In our opinion, gourmet salt is the quintessential ingredient during the holiday season. This festive time is filled with food and family, and so to enhance the experience, we recommend replacing lifeless, processed, table salt with all natural, flavor-forward, gourmet salts. Our salts are each packaged in beautiful, hand made, glass jars that we import from Italy to truly show off the splendor and natural color of our products. In addition to individual jars, we have gift sets available, which make a thoughtful and unique present for just about anyone on your holiday list.

Our premium salts are divided into two categories – Pure Foundation and Beyond Blends. The Pure Foundation collection highlights the wonderful variety of salts from around the world in their natural state without any additional ingredients. This is a good place to start, and if you are looking to move beyond table salt, we would highly recommend trying the pink flakes of Murray River or the deep brine flavor of Sel Gris.

The Beyond Blends collection is our exclusive line of chef-inspired, hand blended, gourmet salts. As a base, each of these blends uses one or more of the Pure Foundation salts, and then our salt chef incorporates only the finest premium ingredients to further enhance the flavor of the salts for a variety of culinary applications. Our focus is organic and locally-derived ingredients in our blends, and certainly you will experience the difference the moment you open the jar! Some of our most popular salts from the Beyond Blends collection during the holiday season are the sweet and smokey Hickory Maple Blend and the dill powerhouse Dill-icious Blend.

And while you are checking off gifts for the holiday season, do not forget our unique variety of Saltwares!

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.

It is winter in the Midwest. This means shortened days and bone chilling, unrelenting, cold. This is the type of cold your mom warned you of…it sinks into your body and you feel like a long forgotten icy-pop from the back of the freezer (the one with the strange ‘yellow’ flavor that no one likes). Yeah, that is some serious cold!

So warm up with this delightful carrot soup, which we promise is incredibly filling and robust. One bowl will allow you to battle even the worst of the winter weather while it warms you from the inside out. Some folks out there are probably rolling their eyes about the prospect of carrot soup. At first it does sound a little boring, like a hospital meal, but what if I told you that THIS particular recipe has almost a bottle of wine in it? Hmmm…I certainly am not aware of any ER that is serving such culinary fare! And what if I went on to tell you that this recipe for carrot soup also contains the kick of fresh grated ginger root? Ah, yes, this really is not your typical carrot soup recipe, so perhaps you should give it a whirl and let your taste buds decide for themselves!

The other promise we can make you is that this recipe is ridiculously easy. The flavors do the work for you. No, they don’t cut up the onions or peel the carrots, but if you can accomplish the simple task of getting stuff in a pot, you will be a ‘seasoned’ (HA, never gets old) professional at whipping up this wonderful soup for you and your family/friends. AND the best part, is that it is not cream based, so there is an argument that it probably is not entirely bad for you (the 6 tablespoons of butter might indicate differently, but we will leave that determination to the experts).

Here are the ingredients:

6 tablespoons of butter, unsalted (you will be the master of what salts go into your food!)
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
1/3 cup chopped ginger root (you can pick this up at most grocery stores now..just use a potato peeler to remove the brown outer skin)
3 cloves of chopped garlic
5 cups of chicken or veggie stock, unsalted (I think you know why)
2 cups of dry white wine (just grab any old dry white wine, the grape varietal is not important)
1 lb of carrots, peeled and chopped into little coin shapes
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
2 tablespoons of either Beyond the Shaker Hot Habanero Blend (for those folks that want even more kick) or Citrus Basil Blend (for those folks that like a stronger citrus flavor)
Fresh chives (optional, but yummy)
2 teaspoons of a Pure Foundation Collection salt with a flakey texture, like Sel Gris, Fleur de Sel or Murray River.

1. Prepare all your ingredients ahead of time. Seriously. Organization like this will help make your cooking experience much more delightful and less rushed. Chop your onions, garlic and ginger root and toss them in a bowl together. Separately peel and cut your carrots. Have your wine bottle open (a small swig at this point is acceptable).

2. Get a large stock pot and put it on a medium heat. Add the butter and allow it to melt then add the olive oil. Drop in your onion, garlic and ginger root. Stir this around until the onions just start to become clear. Turn down the heat if anything starts to brown in the pot (browning is bad at this point).

3. Once your onions just begin to become clear add your Beyond Blend salt (either Hot Habanero Blend or Citrus Basil, but feel free to experiment too) and the carrots. Keep mixing (folding the carrots into the yummy flavors already built up in the pot) until the onions are completely clear. Add in the wine. Scrap the bottom of the pot with your mixing spoon or spatula to release all the crazy good flavors that have caramelized there. The wine will help you a lot here. Now keep mixing periodically until the whole mixture starts to boil.

4. Now add in the chicken or veggie stock and wait until the mixture boils again, and then turn it down to a simmer (like a mini boil, small little bubble escaping across the entire surface).

5. The mixture should simmer until you can pull a carrot out and it is soft all the way through (put a fork in it to test). Turn off the heat completely. Add the lemon juice.

6. If you are using a blender with a glass pitcher, be careful to allow the mixture to cool a bit before blending. The heat can easily crack the blender, and that would mean ‘no soup for you!’ Pour the mixture into a blender. Blend the heck out of it until it is a consistent and uniform color.

7. Add the blended mixture back to the pot to warm it up again, if necessary. To serve, add to bowls and top with the rough chopped chives and the flakey salt – season to taste with the salt. Most likely the soup will need some salt at this point since we were careful to only include ingredients that did not have salt in them in our soup mixture.

That is it! Seriously, I broke out each step to guide you through the process, but do not let that fool you into thinking this recipe is complex. It is very simple and the robust flavors will make you think differently about carrot soup. In all, it took about 45 minutes to make with the bulk of the time required to allow the carrots to become tender.

For the more adventure driven cooks, try these variations:

1. Add two medium sized Serrano peppers, chopped, to the mix at the same time as wine. The trick to the heat is the seeds of the pepper. Add them all if you want some SERIOUS heat or add just a bit for some nice spicy warmth.

2. Parsnip. Sounds like a funny name, but tastes great with carrot. Take three large parsnips, peel them with a potato peel. Coat with olive oil and put on a roasting pan covered with aluminum foil in a 400 oven for about 20 minutes. The parsnips are ready when they have a little brown to them and are soft. Now throw this into the mix at the same time as the carrots. Wow, is that good and worth the extra effort. Seriously do not rob yourself of the yum.

3. Add a dollop of plain yogurt or butter to the top of the soup just prior to serving.

[This is Part I of a two part series as I am told I am writing a novel that no one could (or would want to) read in just one sitting]

While recently dining at a new Chicago restaurant (which will go unnamed for reasons that will be apparent) I was struck by the culinary irony represented by the little glass salt shaker in front of me. So common place and at home at restaurants across the country in an almost identical form – a square-edged jar of tapered glass topped by a bulbous silver cap riddled with holes and imprinted with “stainless steel.” Yep, you have seen the one. We all have. About a billion+ times.

Even more remarkable though, is that this undifferentiated format for delivering factory processed salt has graced the tables of every quality of restaurant imaginable, and regardless of the culinary venue, the same little glass jar serves as a device to administer table salt- be it the greasy spoon diner in Wyoming, the McDonalds (with giant “play-land” attached) in the middle of Michigan, or the finest five-star restaurant smack dab in foodie mecca. It is always the same. In many ways, this icon unites restaurant customers in a metaphysical web of culinary connectivity and serves as a common marker of how to access the ‘salt’ we crave. Clearly we are more intelligent than that, and so if all of a sudden table salt started appearing in a square orange box at our favorite restaurants, my guess is that we would still be able to figure out where to find salt (hopefully).

What this all means is that the iconic jar with silver lid is not the common thread, but instead it is the contents of the vessel which ties our gastronomic dining experiences together. It is table salt itself that is the common denominator. Five star restaurant to five dollar foot long, the very same processed table salt finds its way into these varied establishments of food. Anyway, if you have followed to this point, and since I suspect to be referring to this concept often, I’ll assign it a name- the “Salt Paradox.”

Getting back to the story, the food that I was eating at this Chicago restaurant was simply incredible….for those folks that rank their meals (oh, you are so busted), this was easily one of the best dinners I had consumed in Q2 2009. And it should have been! The prices were about as outrageous as the dishes being served. It was as if the restaurant was trying to provide indisputable evidence that the saying “you get what you pay for” is completely true. The one quibble I had with the dining experience, which centered around the finest local, sustainable, organic ingredients available, was that it lacked salt. The flavors were all good, but very muted. A sprinkle of naturally yummy, yet shockingly simple, Fleur de Sel or Sel Gris would take the meal from great to greater stupendous.

Being a salt-erpenuer (wow that was a bad one), you would think I would have loads of salt ‘Tastings’ in every little pocket on my person – just standing at the ready to correct this flavor injustice. Unfortunately, I was plum cleared out of Tastings since dinner was a stop off after having attended an event earlier in the evening (where I met several amazing food-focused companies that had launched in Chicago…more on that later). So there I was….salt deprived but knowing that my meal was on the precipice of perfection if only I could amplify the flavors and right this deficiency with the taste-force of salinity…

[Will I be saved from this salty injustice?  How does this meal possibly end?  Tune in for Part 2 to read the riveting finale.]

Foodies love to predict trends for the upcoming year – what chefs will serve in their restaurants, what the masses will cook at home. For the last decade, one trend continues: globalization and variety. Americans are becoming more adventurous and embracing cuisines from around the world. They are experimenting with exotic produce, fish, spices and seasonings at home. 2009 sees the increasing use of spices and seasonings inspired by international cuisine to bring some variety to our daily meals.

Try the following exotic blends and wet salts from Beyond the Shaker to shake things up!
-Hot Habanero Blend: Bring the flavors of Mexico to your kitchen with this blend that includes several types of chilis (including habanero) and cilantro for a burst of heat and flavor. Use of Hawaiian Black Lava and Red Alaea salts bring bountiful salinity, incredible texture, and a radiant color to the blend. Try it on snapper, chicken, tacos, salsa and more.
-Citrus Basil Blend: G’day mate! This blend uses Murray River salt and lemon myrtle, both hailing from Australia.  Combined with other organic citrus ingredients, this blend tastes great on chicken or any grilled white fish.
-French Herb Blend: Combining the best of France’s herbs from the Provence region (rosemary, thyme, basil, and lavender) with truffles and Fleur de Sel, recreate romantic cuisines with these timeless flavors reminiscent of the foods found on the coastline of France. Great on sole, poultry and in butter sauces. Put on your apron and channel your inner Julia Child.
-Everest Wet Salt: Using Himalayan Pink Salt, kafir leaves, lemongrass and wasabi, get a taste of Asia with this wet blend.  Great for lightly seasoning sushi fish, ahi tuna or even poultry, get ready to climb to new heights with your dining experience!

Last night we had dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in the Traverse City area – Trattoria Stella, and the star appetizer (and perhaps the overall favorite of the evening), were these perfectly seared bay scallops. Prior to them being devoured by the hungry diners, I snapped a picture of them with my iPhone. Putting aside that the camera on the phone really does not do these delectable little morsels justice, hopefully the incredible seared tops of each scallop can be seen.

The trick, to the flavor and marvelous color was apparent from the first bite – salt. Specifically, my guess was the use of a mineral rich flake salt, like our Sel Gris, and then searing on one side with lots of butter. What we all enjoyed the most was the salty crust that formed on the seared top of the scallop. The trend in cooking scallops seems to be to undercook them, which most likely stems from a fear of overcooking them into rubbery little pucks.

However, the chef found absolutely the ideal sear – a delicate crispy crust of salty-buttery goodness. When we cook scallops at home, we usually flip them over halfway through the cooking process, but that is more a reflection of our amateur chef status than the ideal cook method. The scallops at Stella’s restaurant were only seared on one side, which really made for the ideal crust.

We have tried, with our Salt Chef, using the Truffle Wet Salt and the Chanterelle Vanilla on seared scallops with tremendous success. The flavor profiles of these salts matches well with the briny seafood taste. In terms of usage, we found that the the Truffle Wet can be applied prior to searing the scallops, but the Chanterelle Vanilla is better as a finishing salt added to the tops of the scallops just prior to serving. Either way, we encourage everyone to give scallops a shot in your own kitchen – since they really are not that hard to prepare, especially when you use the right salts!