The first thing they placed on our cloud white, spotless, linen clade table at Per Se in NYC was a lidded porcelain bowl shaped like a flower. With dramatic flare, the cover was lifted to reveal six different salts. A second waiter began explaining the different flavors, regions and usages for the white gold as I fell into reverie about the efficiency of the container. My spice closet is incredibly organized and uniform but I often am hunting for all my finishing salts in order to decide which to use. The World Salt Tower both remedies this problem and reloads my stash of salts for all culinary occasions. Now I can decide between my volcanic black, Himalayan pink, Malden or French coast grey sea without freaking out that my halibut is getting cold and my guests are getting restless.
More Food Stuff
Back to the Roots Windowsill Garden
Spring at FTHQ means firing up the grill and picking shishito peppers straight off the plant to toss on those sizzling cast-iron grates. That scent becomes the envy of our Queens neighborhood and we bask in it. Before we can wear that urban farming crown we need to get dirty in some soil. If all that trouble isn’t your style and black specs under your freshly primp and polished gel manicure makes you throw side-eyes, Back to the Roots has a solution that is as easy as opening a can of beans. That’s mostly because it is opening a can just not beans. Pre-canned seeds sit dormant waiting for you to crack open and pour in sunshine and some H2O. Besides ingenious, the clean design looks perfect amidst your $300 toaster and fair trade coffee display. BTW, save those grinds for healthy soil, ohh wait, dirty nail issue again. Never-mind Now you just need to choose what to grow. From herbs and flowers to tomatoes and peppers they have a DIY kit that’s even easier than your second-grade avocado pit science project. Remember that? In terms of timing, plant now so you are ready to show off during your Memorial Day party even if that will be over zoom this year.
Swedish Fish Oreos
Oreo’s has been playing with flavors for a while now. Some of them hit and some of them…meh. The latest in this line up of special flavor limited time releases is the Swedish Fish Oreo. I’m not sure who in the Nabisco test kitchen decided this would be a great combo. The only logical rational is that the facility is in Colorado or Washington State and there was more than just cookie experiments being conducted on this day. Seriously Cookie Lab guys, you’ve had some hits. Birthday Cake was a game changer. Cookie Dough, yes please. But fruit punch? Watermelon? Limeade? What were you thinking? I guess we don’t have a 100 years of cookie making and millions of dollars in quant qual customer research to back up our opinion. Whoever you people are our they with Blueberry Pie Oreo crumbs in the crevice of your couch please tweet at us your motivation. We’d love to hear all about it. In close, this isn’t meant to be a slander post. On the contrary, Oreo breaking from it’s 50+ years of stuff, double stuff, vanilla cookie stuff is a breath of fresh air. Keep ‘em coming. We love following the flavors. Can we lobby for spaghetti Carbonara? Seriously though, WTF, no cannoli yet?
Pemberton’s Puttanesca Sauce
Speaking of that Maine trip, we also discovered Pemberton’s Puttanesca, another Maine business with a great origin story. Ever heard of Death by Chocolate. Yep. That’s right. Pemberton’s. That first product quickly went from local favorite to legendary status. How did they get to a jar of sauce? Simple really, they are about small batch, traditional classics, handcrafted with care. That allows them to explore a lot of different products from sweet to savory. As you know, we’re usually a discerning crowd when it comes to jarred red sauce but this puttanesca delighted our tongues and makes for a quick fix when we’re two tired (read busy) to start from scratch.
Masala Mama Simmer Sauce
I love Indian food almost as much as Italian food. The difference in cooking them couldn’t be further from each other. Italian cooking usually includes three main ingredients cooked together for a short period of time. Indian cooking is the exact opposite. The husband and wife team behind Masala Mama Simmer Sauce decided to jar up their Calcutta food education to combat this very problem. Creating Indian sauces from scratch takes a long time. Many times, two full days. They have successfully captured three of the most popular sauces of India. Vindaloo, Tikka Masala and Goan Curry. That’s three quarters of the cooking. The taste passed my mother-in-law test to round out this A+ recommendation. Now you can have butter chicken on Tuesday. Uhh, and probably lunch on Wednesday too.