The Meadow in New York is open!  Planning, searching, building, setting up, and opening have somehow resulted in an actual, physical incarnation of a dream.  Artisan salt (100+ varieties), chocolate bars (300+ varieties), flowers (fresh cut), and a smattering of gourmet items for the kitchen (mills, odds and ends) and the bar (cocktail bitters).  Here are some pictures—with a little back story—of our new shop in the West Village in New York City.

• The Meadow  in New York :  salt – chocolate – flowers – etc.
• 523 Hudson Street, New York NY 10014
• 212-645-4633   –   www.themeadow.net -  YELP!
  

Starting in the middle, with the mind reeling: Zeno of Elea proposed a series of irritating paradoxes that pit sensibility against reason the most famous of which was summarized by Aristotle: “That which is in locomotion must arrive at the half-way stage before it arrives at the goal.” In other words, before you get from point A to point B, you have to go half the distance between point A and B.  Fair enough.  But before you can get to that halfway point, you have to go half the distance to it, and so on and so on.  Any distance you hope to traverse, you are first confronted with getting halfway to it before you can get there.  Your original goal, whether it’s the eye-batting creature at the other end of the bar or a monkish mountaintop in Nepal, recedes like a hall of mirrors into infinity, with you unable to get anywhere farther than halfway on the path towards it…. forever.

The project of opening a new shop in New York alternated between stressful and exultant, alone and enthralled, flat-lined and explosive. The city’s bureaucracy, for those of you who have not experienced it, is amazing, a dark mantle that cloaks everything–ideas, plans, money, relationships–in suffocating indifference, or worse actually, in a mathematical quagmire of halfway points.  We were getting there, we told ourselves, but how was not rationally explicable, and why we persisted in thinking we would actually arrive at our goal defied any rational explanation.  The abundance of baffling abstractions and behind-the-scenes thwartings would have dazzled Kafka.

The physical stuff.  Our New York store needed native bones, so we roamed the Pennsylvania countryside in search of wood.  It was the chance encounter five years ago with a huge stack of Oregon’s old growth Douglas Fir that set so many things into motion when we were working out the construction of The Meadow in Portland.  We wanted to make the New York store from local wood.  Just outside of Allentown we met a man with a log cabin dating to the 1700s annexed to his house and a yard full of salvaged barn timbers.  After settling on particularly enticing stacks of old growth hemlock and yellow pine planks milled sometime in the mid to late 1800s from an unspoiled America’s primordial forests, we spent the day power washing. Each stroke of the power washer’s wand transformed dull gray to a copper-straw color that made you unselfconsciously gnash your teeth like a beaver. The salt shelves, flower prep table, display for vintage vases, and sales counter would be made of rough 2.5-inch thick by 9-inch wide Hemlock floor joists. The chocolate shelves and artisan bitters display cases would be made from the yellow pine barn siding, lightly sanded.

The timbers were transported in the early dawn of the next day through the linguine maze of overpasses and tunnels to Manhattan, then stacked neatly in the basement of the shop to dry.  For listless weeks I would go down there, beneath the din of trucks trundling up Hudson, flip the circuit breaker to illuminate the underbelly of the ancient building, and sit on the steps in the blinking fluorescent light.  And just to look at them.

One day we got the green light to build, and in three weeks the space was gutted, fitted with fresh walls, floors, trim, paint, shelves, counters, lights, and all the juicy interstitial and superficial things that turn a musty desiccated shell into something aromatic and sprouty.  Things happened.  One day I called Jennifer: “Hon, I found a window.” Ten inches beneath plaster and plasterboard, a 60 inch by 40 inch rectangle in the middle of a brick wall, leading ultimately, as is the way with windows, to the sky. “Found?” says Jennifer.  On another occasion, while rigging something electrical late into the night, a woman inexplicably brought me (1) a carrot cake, and then twenty minutes later (2) a salad of bitter greens and shaved Parmesan, grilled steak and chicken, and salmon with a basil-garlic dipping sauce, and then two weeks later (3) a tiramisu the size of a mattress.  Jennifer spent several long seconds horizontal, three feet in the air, holding a  door handle that was no longer attached to a door.  Finally we painted the plate glass up front with “The Meadow” in leaves of copper and lemon gold, stacked all the inventory we could amass on the shelves, and opened our doors.

Meanwhile, the streets are electric with people–people of wild, vibrant, beautiful, and unexpected varieties.  The ground thunders, hissing smells of oil, static, knishes.  The skies glow hazel with the indecipherable freshness/fatigue of autumn.  To say that we’re excited to open The Meadow in New York would be an understatement.

Salted has three parts:
1: The Life of Salt explores the history of salt from mankind’s first salted bite to the industrialization of salt with the advent of the modern chemical industry, concluding with the explosive revival of gourmet salt in the culinary world.  A science section investigates the vast complexity of salt, from its origins in primordial oceans to the myriad roles salt plays in human physiology.  Then a look at the craft of salt making describes the key principles and technologies behind saltmaking, from rock salts hauled from the depths of the earth to sea salts evaporated under an open sky.

2: Salt Guide provides a first of its kind taxonomy of culinary salt, delineating the basic families of salts and summarizing the merits of each in the kitchen.  A field guide to salt provides full color macro images of more than 150 salts, with tasting notes and suggested uses for food.  Profiles of more than 80 of the most important salts revel in the charms (and occasional horrors) of the most important varieties.

3: Salting is the hands-on part of the book. This section provides key strategies for salting, with basic techniques for the novice cook and advanced concepts for professional chefs and bartenders. Fifty recipes organized by cooking technique cover everything from seasoning fresh foods to grilling to curing to cocktail mixing, with plenty of helpful charts and tips. There’s even a section on cooking with Himalayan salt blocks!

$35 hardcover • 320 pages • Full Color • 8″ x 10″ • ISBN: 978-1-58008-262-4 • Ten Speed Press

• Order Salted from the The Meadow’s website for a signed Edition of the book.  Shipping is free! Salted: A Manifesto on the World’s Most Essential Mineral, with Recipes from atthemeadow.com
• Prefer to buy through Amazon? Just follow the link here and the Amazonians will know we sent you to them: Salted: A Manifesto on the World’s Most Essential Mineral, with Recipes from amazon.com.

Reviews

Named in “6 Best Food Books” of the Fall by Christian Science Monitor!
If you care about food, cooking, and taste, then you care about salt. And if you care about salt you will be over the moon about Salted by Mark Bitterman (Ten Speed Press). …. His book is a veritable encyclopedia of the world’s most well-loved mineral and will teach cooks how to take their dishes to the next level by learning to master the principles and techniques of salting. “Salted” is transformative; it will change the way you cook. Full article>>

More reviews

Bitterman explains that his love of salt began after eating a sublime steak at a relais on a trip to France. After learning about the cooking method and cut of meat, Bitterman concluded it was the “hefty nuggets of opalescent salt” that were responsible for his unforgettable meal, and he set out to meet the family of salt makers responsible. After opening an artisanal-product boutique with his wife, which includes a showcase of salts, Bitterman takes on the role of official “selmelier.” In this entertaining and well-researched volume, he profiles 80 varieties of artisan salts, along with a quick reference guide to more than 150 salts for an easy-to-understand crash course on salt. The text-heavy though beautifully photographed title covers the history of salt and all things related. Recipes round out the work, and although pedestrian dishes such as hamburgers, potato chips, and sauerkraut are included, beginners may be intimidated by sophisticated selections like roasted marrowbones with sel gris; salt crust–roasted partridge with figs and chocolate-balsamic syrup; and jal jeer (an Indian lemonade). An informative and easy-to-follow “Cooking on Salt” chapter just may have the more adventurous home cooks and the DIY crowd running out for their very own Himalayan salt block. (Oct.)
—Publishers Weekly, 9/20/10

“Salted is a remarkable work. Written with uncommon energy and style and packed with excellent information and recipes, this book should be considered a must-have for any chef worth their salt and anyone who cares about food and cooking. I love this book.”
—Michael Ruhlman, author of Ratio, The Making of a Chef, Charcuterie, and co-author of The French Laundry Cookbook

“Salted has a transformative effect. Mark embraces not only those magical crystals but also captures you with his passion for people and exploring the diversity of food and salt. His irrepressible will to learn and share is expressed in his writing.”
—Michael Recchiuti, chocolatier, author of Chocolate Obsession

“In this day and age it is imperative to not only know where our food comes from but also to learn about the very thing that brings out all of the flavors we tirelessly source—salt. In Salted, Mark Bitterman takes us on an epic journey, distilling everything from salt’s early formation in the primordial ocean to thoughtful recipes and detailed tasting notes on many of the world’s finest artisanal salts. A virtual encyclopedia of salt, Salted is a wonderful resource for cooks and lovers of great food everywhere.”
—Naomi Pomeroy, chef-owner of Beast Restaurant, James Beard nominee, Food & Wine Best New Chef

Hi,

I have a couple questions about salt production and I’m hoping you can answer them.  I’ve had an interest in salt for a while and how it is made. I’m curious about two things.

1. How can you tell where sea salt is made?  Coastal water pollution is a problem all over the world.  Why should I assume that “French sea salt” (or any sea salt) is made from clean waters?  Is there a way to find out and/or verify?

2. Solar evaporation is a very old and common practice for making salt.  But how do they keep stuff out of the ponds?  Bird poop?  Bugs?  Dirt? Whatever else?  It seems like creating something with that much exposed surface area is bound to get contaminants. I am hoping you can shed some light on these things for me.  I haven’t been able to find any answers anywhere else on how salt production is kept clean.  Michael Pollan writes about making brown salt from polluted water.  Everyone writes about gathering crystals by hand, etc., but no one says anything about how salt is made clean.
–

Hi Jason,

1.  Regarding the purity of salt:

The first thing you have to do define “pure” as it relates to salt.  Consumers should consider impurities as either: a) contamination from environmental sources such as pollution, run-off etc.; or b) from chemicals deliberately added in to salt as part of its processing for industrial and consumer markets.  In my opinion, the former is inexcusable.  The latter is, at best, a necessary evil (e.g. salt iodization as part of strategic global health initiatives in impoverished countries), and at worst yet another example of the unnecessary industrialization of our food supply.

The “French sea salt” you refer to above could come from either of two seas: the North Atlantic on the west coast, and the Mediterranean to the south. The Atlantic waters are very clean, and the French sea salts made there are in turn filtered through exquisite marine wetlands that are among cleanest and closely protected in the world.  The French sea salt from the  Mediterranean comes from far less pristine waters, and the vast majority of it is harvested using heavy industrial equipment, though there are important exceptions (such as fleur de sel de Camargue).

The term “sea salt” itself reveals little about the purity of the salt. The vast majority of salts around the world sold as sea salt are in fact manufactured using industrial processes and standards. Industrially made sea salts can come from polluted waters such as the San Francisco Bay, and may be further contaminated during the harvesting process, which employs heavy, diesel-powered equipment. After going through a refining process to eliminate the industrial pollution that gets in them during evaporation and harvesting, industrial salt companies may add chemicals back in to the refined salt to keep it free-flowing, to make it white, to iodize it, etc. etc.

It’s important to recognize that chemically pure sodium chloride (NaCl) is NOT a natural salt from either a culinary or dietary standpoint, and such a thing did not even exist prior the chemical-industrial revolution of  the late 1800s. Nature does not make anything resembling the refined, 99.8% and higher sodium chloride salts produced by the chemical giants who have taken over the manufacture most of the world’s salt.  Natural salts have a host of trace minerals (upwards of 15% sometimes) and are almost totally devoid of harmful environmental contaminants, and these minerals are part of a salt’s naturally “pure” make-up.  For this reason purity is not itself a terribly helpful term for salt, any more than it would be for rich topsoil, pungent grass, happy sheep, or molding cheese.  The unfathomable complexity of these things offer something far more than purity: they offer wholesomeness.

I look at a host of things when determining whether we should carry a salt in our store, with the ultimate goal of understandings each salt’s suitability for eating. After a salt has won us over with its flavor, beauty, and behavior on food, we look deeper. For many salts we obtain a spectral analysis. Here we keep an eye out for positive things like levels of magnesium, and negative things like levels of mercury and lead.  While heavy metals are very rarely present in levels sufficient for concern–often the levels are the same or lower than in natural rock salts, which predate man by several hundred million years–they can be indicators of a polluted environment.

But there are other things that are  more important  than a chemical analysis. Serious saltmakers  are far more demanding than any technical specification can possibly reflect.  As fierce guardians of the ecology in which they practice their trade, artisan saltmakers have a deep and nuanced understanding of the dynamics behind the creation of their salt.  No amount of testing has saved Americans from contaminated eggs, produce, and meat because contaminants are part of the very mechanism of industrial food manufacturing—it’s just a matter of minimizing this contamination.  Artisans practice outside of this logic, with criteria for quality organized around the principles of expert knowledge, hand labor, ecological stewardship, and economic sustainability.  Such wholesomeness is at the heart of good salt, and I guess that insofar as its meets these standards, it is “pure.” This logic might be applied not just to salt, but to all food.

2. Regarding the contamination of salts from natural environmental things like birds and bugs:

Most sea salt is made in open salt pans where it is evaporated by the energy of the sun and wind.  All open pan solar sea salts are subject to all the effects of the environment.  A pristine natural environment will buffer salt pans from industrialization, but birds, fish, crustaceans, algae, and pollens are all present in such places.  So, is this a problem?

In a word, No.

Admittedly, no unrefined sea salt will be utterly free of all the things that naturally occur in the this environment. (Fresh, ice-cold water drawn from a mountain spring water will contain organic matter. Water stored in plastic bottles on supermarket shelves will contain no organic matter–though it may contain Bisphenol A and other chemicals.  Which is better?)  But salt makers will often pour clean ocean brine over the salt crystals as they are harvested to rinse them of any unwanted matter.  In other places, seasonal things like pollen from nearby mountains is considered part of the character of the salt, though this, too, is often rinsed out when the salt is going to be sold outside the community. In addition, the natural ecology of a healthy salt pond will help keep things in balance. As the chemical, visual, and taste analyses can attest, the combination of the pond ecology and rinsing in natural brine results in a very clean salt.

For the next few months I’ll post favorite videos of saltmaking around the world. Some salt manufacturing facilities are filthy affairs where bulldozers groan amidst the thunder of dynamite. Others are tranquil places where all you hear is birdsong and the rustle of marsh grasses over the occasional laugh or murmur of an artisan practicing thousand year old saltmaking traditions. While the two extremes are related through the universal human need for salt, salt from the former finds its way to our tables only as a refined byproduct of a far vaster industrial need for salt. Salt from the latter makes you want to travel, talk, learn, cook, and eat.

This is one of the best videos I know describing artisan saltmaking at Malta. The Gozo salt pans located on Xwieni Bay have been been producing salt at least since Phoenician times. (The megalithic structures of Gozo date from 3600-3000 BC and there is every likelihood that salt was part of the economy that thrived there) The use of some modern equipment doesn’t diminish the charm and weird beauty of Gozo salt.

I have a thought that speaks to both of our perspectives on salt.  Ruhlman ’s book, Soul of the Chef, is a brilliant account of what’s involved in the technical mastery of cooking.  But implicit in the story (and sometimes explicit) is the importance of the ingredient.  Thomas Keller is a technical master, but he is also the consummate curator of ingredients.

The tension between technique and ingredient is age-old.  In the history of food there has always been a fight between technique and ingredient.  Cultures tend to come out on one side or the other: French, the technique; Italian, the ingredient.  This tension also plays out through trends and influences:  molecular gastronomy is about technique; Alice Waters is about ingredient.  As he describes so well, Keller is not only a master technician, he also emblematizes the age-old concept “honor the animal” and “honor the vegetable,” meaning use your ingredients fully and respectfully.

Keller also honors the mineral.

Keller’s strategic, creative, mindful use of natural, unique salts has been a major inspiration for me in my life and work.  If fact, I can think of no other person (outside Japan) who has so fully grasped the essential link between the technical perfection of cooking and the elemental imperative of good salt.  Several of the over 100 salts we carry in our store I discovered through Keller.

But, in conclusion, I will say that I totally agree three salts are enough for any household.  But they should be salts that reflect your values as a chef no less than the grade of meat or freshness of vegetable.  Coarse, moist Sel Gris for all around cooking and hearty foods like grilled and roasted meats and roots.  Delicate, irregular crystals of Fleur de Sel for subtler, moist foods like fish, sauced foods, and cooked vegetables.  Parchment fine Flake Salts for fresh vegetables and wherever you want a dramatic salty snap.  We have the Foundations Set at The Meadow to help with this.

The technical skill required for using salt masterfully is easy as pie (or easier: crust is a bear).  And finding good salts is easier now than ever.  My book will be coming out this fall in an effort to help matters along.  Honor the mineral!

A new study, “Can Dietary Sodium Intake Be Modified by Public Policy?” published in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology asserts that public health policy is neither a justified nor a productive way to regulate individual sodium intake:

As the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans are currently under development and regulations surrounding sodium consumption are being considered, an analysis of evidence to be released online Thursday, Oct. 15, in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN) questions the scientific logic and feasibility of the decades-long effort to limit salt intake in humans.

After examining data from sodium intake studies worldwide and a critical body of neuroscience research on sodium appetite (innate behaviors that drive us to consume salt), researchers from the Department of Nutrition at the University of California, Davis, and the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at Washington University found compelling evidence indicating that humans naturally regulate their salt intake within a narrowly defined physiologic range.
This new analysis, “Can Sodium Intake Be Modified by Public Policy,” is timely as two expert panels convened by the U.S. government are considering nutrition policies that would lower current sodium intake recommendations and set in motion policies regulating the amount in food. The issue of whether sodium intake is a physiologic parameter that public policy cannot change has never before been considered. This study challenges the relevance of regulatory or legislative intervention by identifying evidence, which must be taken into account as U.S. guidelines are being reevaluated, and even more restrictive policies considered.

“If sodium intake is physiologically determined, then our national nutrition guidelines and policies must reflect that reality,” said lead author David A. McCarron, an adjunct professor with the Department of Nutrition at UC Davis. “It is unrealistic to attempt to regulate America’s sodium consumption through public policy when it appears that our bodies naturally dictate how much sodium we consume to maintain a physiologically set normal range. To do otherwise will expend valuable national and personal resources against unachievable goals.”

Sodium consumption not extreme

The researchers evaluated 24-hour urinary sodium excretion, the standard measure of daily sodium intake, from 19,151 individuals collected in 62 previously published surveys from 33 countries worldwide. In contrast to the widely held notion that salt intake has reached extreme levels in Western societies, the analysis indicates that daily sodium intake across a wide range of “food environments” tracks within a relatively narrow range: 117 mmol–212 mmol (2,700–4,900 mg). In addition, previous studies provide supportive evidence that adult humans naturally seek this range of sodium intake.

Further, the authors highlight neuroscience research in animal models demonstrating that sodium intake is tightly controlled by critical pathways in the brain to maintain optimal function of many physiologic functions.

“Decades of neuroscience research have revealed highly sophisticated brain circuits which regulate sodium appetite by facilitating communications between the brain and multiple organs throughout the body,” said study co-author Joel C. Geerling, a neuroscientist and physician formerly of Washington University and now at New York–Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center.

“One purpose of these pathways is to ensure that the body is obtaining adequate sodium from the diet to fulfill physiologic needs.” Geerling said.

The importance of the question posed by this article is further highlighted by the efforts of national agencies and municipal departments, such as the British Food Standards Agency (FSA) and the New York City Department of Health, which have set in motion campaigns to mandate food companies and restaurants to lower the sodium content of foods.

In the course of their analysis and included in this article, the UC Davis investigators statistically assessed government-sponsored surveys of 24-hour urinary sodium excretion completed at 13 sites within the United Kingdom and Ireland involving more than 6,000 subjects since 1982. This assessment indicates that there has been no change during the past 25 years in the dietary sodium intake of individuals living in the U.K. and Ireland and is at odds with FSA’s recent public claims of a significant reduction following that agency’s multimillion pound campaign to restrict salt intake in the U.K.

Is regulation necessary?

The 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee and an Institute of Medicine (IOM) Panel on Strategies to Reduce Sodium Intake are working to determine what the 2010 sodium intake guideline will be and how to implement strategies — including regulatory and legislative actions — to further lower Americans’ sodium intake.

However, the current daily intake guidelines call for a maximum daily intake of 2,300 mg of sodium, the equivalent of one teaspoon of table salt. These recommendations are already 17 percent lower than the lowest level of worldwide sodium intake (2,700 mg) and 38 percent lower than the worldwide average sodium intake (3,700 mg).

According to study co-author Judith Stern, professor of nutrition at UC Davis and a past member of the 1985 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, “If this body of evidence is not taken into account, updates to the Dietary Guidelines or regulatory actions are based on partial science. Clearly, before dietary sodium intake can or should be modified, additional discussion and analysis are required.”

From the standpoint of The Meadow, the entire discussion of sodium restriction is misguided at its core.  A good indication of when we’ll be ready to engage in a scientific conversation (which is a prerequisite for a public health debate) is when we start seeing peer-reviewed scientific studies entitled: “The health benefits of sel gris and other high-mineral sea salts;” “Artisan salt, flavor, and health;” “Eating habits, health, and the use fleur de sel as a finishing salt.”

Don’t hold your breath.

We eat animals, plants, and salts.  Salt is a food.  There are thousands of salts in the world.  Each has unique culinary and nutritional qualities.  Each is unique, often with a history going back thousands of years to the dawn of civilization, and sometimes well before.  Until we respect what salt is, begin to think of it as a whole ingredient (many contain every known element in the earth’s crust and atmosphere), as a quality natural ingredient (it is made from the sun and the sea, by the hands of skilled artisans) we cannot begin to understand its role in our diet.

After two disastrous years, the salt fields of Guérande have reason to smile. The season was long and good. The 190 members of the cooperative of producers, «Les salines de Guérande», have harvested 14,000 tons of sel gris, which about or two thirds of the total production on the Guérande salt fields.  The remainder is produced by independent producers.  Add to this 650 tons of fleur de sel, their premium product.  This harvest is sufficient to provide the cooperative with three and a half years of reserves.

There have been rumors that fleur de sel has fallen into such short supply that the French have actually been forced to buy fleur de sel from Portugal and Mexico.  I’ve visited a number of the producers and cooperatives in Brittany and never found one that didn’t claim to still have reserves of their salt on hand, though none of them seemed terribly smug about it.  Now, 650 tons of fine fleur de sel, 14,000 tons coarse sel gris…  I can sleep at night again.

Such was our experience when Jennifer Turner Bitterman, co-founder of The Meadow, organized Farm Awareness Day, bringing together Corey Schreiber, James Beard Award winning chef and Farm-to-School food coordinator with the Oregon Department of Agriculture, Nikole Williams, Program Manager of Nutritious Services for Portland Public Schools, and Paul Folkestad, an instructor and chef with the Western Culinary Institute.  The event was held in conjuction with PPS’s Local Lunch and Harvest of the Month program, tasting and playing with asparagus with the students of Laurelhurst Elementary School.

And amazingly, the kids, insofar as is possible within the rather bewilderingly frenetic 20 to 30 minutes that they were allotted for lunch, really did eat asparagus.

Jennifer, Corey, and Paul pursued a three stranded strategy in their campaign to a) feed children, b) wake them up to the unexpected pleasures lurking within a stalk of astringent green vegetable, and c) make the entire thing thought provoking and memorable enough to hopefully percolate down to conversation with the parents over dinner table back home.

Strand 1 of the strategy: grill some asparagus and serve it from a platter.  400 kids, lunching in three seatings, can motor through a substantial amount of asparagus, even if there only a minority cared to partake. Minority status notwithstanding, there were a surprising number who were more than willing to wolf down a stalk or two. In fact, in addition to what was served them, I spied dozens of kids skulking away from their seats to grab a stalk, shoving it down their gullets as they returned to their tables, often realizing just as they were about to retake their seats that they had, alas, finished their asparagus, and so would have to skulk away again to get more, and so repeated the circle of seeking, eating, returning, realizing, and re-seeking again and again, transformed by hunger into a sort of asparagus-inhaling perpetual motion machines. (Skulking’s sort of a figurative term, as they really just bounded up from their tables and ran across the cafeteria to Chef Folkestad, who was dispensing piles of thick, remarkably nicely-cooked stalks of asparagus as fast as he could.)

Strand 2 of the strategy: give them the opportunity to personalize their vegetables with salt.  Jennifer thought it would help stimulate things if we played off the natural interest in things that are salty, cool, colorful, unique, and salty.  In other words, we allowed the kids to partake of the joys of finishing salt, which they did with gusto.  We brought three suitably dramatic artisan salts from The Meadow: warm and meaty Kauai Guava smoked sea salt, a rich red Alaea Volcanic sea salt, and a snappy charcoal gray Turkish Black Pyramid sea salt from Cyprus.  Hard to know what was the most popular, as the cafeteria was more or less engulfed in a white cloud of aerosolized Himalayan Pink rock salt that I was grating onto kids asparagus, hands, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and upturned smiling faces.

Strand 3 of the strategy: this was the most ingenious part of the entire event.  The only thing more effective than the age old trickery known as bait-and-switch is even older trickery of baiting and not switching.  We contacted Rudy Speerschneider, the maestro of hand-churned ice cream at Junior Ambassador’s ice cream, which operates out of a “Mostlandian” food cart on Albina Avenue not far from our shop (though if you follow the website, its actually “a fanatasical psychogeographical destination happening anyplace, anytime, anyhow,” which is a difficult place to navigate to using Google maps and conventional ground transportation).  The ice cream is indeed almost supernaturally delicious, despite leanings toward the bizarre side. What is funny is that people are as eager to rave about the smoked salmon-cream cheese sundae complete with capers and pickled onions as they are about the vanilla.  The kids agreed, and went after the asparagus ice cream with very close to universal enthusiasm.

There was a sort of strand 3 and a half: I stood around with a giant rock of Himalayan pink salt and shaved it onto the little cups of asparagus ice cream.  The dusting of salt brought out a hidden sweetness in the asparagus, and as well as fresh glimmers of its trademark vibrant, green, springiness.  Plus, the children seemed to find it refreshingly cool and to suddenly find themselves in the proximity of a group of adults crazy enough to hybridize ice cream, rocks, and asparagus into a singularly yummy and theatrical experience.

Below are some simple asparagus recipes provided by Chef Paul to inspire parents and kids take the asparagus experience back home.

Farm-to-School Asparagus Recipes:

These are three easy recipes below, but even easier is to trim your asparagus, plunge it in boiling water for 3 minutes, then plunge in ice water. Serve cold with kosher salt and a squeeze of lemon.

Asparagus Parmigiano

• 2 pounds asparagus stalks, washed and trimmed
• Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
• Extra-virgin olive oil
• Coarsely ground black pepper
• Coarse salt or sea salt
• Selmelier’s recommendation (coarse, moist salt such as Sel Gris de l’Ile de Noirmoutier, or a hearty fleur de sel like Peruvian Warm Spring will give the teeth and the tongue something wonderful to toy with against the juicy/salty aparagus/Parmigiano combination.

Use a vegetable peeler, shave curls off the Parmigian-Reggiano cheese. Snap or cut off the tough ends of the asparagus. Arrange asparagus in a single layer in a shallow baking pan. Blanch the asparagus in lightly salted boiling water for approximately 3 minutes or until crisp-tender; do not overcook. Remove from heat and refresh under cold water; drain well. Toss asparagus with just enough olive oil to lightly coat. Arrange asparagus on a serving platter or individual serving plates. Sprinkle coarse salt, pepper, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese curls over the top of the asparagus.
Makes 4-6 servings.
Simple Roasted Asparagus

• 1 bunch fresh asparagus
• ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• ¼ cup balsamic vinegar
• salt and pepper to taste
• Selmelier’s recommendation: Turkish Black Pyramid, hands down, a beautiful salt with a touch of earthiness to balance out the asparagus

Preheat oven to 425. Trim tough bottoms of asparagus stalks up to ½ inch. Liberally coat the asparagus with the other ingredients. Roast asparagus on high rack in oven until tender, usually 4-6min depending on thickness of asparagus. Serve hot or cold. Makes 4 portions.
Asparagus with Orange Dressing & Toasted Hazelnuts (from Gourmet Magazine)

• 2 tablespoons finely chopped hazelnuts
• 1 1/2 to 2 pounds asparagus stalks, washed and trimmed
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated orange zest
• 2 teaspoons fresh orange juice
• 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• [salt]
• Selmelier’s recommendation: Ack, had to edit/eradicate an ingredient!  Good sweet lord, why wreck all those fresh ingredients in such a beautiful recipe by introducing industrially refined sodium chloride into it? No offense Gourmet, which we read religiously, but a simple flake salt like Maldon will set the entire dish about five rungs farther up the stairway to heaven.    

Preheat oven to 375°F. Toast hazelnuts in a small shallow baking pan until golden, 4 to 5 minutes. Cook asparagus in a large frying pan of boiling salted water until crisp-tender, about 3 to 4 minutes, and drain well in a colander. Transfer hot asparagus to serving platter or individual serving plates. In a small bowl, whisk together orange zest, orange juice, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. Spoon orange dressing over top or asparagus and sprinkle with nuts.
Makes 4 servings.

We are on a safari, intent on face-time with the Big Game, the people who first inspired us in our love of salt.  Salt is produced in virtually every region of every country in the world, but some places strike home, transport us back to the stillness that comes only in the early years of culinary discovery: leaning against the dew-beaded fuel tank of my motorcycle in the pale morning, eating cold sardines as I watch the oyster boats return from the shoals.

We fly from Portland to Nice, drive across the south of France and the north of Spain to Portugal, down that coast and into Portugal, a loop to Casa Blanca, and then back up through the Spanish mainland and up the west coast of France toward Normandy, and then to Paris for some R&R.  There is a lot of country in that drive.  Existential fear caused us to abandon Italy, Germany, Poland, and Slovenia to the summer.

We welcome suggestions for places to stay, people to meet, things to eat, beaches to swim, and rocks to climb.  Here is our itinerary:

April 6: Fly

April 7: Arrive in Nice, drive toward the Camargue, stay in Arles

April 8: Visit the Aigues Mortes salt works, among the largest in the world and also a producer of Fleur de sel de Camargue.  Lots of driving over the next 3-4 days, so rest up 2nd night in Arles.

April 9:  Drive through Toulouse en route to staying in St Sebastien.

April 10: Drive to Porto, Portugal Drive by Asturias and eat cheese.

April 11: Visit Lisbon and surroundings such as the 7th century Moorish town of Alochete, once a major salt-producer.

April 12: Still chilling in Lisbon.

April 13: Small town like Tavira in Portugal’s Algarve. Visit with the folks at Mirasol and Necton.   Rome took much of its salt from the Algarve back in the day, and saltmaking there has been revived seriously in recent years.

April 14: Tavira

April 15: Tangier, Morocco.  There are some good salinas to visit on the Southern tip of Spain on the way, near Cadiz, so who  knows how far we will get.  The goal is to cross the straits to Africa.

April 16: Check out various and sundry sights along the coast en route to Casablanca.

April 17: Casablanca (take in the sights), stroll the markets, eat fruits and nuts and dried fruits and buy salts harvested from the nearby seas and distant mountains.  An old buddy, a real trouble maker, from my Paris days lived in Casablanca, but who knows what prison cell not contains him, or I would visit.

April 18: Tangier

April 19: Seville, Spain Here we leave the salt road, and travel inland for a spell.

April 20 and 21: Madrid

April 22: Bordeaux, visit makers of Pineau des Charentes

April 23 through 27: Il de Noirmoutier and surrounding countryside, maybe extending up as far as St. Malo, where we will eat the best salted butter in the world, hand made by a fellow named Jean-Yves Bordier.

April 28 through 30: Paris.  Not sure what we will NOT do here, but certainly stomp around my old stomping grounds, check out some of the recommendations from the website of my friend Dorie Greenspan, who is on intimate terms with both food and Paris, take up smoking and sit in cafes and write whilst smoking a Gitanes.

May 1: Return to Portland Oregon, put the kids, bewildered and savage as feral cats, back in school.

We will keep track of this trip in real time, to the best of our ability, Tweeting at: Twitter.com/Selmelier.

In the meantime, we would love your ideas and advice!

Taken yesterday, under cloudy, neutral light while I was brushing my teeth (I forgot to do it earlier).

A boulder field.  This also displays of some of the qualities of a hand-ground salt.  Note the micro-grains of salt next to the hefty boulders….  (the hefty boulders are about 1 to 2 mm in diameter).

Taken in the early morning today….  Maybe progress?

Taken just now, with strong (and rare) Portland Oregon sunlight streaming through the window.

Well…. at least I’ve already brushed my teeth this morning.