It all started back in Forest Hills, several years ago. A vendor was extolling the virtues of this new herb salt...made in the mediterranean, fresh herbs packed into salt that slowly dehydrated and created this wonderful, flavorful fleur de sel, blah, blah, blah. So of course, we looked at each other and thought we can do this. We can create our own salts, tailored to our specifications for less money. So we started with herb salts, to this very day, lovage Fleur de Sel garnisheds the rims of our smoked bloody marys. The we tried to smoke salt and after a period of trial and error with kosher salt we realized that we needed the higher moisture of sea salts to do the job justice. We use our smoked salt on grilled proteins to enhance flavor and sometimes on chocolate, fruits or vegetables to add that special something in the background that is rarely identified but oh so essential. Eventually we branched out into the sweet spices. Crushed cardamom pods, vanilla beans, cinnamon, lavendar...all of the aromatic spices make wonderful salts. My mom is known for smuggling japanese staples into the country for us on a regular basis and their salts absorb the flavors beautifully while their smaller grains enhance our sweet offerings without being in your face. Our salts tend to swing both ways, even smoked cocoa nibs add a dark sensous accent to salt which goes as well with short ribs as with hazeluts. Who says the last element has to be one dimensional?
Play with your food. We do, all of the time.
