I attempted to leave the following comment at the Secret Stash Sea Salts blog this morning, but because I can’t seem to work the secret handshake and apparently haven’t been issued my decoder ring for the inner circle I must resort to posting it here and spreading the link love around!

“This morning while reading about yet another economic meltdown and anxiously anticipating the coming “Winter Blast” (logo to arrive any moment now)- which will no doubt do a number on my beloved garden – I was distracted by today’s Seattle Times article about Secret Stash Sea Salt.  Caramel, Lavender, Vanilla…will you marry me?  Better yet, will you cook for me??!?!  Congratulations on your delicious sounding product; and good luck with the Ballard Market this Sunday during our “coldest weather since 1990!!(scary music)”.  I know what I want stuffed in my stocking Christmas morning!!!
- Cheers, Lorene  Plantedathome.com”

Chef Joe Conrad and co-owner Janna Wemmer are the brilliant minds behind this intriguing line of specialty salts.  Why so excited about salt?  What do you add to a dish when it “needs something”; for that matter what addictive crunch gets this weary writer through an afternoon of brain block?  Secret Stash Sea Salt makes my mouth water just thinking about their inventive flavors!  Visit their website and by all means, if you’re in the neighborhood drop by the Ballard Farmer’s Market on Sunday and introduce yourself to these fine culinary minds, I know I plan to.  You might want to bring them a hot drink or a small flask of a warming nip (see WINTER BLAST above.)  Baby, it’s gonna get cooooold outside!

“The golden age of exploration would have yielded far fewer discoveries without the sustaining nourishment and scurvy-preventing properties of salt-cured foods. Perhaps the oldest and most primitive cure, salt remains an effective preserving method. Fundamentally a rock, salt is a mineral derived from salt water or mined on land. It is a component of our very blood and vitally necessary for our bodies to function. That culinary standard, Joy of Cooking states €œThe interplay of salt and water is essential to life itself.€

The above passage is from my upcoming book Canning and Preserving Your Harvest (Sasquatch Books, summer 09); see here and here for more details about that project.

Ah, a lovely hour spent dreaming about magical salt crystals – a welcome diversion from the media drumbeat of financial ruin.  Now I better get outside and wrap those tender plants, disconnect hoses, and batten the garden hatches…or maybe I’ll swing by Ballard.  We’re having guests to dinner tonight  – with a sexy salt to accompany my Grand Fir oil and fabulous bread from West Seattle’s own Bakery Nouveau I might not even bother to roast that giant piece of pork in the fridge!  YUM!