Stay East, Young Man

It's not like I have a proprietary interest in the matter, but I get ticked by the unappetizing mix of condescension and cluelessness writers sometimes use to talk about the rural West. Here's the opening paragraph of R. W. Apple, Jr.'s New York Times story on the haute cuisine of Walla Walla, Washington:

THE landscape that unfolds beneath the little plane as it wends its way east from Seattle is not very welcoming. First come the daunting peaks of the Cascade Range, and then a sparsely populated near-desert. Eventually, it lets down over a series of vast sand dunes that are cloaked during spring and early summer in an emerald-green mantle of winter wheat. Soon the small, ordered city of Walla Walla ("many waters," in the language of the Cayuse Indians) comes into view.

"The daunting peaks of the Cascade Range"? Thank god he could fly over it. Imagine if he had to use Conestoga wagon like regular Washingtonians. "Sparsely populated near-desert"? OK, even Homer nods. But sand dunes "cloaked [!] . . . in an emerald-green mantle of winter wheat"? Now, my personal experience of agriculture is pretty much limited to growing shapeless and unholy beings, in forgotten containers of leftovers hidden back on refrigerator shelves. So, I won't posture myself as an expert on farming. But even I know that no one raises wheat, or anything for that matter, on sand dunes.

Still, after reading the article, I'm thinking it's time we did that northern loop for our next trip west. We've got family in Montana, friends in Idaho, and Walla Walla would be right on the way as we turned south.

On Update: Fanny Assingham writes:

I clicked through and actually read the article. And I'm wondering what "unctuous bread pudding" could possibly be like. Do you suppose it tastes like Uriah Heep?