Black bean soup is so satisfying and simple to make. Dress it up with some fresh garnishes and it’s a meal. I cook big batches of dried beans and freeze them so they’re ready for a quick dinner- they taste much better than the canned version. For this soup you just combine black beans and broth with sautéed onion, garlic, cumin and red pepper flakes. Use an immersion blender to puree everything to your preferred thickness.

Then the fun part! Top the soup with any and all of the following: a fried egg, sliced avacado, sliced radishes, green onions, cilantro, cheddar cheese or queso fresco, sour cream, salsa, hot sauce, tortilla chips.. and a sprinkle of Hot Habanero Blend. This blend combines several types of chili peppers with Hawaiian Black Lava and Red Alaea salts, finished with organic carrot and cilantro. The salt Blend really enhances all the spicy, savory flavors of the soup and looks lovely sprinkled on top.

My favorite Mexican restaurant in the neighborhood is called Taco Veloz on Chicago Avenue. The best thing on the menu is grilled green onions- cebollitas. They finish them with soy sauce at Taco Veloz but I wanted to make them at home using salt instead. Cebollitas are so incredibly easy to make, look beautiful and are just delicious. You can do them on the grill, but that’s not happening in January in Chicago so just crank up the broiler. Brush with olive oil and place on a foiled baking sheet, then broil for about 10 minutes or until the onions are soft and lightly charred. I sprinkled the cebollitas with Bolivian Rose salt, which is good on pretty much everything. The pink crystals looked so pretty on the green onions and added great flavor and crunch. Bolivian Rose is harvested by hand from mines in the Andes Mountains.

My first Beyond the Shaker recipe had to include the Hot Habanero Blend.  The bottle beckoned to me with its warm colors and smell.  After consulting BeyondtheShaker.com, I picked Chicken Tacos.  The directions were simple and I’ve never met a taco I didn’t like.

While sautéing the peppers an inviting smell filled the kitchen.  After cooking the chicken, the moment I’d been waiting for arrived.  Adding the Habanero Blend!  It hit the pan and the meal was transformed.

Before I could even get the tacos on the plate I had to dig in.  Although I was nervous I couldn’t take the heat, this blend left my lips smoldering and waiting for the next bite.

The meal served on my wedding china.  If this isn’t a special occasion, I don’t know what is.

Salt and summer. Sunny weekend afternoons. And summer drinks, of course. It just all goes together perfectly. For me (and my statistically insignificant and 100% unscientific poll indicates most people in this world feel the same way), the quintessential summer drink is the tangy margarita (on the rocks) with a salt crusted rim. The salt balances out the bitter tartness of the lemon and lime in the margarita, and provides the perfect refreshing flavor, especially on steamy hot days. Interestingly, sodium is an essential nutrient that is lost when we sweat (here is an article from a website for runners that sums up how it all works). In fact, if you look at most exercise drinks, they contain higher than expected sodium content as part of the ‘secret recipe’ that helps athletes regain electrolytes lost during strenuous activity.

Why this background is at all interesting to us, the informed and hungry salt consumer, is simply a question of the manner in which the margarita evolved to its in enlightened state for which we now get to enjoy it. How did this seemingly perfect drink take the prescribed format we have come to expect? Perhaps the margarita is so delicious and refreshing during hot summer months because this is when our bodies physically crave salt the most. It is said that some deep wired parts of the ancient human brain developed to instinctually drive us to consume items that our bodies require to stay healthy (or alive). Our own evolution allowed the reinforcement of this survival instinct by rewarding us with a pleasurable experience when we eat/drink something that keeps our bodies working in good order. Of course I have no idea if this is the actual reason behind why margaritas taste so dang amazing, but it is fun to theorize a mind/body justification for why we love them so much.

Margaritas are really the beginning of the ‘rimmer’ craze. Restaurants and bars have gone into overdrive offering different sugar, salt, and even chocolate options for every drink you can imagine. And we are rewarded with tasty combinations that add further complexity to those cocktails we already know and love. The term ‘rimmer’ makes complete descriptive sense and yet, simultaneously, I think we can all agree it is also an unfortunate name. Really I do not have a better option (yet), and I doubt I have much sway with the rimmer/bar/restaurant terminology community anyway, so RIMMER it is!

The picture above is from a beautiful new patio bar in Chicago at the Trump Tower called “16″ (it is on the 16th floor of the building). This is a play on the classic margarita with a touch of coconut flavored rum.  But the real excitement is on the rim, as it is crusted in a mixture of fleur de sel and dried flaked coconut.  The blend draws out all of the flavors in the drink and leaves a wonderfully refreshing after taste. Drinks that we have been enjoying this summer with Beyond the Shaker salts include strawberry daiquiris with a Citrus Basil rimmer and Bloody Mary’s with Hot Habenero or Windy City Celery along the rim.

It appears that rimmers are here to stay, and although the term is slightly strange, the resulting flavor is not to be ignored. We love this rimmer trend, and we plan to continue to push the envelope with matching great drinks with Beyond the Shaker premium gourmet salts and blends.