We just received another great review from the blog “The Baby Bottom Line” written by first time mom Lise, our neighbor to the north in Canada. Check out the full review here. Our Garlic Shallot was the big favorite of Lise. Anyway, thanks for the wonderful review!

Hey, look at that! – an article we wrote was recently published in Michigan Home and Lifestyle Magazine. Here is a link to a PDF copy of the article that appeared in the Summer 2010 edition of the magazine (provided with permission from Michigan Home and Lifestyle Magazine). The article is titled “Make this Summer Worth its Salt” and it is a solid (if we do say so ourselves) primer to unrefined salts and their use, especially in summer-time applications.

The article also includes a copy of our ridiculously yummy Windy-City Celery Potato Salad. We use avocado to add huge oomph to the flavor and texture of blah old potato salad…but of course the true secret to this recipe is our hand blended Windy City Celery Salt. Seriously, if you have not tried this marvelous blended salt, we have incredibly pity for you and your taste buds. It is one of your top sellers (collect the whole set), and for very good reason! We are huge fans of Michigan Home and Lifestyle Magazine (and not just for the obvious reasons), and we highly recommend you seek it out if you can for some other delicious articles. Anyway, we hope you enjoy the article and also make some time to claim this last bit of summer to do some cooking (don’t forget the salt)!

Another resource in the kitchen that I find myself reaching for often, and just ‘reading’ randomly during downtime is What’s A Cook To Do? an invaluable reference by James Peterson (here is a Amazon link). The book is captioned as an “Illustrated Guide To Essential Tools, Tips, Techniques, and Tricks” – and I can attest to the honesty of that statement. The book is chocked full of hundreds of color photos of food and culinary tools. Even better, there are detailed pictures of knife work on various vegetables, proteins and breads.

Peterson has a concise commentary on various salts, which includes a brief discussion of the four essential types of salt that should be in the home chef’s arsenal. These salts are comprised of inexpensive kosher salt, fine flake or grain salt (for when coarse salt is too crunchy, we would recommend Murray River), sea salt (like Sel Gris, which is full of ocean flavors), and Fleur de Sel for delicate foods.

I found the section of the book on broths, soups and sauces to be very informative. The shellfish and fish chapter is also quite educational (including several ways to prepare scallops – a personal favorite). Want detailed directions on how to carve a chicken or make a prime rib roast? Check out the poultry and meat section. Peterson’s writing style is easy to follow, and his detailed techniques show expansive depth of knowledge.

If you can’t tell, I would definitely recommend this guide for any home chef, and at $11.53 on Amazon, honestly it is an unbelievable deal.

We love when others love our salts! Recently we met Amanda, who writes a blog called the Nutritionist Reviews, which is filled with wonderful food product reviews and exciting giveaways. Amanda also earns extra points because she lives in Michigan!

Anyway, we provided Amanda with a few of our various unrefined salts and salt blends for her to review, as well as one of our Top Seller Sets for a giveaway item. We just heard back from Amanda, and the good news is that even though she does not use a lot of salt in her cooking, she is a huge fan of our distinctive products. Check out the review here!

Amanda’s giveaway is a great opportunity to try some of our most popular salts so we encourage you to check out her blog, and try for a chance at winning our Top Sellers Set. Good luck and thanks again Amanda for the awesome review.

Like a cultural anthropologist, it is possible to derive the importance of an item to a particular society simply by reflecting on how that item is referenced in literature. Use of analogy allows the reader to gain a feel for what such item means to the greater group, as some common point of understanding must exist for the connection to take hold and have meaning.

And so there is a link that allows the analogy to be understood. We get it when someone says “his entrance into the room was like a breath of fresh air” because there is a culturally common value to what a “breath of fresh air” means. Similarly, it is not clear what is indicated by “his entrance into the room was like a sprinkle of unrefined salt.” Sure, we could use those freshman college english skills and try to extrapolate an explanation, but even for someone that sees great depth in salt, finding a logical relationship in this case is a stretch. Perhaps that is why the literary quotes we enjoy the most are the ones that play on the line where the association is not initially obvious. However as soon as we connect the concepts, it becomes a eureka moment where we say, ‘of course!’

Anyway, we have assembled the following quotes related to salt that you may or may not have read before. Periodically we will try to update this list, and so feel free to send us any of your favorites that we may have missed!

The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.
Isak Dinesen

Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.
Nelson Mandela

Don’t buy the salt if you have not licked it yet.
Congolese Proverb

Nobody likes having salt rubbed into their wounds, even if it is the salt of the earth.
Rebecca West

Salt is the only rock directly consumed by man. It corrodes but preserves, desiccates but is wrested from the water. It has fascinated man for thousands of years not only as a substance he prized and was willing to labour to obtain, but also as a generator of poetic and of mythic meaning. The contradictions it embodies only intensify its power and its links with experience of the sacred.
Margaret Visser

Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.
William Hazlitt

Salt water and absence wash away love.
Unknown

At sea a fellow comes out. Salt water is like wine, in that respect.
Herman Melville

Give neither counsel nor salt till you are asked for it.
Italian Proverb

A man must eat a peck of salt with his friend before he knows him.
Miguel de Cervantes

Kissing is like drinking salted water: you drink and your thirst increases.
Chinese Proverb

Where would we be without salt?
James Beard

Rebuke should have a grain more of salt than of sugar.
Unknown

Trust no one unless you have eaten much salt with him.
Cicero

Salt is what makes things taste bad when it isn’t in them.
Unknown

Salt is born of the purest of parents: the sun and the sea.
Pythagoras

Of all smells, bread; of all tastes, salt.
George Herbert

Bread and salt never quarrel.
Russian Proverb

When the father has eaten too much salt in his lifetime, then his son thereafter will have a great thirst.
Vietnamese Proverb

No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his well-being, to risk his body, to risk his life, in a great cause.
Theodore Roosevelt

If there are two cooks in one house the soup is either too salty or too cold.
Persian Proverb

Bread that this house may never know hunger, salt that life may always have flavor.
It’s a Wonderful Life

Three things are good in small doses and bad in big ones: yeast, salt, and hesitation.
Hebrew Proverb

A wise woman puts a grain of sugar into everything she says to a man, and takes a grain of salt with everything he says to her.
Helen Rowland

You cannot pick up salt with dry fingers.
Chinese Proverb

We are very proud to be part of the exciting launch of City Provisions Deli in Chicago, Illinois. Cleetus Friedman is mastermind behind City Provisions, and we think his concept will be well received when it opens later in August 2010.

As you can see from picture gallery in the link, Beyond the Shaker salts will be part of the amazing retail selection Friedman has assembled. I especially enjoy the idea of a pre-made picnic basket near the train line that heads to Ravinia. We wish Friedman all the luck in the world and can’t wait to stop by and see the local and sustainable foods he has to offer. City Provisions Deli is located at 1816 West Wilson, 773-293-2489.

Iron Chef is the wildly popular show on the Food Network, and I doubt it needs any introduction to those reading this blog. I remember first watching the Japanese version with English language dubbing in the 90′s. Over the course of two decades of cable television re-runs, I think I probably saw every episode ever aired in the US. If you have never seen the Japanese version, you owe it to yourself since it is classically hilarious – check out this YouTube clip of one of the episodes.

In January 2005, the Food Network starting airing a revamp of Iron Chef with Alton Brown as color commentator (get it?!) titled appropriately “Iron Chef America”. My DVR knows the show well as it is a staple of the Sunday night television ritual. I think my favorite concept of the Japanese version, and now the US show, is the secret ingredient. This ingredient, for which the show revolves, is dramatically unveiled from a smoke filled, culinary-altar in the opening of each episode, and can range from Chestnuts to Skirt Steak.

As an example of how the Internet and the information gathering prowess of its users never ceases to amaze, here is a wonderful compiled list of all of the ingredients ever to appear on the Iron Chef shows (both Japanese and US version). Notice something missing? Seriously, where is salt? I mean, even Snail has been on the show twice. Eggplant, three times. Heck, even “Dry Ligament” got to bask in the Iron Chef secret ingredient sun (yes, that was on the Japanese version, but still)!

Hey, we are ingredients too!

I know what you are thinking – salt ain’t an ingredient. Well first, I would say (to your face) you are very misguided and should seek culinary help immediately. Certainly salt is an ingredient. Perhaps even the most important ingredient. I refuse to be cliche by pulling out the dictionary definition of ingredient, but certainly it is as much of an ingredient in cooking as sugar, honey or chocolate. Just because it is part of most of the foods we prepare, does not make it any less critical to the final outcome that lands on our plate. And look at the list of previous ingredients that have been featured on Iron Chef – sugar, honey and chocolate have all been secret ingredients in the past along with milk, ginger and curry powder. Curry powder! Certainly salt is as much of an ingredient as curry powder!

For further precedent in making salt a Secret Ingredient on Iron Chef America, Alton Brown even did a special Good Eats episode that focused entirely on the magical mineral. And better yet, just think of all the amazing things chef’s could do with salt as a Secret Ingredient – brines, pickling, salt bakes, and even ice cream. Plus, I can imagine the Secret Ingredient altar on Iron Chef being filled with unrefined sea salts and blends from around the world – pushing the chef’s to really use this ingredient in creative ways based on its distinctive qualities.

My final argument for why salt is the perfect candidate as a Secret Ingredient on Iron Chef America is that salt itself is big news right now. We have written about it several times, but all the media attention proves how timely a “Battle Salt” would be – especially since lowering sodium intake is so linked to preparing foods ourselves which is a hallmark message of the Food Network.

Come Iron Chef! Nothing against curry powder, but doesn’t salt deserve the chance to be a Secret Ingredient? We certainly think so!

I just finished reading The Elements of Cooking by Michael Ruhlman (here is the Amazon Link and heck it is on the Kindle too), and without a doubt would highly recommend the book to everyone/anyone that even has a passing interest in food.

If you watch the Travel Channel, Bravo or Food Network, you probably have seen Ruhlman before on several television programs. I have always enjoyed Ruhlman’s commentary and input on the various shows which he has appeared, and so I was intrigued to read the heavily praised Elements of Cooking. Although I had purchased the book almost a year ago (it actually came out in 2007), I just finally got around to reading it.

First, note that this is not a book that you probably will read cover-to-cover in the conventional sense since really it is more of an alphabetic dictionary of food concepts (thus the very accurate title of the book). I found myself picking it up periodically to either read the very intriguing notes section or to search for culinary elements themselves. In this way, the book becomes a very handy resource in the kitchen.

Second, you have to love a book (and writer) that so heavily believes in the value of salt in cooking. I found Ruhlman’s comments on use of salt and general seasoning techniques to be spot on. Ruhlman writes, “It is true not just for cooks in professional kitchens, but for all cooks in all kitchens, everywhere: learning to salt food properly is the most important skill you can possess.” Ah-men brother. The notes section of the book includes descriptions of many techniques that are salt specific including how to brine and suggestions on preserving with salt.

Finally, I found Ruhlman’s writing style to be captivating as the reader clearly can sense his true passion for the subject matter of the book. Ruhlman’s writing felt more like a conversation, as if we were hanging out in a bar chatting over pretzels and beer. And the depth of knowledge transmitted through the book’s 200+ pages is staggering- it would be hard to walk away from this experience without a heightened understanding of the culinary world even if you had never stepped foot in a kitchen.

Bottom line, get this book. It is a wonderful resource and delightful read.