say it for him, so does he.

"I cook for the people that come into the restaurant..." he said. "I want people that are hungry to feel fed. That's what it's all about."

Here's a list of national winners, and our coverage of the earlier awards for journalism and books, which included a Beard for our own Maureen O'Hagan. Seattle's only other finalist was Jason Franey of Canlis, who was up against Dillon for Best Chef: Northwest, along with Portlandites Christopher Israel of Gruner, Naomi Pomeroy of Beast, and Cathy Whims of Nostrana.

Photo courtesy of Nancy Leson (yes, of course she was there!): Dillon at the awards ceremony with friend and forager Jeremy Faber.

Michael Natkin's first professional specialty: Computer graphics. The next: Animation.

Then there's the third specialty, now his primary job: Bold, intensely flavored recipes like paella cakes with manchego and marmalade, or spicy tamarind-glazed potatoes, or mango puffs with lemongrass-coconut pudding and black sesame.

After 12 years as a software engineer at Adobe, Natkin recently quit the tech world to focus full-time on food. He's currently on a national tour for his first cookbook, a beautifully designed hardcover titled "Herbivoracious" with 150 recipes and his own photographs (Harvard Common Press, $24.95). His next plan is to open his own small, innovative restaurant in Seattle spotlighting the sort of original, punchy dishes he creates on the blog he's operated since 2007.

Leaving his steady paycheck for the notoriously unstable restaurant world sounds risky, but Natkin's hardly a novice. He's spent years with cooking as his full-fledged obsession, building his blog readership and even taking leave time to train in professional kitchens like Cafe Flora and Canlis and New York's Dirty Candy. His cookbook recipes range from everyday to ambitious, but his clear and straightforward instructions strip the intimidation from dishes with titles like Peppery Absorption-Cooked Red-Wine Capellini. They're no trickier in the end than his take on mac 'n cheese or berry buckle.

The cookbook is vegetarian, as Natkin has been since he was a teenager, taking over the family cooking when his mother was dying of breast cancer and wanted to try a macrobiotic diet. (The book is dedicated to her.) But he'd like people to see his cooking as simply good and interesting food, not as dishes restricted to vegetarians-only. We spoke with Natkin before his book tour began; here's an edited, condensed version of our conversation. He'll be signing books and doing a demonstration at 6:30 p.m. June 19 at the Book Larder, 4252 Fremont Ave. N.

Say goodbye to the long winter months of kale and parsnips, and hello to long tables of local spring asparagus and rhubarb. The 2012 farmers market season is off and running, with the Broadway Sunday market already drawing crowds and Columbia City opening tomorrow (May 2).

The Seattle area will have at least one new venue this year when the Shoreline Farmers Market debuts June 16. But the fun, energetic young Georgetown market won't return for 2012 -- the Seattle Farmers Market Association, which made a 2-year run at the market, told the community that "with great regret" they wouldn't run it this year, although they hope to return "as the numbers of people who visit the great Georgetown area begin to rebuild along with its roadways and bridges." The association's Zachary Lyons tells us that the Interbay market was also cancelled.

Plenty of sites have interesting new and/or notable vendors and features. Here's a sampling, along with opening dates:

I've never thought much about food allergies when making meals for special events. But after seeing the happy group snack times at Shorenorth Co-op Preschool, which I wrote about in Pacific Magazine yesterday, I'm thinking more carefully about what to prepare for birthdays and bake sales.

In the preschool class, where most kids are between ages 1 and 2, parents voted to bring a majority of snacks that would accommodate the various food allergies and sensitivities among the kids, rather than bringing whatever we liked and having parents bring separate treats for those with issues.

I realize food restrictions can go to crazy self-inflicted lengths (just look at Michael Ruhlman's recent post on "Food Fascism.") But seeing the toddlers' friendly group gusto every week has made me feel bad, in retrospect, about the times I've seen a kid at my older children's parties eating a lonely gluten-free cookie rather than sharing in a birthday cake, or unable to enjoy either the peanut butter sandwiches or the cheese sandwiches because they had nut allergies as well as an intolerance to dairy. I'd always seen it as their parents' problem to deal with. But I see now it doesn't take much effort to either provide extra options or to serve something everyone can enjoy together.

I asked Seattleite Jeanne Sauvage, whose book on gluten-free baking is due out this fall, for her take on the issue. Sauvage's daughter has a life-threatening nut allergy and is sensitive to soy, and I've been observing for a while on Twitter how she tries to be inclusive when navigating classroom foods.

Curt Doughty photo, courtesy of Pintxo

In the world of competitive eating, it's a big deal if you can eat 9 pounds of deep-fried asparagus or 5.9 pounds of funnel cake in 10 minutes. But if you had 30 minutes, and the challenge was to eat bacon-wrapped dates, could you eat 50 or more? If so, you may have a shot at... even more bacon-wrapped dates, when Pintxo, the Belltown tapas bar, celebrates its second anniversary May 6. If you're among the first 50 guests after the 5 p.m. opening, you'll get free paella. At 6 p.m., 12 pre-selected contestants will start downing dates. The contest winner gets fame (at least in major-league-eating circles) and fortune (a year's supply of the dates, in the form of one free serving per day, valued at $1,500 if you take advantage of them all.)

Gobbling 50 of the savory snacks is apparently possible, because Pintxo did a similar contest for its first birthday party last year. Competitive eating site Eat Feats says winner Brandon Mambelli ate 51, with runner-up April Dyer at a mere 35. If it doesn't sound like a challenge at first bite, note that Jameson Fink pegged it as 3 full pounds of bacon, dates, and cheese.

Interested in trying out for this year's fea(s)t?