Salmon

People tend to respect and believe in science — until it tells them something they didn't want to hear. Thus President George W. Bush clung to his billion-dollar-a-year Reading First program even after a study by his administration showed that it wasn't improving students' reading. Senators from states where the gray wolf was reintroduced successfully pushed for legislation delisting it as an endangered species; it didn't matter what the Interior Department had determined. Now eight senators from salmon-fishing states are warning the Food and Drug Administration that they will pursue legislation — already passed in the House — to keep the FDA from using any of its funding to study whether genetically modified salmon are safe for the environment and consumers.

A group of senators has asked the Food and Drug Administration to abandon its approval process of genetically engineered salmon as food, threatening to push legislation to strip the FDA's funding to study the fish if the agency does not comply. Eight senators sent a letter dated July 15 to the FDA asking it to "immediately cease" consideration of such salmon, a product brought before the agency by AquaBounty Technologies 15 years ago. AquaBounty's proposal calls for the embryos of the fish to be sterilized in Canada before being shipped to Panama, where the males would be exposed to estrogen and sex-reversed.

Smoked salmon onigiri filling Total time: 10 minutes Servings: Makes enough filling for 4 onigiri 3 ounces smoked salmon, thinly sliced 1. Heat the broiler. Place slices of the salmon on a foil-lined baking sheet and broil until the surface of the fish turns opaque, 1 to 1½ minutes on each side depending on the heat of the broiler. Remove and set aside just until the fish is cool enough to be handled. Flake the salmon using your fingers. 2. The salmon can be used as a filling within the onigiri or can be mixed together with the rice before forming onigiri (use half the amount of cooked rice for the basic onigiri recipe)

When you reconnect with an old friend you haven't seen in a long time, it's only natural that you want to make the occasion kind of special. Maybe have them for dinner. In this case, literally. After a long three-year dry spell, California's salmon are back — well, at least a few of them are. So the big question now is: How to cook them? It's been a tough struggle for a fish that not so long ago was regarded as pretty much of a weekday dinner standby. But after peaking with a 2003 catch that totaled more than 7 million pounds, the bottom fell out of the state's fishery.

  Oven-steamed salmon with dill mayonnaise Total time: 40 minutes Servings: 6 to 8 Our recipes, your kitchen: If you try this or any other recipe from the L.A. Times Test Kitchen, we would like to know about it so we can showcase it on our food blog and occasionally in print. Upload pictures of the finished dish here. 1 (1½- to 2-pound) salmon filet, in 1 piece Salt Oil 1 cup mayonnaise 1 teaspoon minced shallots 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard 1/2 cup minced fresh dill 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice 1. Heat the oven to 250 degrees.

  Crisp-skinned salmon with lentils, bacon and dandelion greens Total time: 1 hour, 35 minutes Servings: 6 to 8 Our recipes, your kitchen: If you try this or any other recipe from the L.A. Times Test Kitchen, we would like to know about it so we can showcase it on our food blog and occasionally in print. Upload pictures of the finished dish here. 6 to 8 salmon fillets (1½ to 2 pounds total) Salt 2 slices bacon, cut in thin strips 1/4 cup chopped carrots, chopped in roughly ½-inch pieces 1/2 cup chopped onion 1/2 pound lentils (preferably green lentils)

A $1.4-billion project to remove four hydroelectric dams and restore habitat to return Chinook salmon to the upper reaches of the Klamath River amounts to an experiment with no guarantee of success, an independent science review has concluded. A panel of experts evaluating the proposal expressed "strong reservations" that the effort could overcome the many environmental pressures that have driven the dramatic decline of what was one of the richest salmon rivers in the nation.

A three-way deal between the Charlotte Bobcats, Milwaukee Bucks and Sacramento Kings that featured the draft rights to Brigham Young All-America Jimmer Fredette was the biggest of the NBA draft-day trades Thursday. Guard John Salmons went from Milwaukee to Sacramento, which also got the rights to Fredette, the No. 10 pick. The Bobcats traded leading scorer Stephen Jackson , the rights to No. 19 pick Tobias Harris of Tennessee and backup point guard Shaun Livingston to the Bucks, who will also receive guard Beno Udrih from the Kings.

It's finally time to fish, and Duncan MacLean is ready. His deckhand, Paul Pelt, is not. When MacLean arrives at his boat in darkened Pillar Point Harbor at 4:30 in the morning, Pelt is snuggled into a tiny bunk below deck with his girlfriend, Donna. "Let's go, get up," MacLean hollers, and then invites Donna to leave. She rubs her eyes and wanders into the darkness in shorts and a T-shirt. Like scores of fishermen, MacLean once earned a handsome living trolling for salmon in these waters south of San Francisco.

A group of San Joaquin Valley irrigation districts is demanding that the federal government close the just-revived commercial salmon season off the Oregon and California coasts, a move bound to further inflame relations between farmers and salmon fishermen. In a U.S. District Court lawsuit filed Thursday, the San Joaquin River Group Authority contends that federal fishery managers acted improperly when they recently reopened the commercial salmon season after two years of unprecedented closures.