Salt News

So this morning I set out for Chelsea Market in New York City to buy some coffee beans and I had absolutely no intention of falling in love with another berry. But I stumbled across some great-looking stracchino cheese, and then moments later bumped into some luscious strawberries, and while I was fumbling for change to pay for the strawberries, what do I do but pull out but a pile of chocolate salt that had spilled from a jar in my pockets a few days earlier.  When this sort of thing happens it makes no sense to question fate.  I strolled out to the street, found one of those odd new middle-of-the-street tables they’re putting at the voids in intersections all over the city, and sat down for a little impromptu strawberry-stracchino-chocolate-salt breakfast in the morning coolness.  This was one of the first times I’ve used my own chocolate-infused salt on cheese—other than on cottage cheese and peaches, etc.  The pairing was a natural: Bitterman’s Chocolate Fleur de Sel (it’s the only salt at The Meadow we make ourselves, a secret infusion of chocolate and our house fleur de sel) brings a rich chocolate aroma to your senses even before you bite.  And the salt’s discrete nutty-mocha flavors are like a curtain through which emerge silvery spangles of mineral-fresh salt.  The impact of the salt in your mouth is incredible as it finds its way through the rich stracchino cheese mixing with the buoyant fruitiness of the strawberry: like one of those scenes in the movies when two lovers set eyes on one another from across a crowded train platform, and struggle ardently through the all those jostling people to reunite.

Mark Bitterman :: Aug.18.2010 :: Gourmet Salt, Recipes :: 6 Comments »

Trackback URI | Subscribe to the comments through RSS Feed