Back to the Roots Windowsill Garden

I met Hansen Shieh in the “new” products aisle at the Fancy Food NYC. He was first in a long line of new vendors and the Earthy. Spicy. Tingly. did it’s job. It drew me right in and had me asking for more. That more was a couple spoonful of Hansen’s truly deep sauces. Incredible flavors on their own, how he can bottle them that way is even more impressive. Typically the jar of sauce looses something from mom’s kitchen to co-packer. Aside from the sauce Hansen knows his stuff, tells a great story and is super gracious. Closing deals is a big part of the show and not being a buyer, I sometimes have trouble focusing purveyors to talk beyond the sale. Not the case with Hansen. Since that talk, we’ve had some Earthy Spicy Tingly in the pantry at all times.

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?

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.

I’ve been off the sugar for three weeks now. When I say that I mean refined white to complex carbs. I’ve lowered my intake levels don’t to 10% or less of my diet. What I miss most is pizza and pasta. When I saw Seamore’s I Sea Pasta I was intrigued. It was the pictures on their website that did it because we haven’t been able to get our hands on a bag to try yet. It looks like perfect pasta. Delicious (looking) with clams and garlic. I’m posting because of the innovation. I love how technology, creativity and production can be married to make new foods do old tricks. I mean, tell me you don’t want a plate of seaweed tagliatelle and clam sauce? We’ll update this once we taste some but for now pop over and bask in the beauty of their website.