Chris and our Salt Chef point to one of our awesome jars (from the look of it, some wine might have been involved).

As everyone knows that reads the SaltScribe (and who the heck doesn’t read this blog?!?), I am a huge fan of the Beyond the Shaker Salt Chef, Eric Nittolo from The Boathouse restaurant in Traverse City, Michigan. Even coming from an amazing food city like Chicago, it is hard to beat the dishes crafted by Executive Chef Nittolo. The key of course is local/sustainable/organic ingredients, and of course a touch of panache added to each plate by Eric himself. This guy doesn’t mess around when he is in the kitchen. In fact, I got a rare view of the ‘magic’ over fourth of July weekend, when I dined at the Boathouse. We can save that for a future blog post…

While in northern Michigan, I found a great new magazine focused on Traverse City food and dining called the “45th” (no, not named after President Lyndon Johnson). In the 45th’s most recent edition, there is a feature focused on the Boathouse and Executive Chef Nittolo. The photos and recipes in this article are great, and they really highlight the amazing attention to detail found in every dish Chef Nittolo produces. This is part of the reason that he made the perfect Salt Chef for Beyond the Shaker. It was clear from the beginning he knew his stuff, and he wouldn’t stop until he had devised a superior product for us (even if it meant countless revisions).

Anyway, congrats to the Boathouse, Executive Chef Nittolo and the 45th. Lots of wonderful culinary things are happening in Traverse City, and we are darn pleased to be part of it!

Traverse City Sunset Over Lake Michigan

Having just come back from an amazing 4th of July weekend in Traverse City, Michigan, I was pleased to see that the region’s amazing culture of food is obtaining national press coverage as a premium dining destination. Over the long weekend (I cheated a bit a took Monday, July 6th off), I had the opportunity to not only eat a fantastic home grilled meal (more on that in a later post), but I also dined at two of my favorite restaurants in the area – The Boathouse (home to our Salt Chef) and Trattoria Stella.

Both restaurants take advantage of the small farms and local food producers in and around Traverse City. It is no doubt that the ingredients used by these restaurants are as fresh and flavorful as possible, since the distance from the field to the fryer is equivalent to a drive across town. Indeed, this is the philosophy that Beyond the Shaker has adopted for its gourmet blended salts, using the finest ingredients available to create incredible, almost ‘fresh’ flavor. Of course, partnering with Executive Chef Eric Nittolo of The Boathouse, to craft our blended salts was a logical way of extending our local/fresh/organic/sustainable philosophy into our products.

We are glad Traverse City is obtaining the attention it deserves as an up and coming foodie hot spot, since we have known for years that there was something special stirring in this culinary region.