While I am always happy getting Christmas presents, I am extra happy when I can eat or cook with them. Our fun little condo is starting to get a little cramped with all of the stuff for Elena, so we don’t have much room for new toys for us. One of the great things about food and ingredients is that they generally don’t stick around too long.

For me, this year was the year of seasoning! I had recently run out of Smoked Paprika, luckily Santa brought me a sampler of smoked paprika. I am a big fan of Paprika and it is great in lots of dishes.

The only thing I love more than freshly popped popcorn, is popcorn topped with Kernel Season’s. I have only been able to find the White Cheddar flavor in stores near me. Sprinkling on popcorn you end up with fresh tasting Smart Food. This year Santa was extra good to me and brought a variety of flavors:

• Chili Lime
• Sour Cream Onion
• Cajun
• Barbeque
• Kettle Corn
• Pumpkin Spice

For those of you unaware, Keith’s is from Nova Scotia and is one the one of the oldest breweries in North America. According to wikipeida, they became distribution in the US back in April. While Keith’s may not be Nova Scotia’s best beer, they have a soft spot in my heart ever since Carolyn and I went on the brewery tour when we were in Nova Scotia.

To me, Keith’s is a lot like Yuengling. An old brewery that is still putting out some good beer. It is not as good as the craft beers coming out, but it is a lot better than the mass market varieties. It is a good beer, with an old tradition and it proves Canada brews more than Molson.

If you are looking for something a little fancier, Nova Scotia still has you covered. I really liked the beers from Garrison and Propeller. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen them stateside yet. Here’s to hoping, and I will keep on enjoying my Keats even if they do.

I picked up this snack from my favorite grocery store in DC, Hana Japanese market. They have an amazingly good selection of Japanese products given the size of the store and staff is nice and helpful… and they are on Twitter!

It is pretty easy to figure out what this snack is… it is very clearly octopus. The mysterious thing about this snack is how they managing to preserve them. The octopus have a texture similar to cooked ones and are definitely not dried. They are sold on the shelf though and don’t have any indication that they need to be refrigerated. Clearly the Japanese have managed to create a shelf stable, cooked octopus snack. Ever more impressive, it is still tasty.

If anyone has any insights on how they are preserved or the name of this style of snack, please let us know!

If people go and put fish on their pizza, it it usually anchovies. However, my favorite fishy pizza topping is Bottarga. It is cured fish roe, made by taking the roe pouch from tuna or grey mullet and preserved by curing it in salt for a couple of weeks. When cured, it forms a hard log which can be shaved on top of pasta or pizza, or served thinly sliced as an appetizer.

I came across two different producers offering it at the Fancy Food Show. Trikalinos, from Greece, offers traditionally prepared grey mullet, packed in beeswax. It is distributed in the US by the Rogers Collection. It is not cheap though, a 1/2 pound stick is over $100. Luckily it keeps forever and a little bit goes a long way. Still, that is a lot of money for what was traditional a peasant food. Bottarga is traditional Mediterranean ingredient and I also found a producer in the Italian pavilion. Su Tianu Sardu is located in Sardinia and produces both mullet and yellowfin tuna Bottarga. They offer it in both preserved blocks and pre-ground jars, which is a little more convenient. While their prices are much more reasonable, the unfortunately do not ship to the US. Luckily Amazon carries Sardinian Bottarga, is there anything they don’t have?

Bottarga Di Muggine (Grey Mullet Roe) From Cabras, Sardinia

Of course if you are feeling bold, you could always try making it yourself. In the US you can try making it with Shad Roe which is available seasonally.

If you are just looking to give it a try, head over to Pizzeria Paradiso in DC and order a Bottarga Pizza. It has Tomato, Egg, Garlic, Parsley, Parmesan, Bottarga on it and is baked in their super hot oven so that the egg in the center sets, but the yolk is still runny. It is utterly delicious.

Out of all of the producers at the Fancy Food Show, I was most excited to see Grafton Village. They had teased on their Facebook page that their new head Cheesemaker was going to be at the show. Dane Huber had recently joined the crew and is in charge of putting together a new line of cave aged cheese. These cheese are not only a change in style from their traditional (and excellent) cheddar, but also a change in type of cheese. Some of the new cheeses are made with sheeps’ milk instead of cows’ milk.

There were 3 cheese at the show to try from the new Grafton Cave Aged Line:

• Vermont Leyden
• Vermont Barn Dance
• Vermont Truffled Bismark

I think my favorite was the Leyden, which is made with a mix of Sheeps’ and Cows’ milk. The cheeses in this line are going to be made in small batches, so you will probably only find them in the higher end shops. They are also not going to be cheap. I think they will probably be in the high end range, $15 – $20. However, the nice thing about good cheese is that it packs so much flavor that you don’t need a lot of it.

Grafton has also redesigned their packaging for the cheddars. The older cheddars (3 & 4 year) are going to be sold under the Tavern Select line. They are finally making enough of them too, so they should have a wider distribution. This is good news because I haven’t seen any 3 year Cheddar down in DC for a while. The cheesemakers are also signing the packaged wedges, which is a nice touch. The other cheeses have also had their packaging spruced up too.

I am really excited about these changes. I think the new design better reflects the high quality cheese they make. Not only do they make great cheese, but they are a great group of people. It was a lot of fun to hang around the booth with them… and sample cheese. Hopefully the new cave aged cheese line will be in stores soon. Let me know if you spot it anywhere. I just hope that the prices stay the same. I am hooked on the 2-year cheddar, at $10 a pound it is a very affordable luxury.

Ahh… the Japanese Mountain Yam. A most strange and curious tuber, and the one type of yam that can be eaten raw (the orange things you get in super market are really sweet potatoes, not yams). It is a rather bland, lacking any distinct flavor. Its only saving grace, is that it turn a mucousy pile of snot when grated.

While it it may not be attractive, this slimy mess is an important addition to Okonomiyaki. The yam snot improves the texture of the large cabbage pancake, making it fluffy in the middle and crisp on the outside. It haven’t done any scientific, side-by-side tests, but the batch I made with the yam were the best ones to date.

Oh wait, you are still wondering what Okonomiyaki is? Well, it is a large pancake/ pizza made up of cabbage and a yam-flour-egg batter and topped with just about anything you can think off and fried up in a pan. In case you didn’t guess, it is Japanese. This past post goes over how to make it. If you have a mountain yam handy, add about 2 tbsp of the grated paste to the batter and decrease the water slightly.

So awesome, this amazingly snotty tuber makes my cabbage pizzas better… so how can I get one? Well unfortunately you are not going to be finding them in your standard, American grocery store. You will have better luck in an Asian grocer, where it could be called any of the following: nagaimo, yamaimo, Chinese yam, Japanese mountain yam, or Korean yam. Luckily for us we live right by the most awesome Hana Japanese Market, at 17th & U Street in NW DC. They have fresh yams there and they may even have dried powdered yams.

A cabbage about to meet its fate…

One Japanese Mountain Yam, ready for some fun

A little bit of cabbage ends up going a long way

All chopped up and ready to go…

A little bit of “snot” goes a long way. You only need about 2TBsp per batch

I topped mine with a good shake of Furikake

I then added some bonito flakes, seaweed and a lot of yummy Okonomi Sauce!

Taza turns out some great chocolate in a non-discript building, in the industrial part of Somerville. Carolyn and I checked it out them out while we were up in Massachusetts last December. They make chocolate bars and Mexican style hot chocolate discs.

Luckily for us, they had just started up a factory tour and we ended up getting two of the last tour tickets for the day.

Taza makes their chocolate directly from coco beans, right in their facility. The tour takes you through all of the manufacturing steps. They one of a few manufacturers that does bean to bar, so it is cool that you get to see the entire chocolate making process. Most of the other people start with a chocolate liquor that was refined somewhere else.

The tour, and the process, starts with bags of beans. Taza gets their beans from good sources, sustainably grown with workers paid a fair wage. Right now the beans mostly come from the Dominican.

Coco beans grow in large pods. When they are ready for harvest, they pick the pod and crack it open to get the beans from inside. The beans are then allowed to ferment for a bit and then dried. After all this, the beans are bagged up and shipped north. The beans get held in a warehouse in NJ until they are needed.

Enough about beans, back to chocolate making. The first stuff is to roast the beans. They use a large roaster, the same model that you use to roast coffee beans. Taza uses it to also roasts the nuts that goes into their chocolate.

After the roasting, the beans go into a huge machine which crunches them up and uses air to blow of the shells of the bean and other non-coco stuff. The coco nibs are heavy and fall down into large cans below.

The nibs are what makes chocolate. The next step is to pulverize them, which heats up all the fat in them and turns it into a thick liquid. Taza uses granite wheels to crush up the nibs, which is the authentic Mexican style way to do it. The chocolate is added into a large vat where it gets mixed with sugar and any other flavorings that are going to be added.

In order to crush the small pieces of nibs left and smooth out the liquor, it is passed through a series of steel rollers. The chocolate used for the Hot Chocolate disks is left a little “chunkier” and not as smooth. The little bit of grit left is part of the style. For the chocolate bars, they pass the chocolate a bunch of extra times, each time moving the rollers closer together.

The chocolate for the chocolate bars is also tempered. This step helps make sure that the sugar doesn’t crystalize after the chocolate has been poured into the mold. This involves heating and cooling the mixture over a long period of time. When you get a chocolate bar and it looks like it has a white film on it, that is a sign that the chocolate has lost its tempering.

Once the chocolate liquor is ready, it is time to pour it into a mold. The molds are just plastic tray. Since the mixture is so think, they had to use a doughnut dispenser to fill the molds. The chocolate is then chilled, to let the chocolate set. Once they are good to go, the chocolate gets unmolded and wrapped.

And that is how chocolate is made!

Excellent, knowledge is great and all, but it is not as good as eating chocolate. In order to make Mexican style hot chocolate you just mix some melted chocolate with warm milk. The trick is not burning the milk or chocolate in the process. They recommend grating the chocolate and then mixing it with the warmed milk.

I started out giving this a try, but grating chocolate is sort of a pain. Instead, I went for the double boiler option. A double boiler is two pots, one on top of each other. The bottom pot has a bit of water in it. The water gets boiled and the steam heats up the bowl above it. Since it is heated using the steam, it can only get so hot, and the milk and chocolate don’t burn.

Of course, buying a specialized pot that would rarely gets used is sort of silly. Instead, simply find a metal bowl the fits over a pot you already have and use that instead. Problem solved! Expensive gear avoided!

Once the chocolate has melted, start mixing in milk, a bit at the time. While this is going on, preheat the mugs. I just put a bit of water in each and microwaved them. We made two disks worth of chocolate and added about 14oz of milk. Switching up the ratio changes how thick or milky it is.

When the mixture is hot, ladle it into the warm mugs. I went the extra mile and used the little frother we have from Ikea to give it a nice foam.

So was it much better than Swiss Miss? Most definitely! It taste CHOCOLATY and not at all weak. It is a most enjoyable indulgence. It is even better after seeing how it was made, and the work and thought that goes into making the chocolate.

It was a bit of work though. If you are cold or wet, the last thing you want to do is work for 20 minutes making a pot of hot chocolate.

Vote for us in Project Food Blog!
(Especially if you are a FoodBuzz Featured Publisher, only their votes count, go figure)

So we made it to the next round of Project Food Blog…yay! No time to bask in our victory though, we are on to the next challenge:

Ready to tackle a classic dish from another culture? Pick an ethnic classic that is outside your comfort zone or are not as familiar with.

Carolyn and I have traveled around a bit–I lived in Hong Kong and she lived in Spain for study abroad. We are by no means globe trotters, but we have eaten and cooked a lot of different “ethnic classics” between us. So instead of faking it and rehashing an old dish, we decided to take on the challenge in earnest. Both of us grew up in Massachusetts and are true Yankees at heart (not Yankees fans, mind you). One cuisine that is truly foreign to us and presents a real challenge is Southern food. This maybe a stereotype, but to me the classic Southern dish is fried chicken and greens.

Of course having no experience with Southern food, means we have no go-to recipes. Luckily, our favorite local neighborhood bloggers, Zach & Clay over at the Bitten Word, are genuine Southerners. They recently did a taste test between Thomas Keller’s overly-fussy fried chicken and Clay’s mom’s. After Clay’s mom’s chicken handily won, we knew we had found our recipe. While we were over at the Bitten Word, we also found a modern-Southern recipe for Collard Greens, which is supposedly better than the traditional version their grandmothers used to make.

I should mention that in addition to having no experience with Southern food, neither of us had ever fried anything before. This should be good!

The first step was to brine the chicken, preferably for 8-12 hours. Luckily for us, Elena, our 8-month old, was kind enough to wake up early so we could get the chicken going early. The brine is just salt and water. Simply cut up the chicken, as described below, put it in the brine and refrigerate.

While the chicken spent the day brining, we picked up some collard greens at the farmers’ market and went to Mr. Yogato for some FroYo & Trivia (5 countries that end in L, leave your answer in the comments). We emailed Clay and he recommended adding a bit of paprika and cayenne pepper to the flour mixture. I one-up that and also added some garlic and onion powder. I dried off the chicken and put it on a rack in the fridge to dry off a little more. I also had some buttermilk left over from our cornbread experiment, more on that in another post, so I went with a half milk/half buttermilk mixture.

With the chicken and batter all set, it was time to face my fears and get things set up for frying. I poured an entire container of canola oil into our dutch oven, attached a thermometer and turned up the heat. As the oil crept toward 375 degrees, I began breading the first batch of chicken parts, dunking them in milk and then coating them in flour. Once the oil reached temperature I began adding the chicken. This was the part I was nervous about, I thought the oil might explode out of the pot in one massive bubble. When I dropped in the first piece there was some angry bubbling, but nothing like what I imagined. Over this initial hurdle, I added the other pieces, covered the pot and let it cook on the first side for 8 minutes. I ended up cooking all the pieces in 3 batches–cooking the thighs for 10 minutes on each side and everything else for 8 minutes per side.

I am sure if you have been frying chicken for most of your life, it comes pretty easy to you. However, to a newbie like me, this does not seem like a simple go-to dish. It takes a bit of planning and takes a while to fry everything up. That said though, the results are amazing! It is amazing how a simple preparation and a couple of basic ingredients can produce something so delicious. You always here the mantra that quality ingredients don’t need much fussing to shine…but I didn’t use quality ingredients. I went for the on-sale Purdue chicken at Safeway and cheap canola oil. I didn’t bother with free-range, extra-virgin anything and still had amazing results. To me this might be one of the biggest take-aways from this Southern adventure–good food doesn’t need fussiness.

Let’s talk Shiso! It is a Japanese herb which has a taste all its own, although I think it tastes sort of lemony. Its English name is Perilla, although it is sometimes refereed to as the Beefsteak plant. I have no idea why that is. It comes in a green and purple variety and although it is an annual herb, it can reseed itself in mild climate.

The reason we are talking about Shiso, is because I have a lot of it. I bought two small seedlings from the most awesome Japanese store near us, Hana Market, and now I have two small Shiso bushes. I am sort of at a loss as to what I should do with it.

I found a couple of recipes that could be fun to try:

• Shiso pickled cucumbers
• Edamame Salad with Shiso
• Skirt Steak with Shiso-Shallot Butter
• Shiso Martinis
• Cucumber Salad with Feta and Shiso
• Some good methods for preserving Shiso

Do yall have any better ideas? Let me know in the comments. Also let me know if you are in DC and interested in a packet of Shiso leaves.

What’s better than granola where you choose the ingredients? Do you want sweet, filled with chocolate-covered espresso beans or gummy bears, or healthy, filled with dried fruit and nuts? The people behind MixMyGranola what you to decide for yourself…choose your granola base, add whatever ingredients you want, and they ship it to your door.

We decided to give it a whirl and ordered two mixes. Luke’s mix consisted of low-fat granola (which includes almonds, cranberries and a hint of coconut), Goji berries, dried melon slices and pistachios. Carolyn’s mix consisted of French vanilla granola (which includes sliced almonds), dried raspberries, dried blueberries and dried papaya.

When we got our customized granola in the mail, we went straight out and bought our favorite Banilla yogurt. The granola consists of nice clusters of granola, not crumbly bits, and a good amount of mix-ins. Both of our concoctions were different and delicious…and perfect for eating by the handful or on top of yogurt.

In these tough economic times, I think everyone is looking to get the most bang for their buck. How does the price of MixMyGranola compare to the store-bought granola? Our mixes came out to an average of $.56 per ounce ($.71 per ounce with shipping factored in). Our local Safeway store had plain granola for $.30 or $.45 per ounce, depending on brand, and not factoring in any sale.

The granola comes in cool canisters, which would be good for kids to store Legos or whatever in. Mix My Granola says the packaging is 100 percent recyclable. Here’s an idea…what if they included a label/envelop to ship the canister back to the company (for free) and offered small amount off your next order for doing so? They could recycle it for future use, you’d have less canisters in your home and/or sent to your local recycling plant. Product stewardship, that’s all I’m sayin’.

Bottom line…this is perfect for the granola-obsessed. It may be a little expensive to buy all the time, but it’s a fun treat.

One of the best parts of making your own chicken stock is the layer of fat that settles to the top after it’s chilled. This yellow layer of fat is also known as Shmaltz and to quote Sienfeld, “Its gold, Jerry, Gold!” After the soup has chilled you can skim the fat and save it for later. You can use it for frying up potatoes or better yet, making the best matzo balls you have ever tasted.

I am not embarrassed to admit that I made my matzo balls from a Manachevitz mix. However, instead of using vegetable oil as the fat in the matzo balls, I subbed in the chicken fat. I am not 100% sure it made a huge difference, but I do think it added some flavor. Once the matzo balls were done cooking I simmered them with some carrots in the homemade chicken stock we made earlier.

Making homemade chicken stock can seem like more of a chore than it is actually is. There are tons of recipes and techniques out there, all trying to create a clear, strong stock. It is very easy to over think chicken soup making. The truth is that if you simply sauté some chicken parts and onions together until brown, add some water and simmer for a while, you while have a stock that will knock the pants off anything you can buy in the store. Cutting the chicken parts up and sauteing them will give the stock a rich flavor and cut down on the cooking time. Chicken stock serves as the backbone for so many dishes, and a good stock will give them new life.

If you buy anything other than boneless chicken breast, you will inevitably end up random chicken parts–chicken backs, ribs and carcasses. Throw all these parts into a large bag and stick it in your freezer. Next time you have a bit of free time, pull this bag of treats from the freezer and cook up a pot of stock.

Of course your chicken part supply doesn’t always match your schedule. If this happens, whole chicken legs can make for a good soup. The legs are a good mix of bone, meat and fat–everything needed for good flavor and body.

Cutting up the chicken parts into smaller pieces helps you extract more flavor. Start by breaking the chicken apart at the joints. Since you are going to be cutting through bone you will need a clever or hefty knife. Be careful! Split the breast in half. Hack the back section into 3 or 4 sections. Half each of the wing pieces. The legs and thighs are the toughest to cut since they have the largest bones. Hack each in half, if you can.

There is a good chance you are going to end up with more stock than you need. We ended up with 6 quarts of stock and were definitely sick of soup by the time we were down to the last quart. Luckily stock is easy to freeze and keeps well. Line a container with a quart or gallon zip-lock bag and ladle in chilled soup. Throw the bags in the freezer and they should be good for 6 months.

You may see the term stock and broth being used. While they tend to be used interchangeably, they do mean different things. Broth is made from boiling just meat while stock is made from simmering bones, meat and all of those weird bits like giblets. The addition of the bones gives the soup more body and is responsible for turning the stock to jello when it is cold. They can be used interchangeably, but real stock will have more flavor and body.

During the winter months our local farmer’s market shuts down. Star Hollow Farm, however, still has CSA pickup and some basics like their farm fresh eggs. The eggs they have are amazing and so much better than anything you can get in the stores, including fancy Whole Foods eggs.

The eggs I get from them do not look like they came out of a factory, which I think is a good thing. They are a slightly different size, color and texture compared to regular eggs which are more like uniform obelisks. According to Randy at Star Hollow, they get their eggs from a farm just down the road from where the chickens run free and scavenge for food. The eggs tend to be fresher and the yolks have a brilliant orange color to them. It maybe physiological, but the yolks seem yolkier.

You can tell how fresh an egg is by the egg white. Fresher eggs have a slightly cloudy egg white that is thicker and “sits up” more. Older eggs have runny egg whites. As an egg ages water from the egg white cross the yolk membrane, enlarging and watering down the yolk. This makes the yolk more fragile…not good news for sunny side up eggs! You can test how old an egg is by placing it in a bowl of water. The older an egg is, the more the wide end will rise. This is because as an egg ages it loses moisture through its shell, which is replaced with air.

All of these egg facts are courtesy of Harold McGee’s great book, On Food and Cooking. One last egg fact; while eggs are high in cholesterol compared to a comparable piece of meat, they are much lower in saturated fat. The interesting thing is that saturated fat has a larger impact on raising blood cholesterol than dietary cholesterol. Other fatty substances in the yolk also appear to interfere with the absorption of the yolk’s cholesterol. So while you shouldn’t overdo eggs, there is no reason to avoid them!

Carolyn and I have a weekly egg breakfast tradition. Every Saturday or Sunday we make open face eggs sandwiches. To make one, split an English muffin, toast each half topped with cheese, add salsa and then top each half with fried egg. The resulting breakfast “sandwich” is probably best eaten with a knife and fork.

FoodBuzz is an online social community of sorts for people who like food. There are recipes and restaurant reviews on their Web page. If you are a member of FoodBuzz, add Cookography as a friend. Right now we have 47 friends, which might be more than real life.

FoodBuzz also pays us a small amount of money for the ad you see on the right hand side. It is not a ton, but it adds up! I was just able to get a new camera (a Canon 50D) thanks to this extra cash. I will post a review of the camera in a little from the point of view of a food blogger.

FoodBuzz has also sent us a lot of cool things, and I thought it would be fun/dorky to get them all into one photo. So far I have gotten an apron, a silicon spatula and a canvas shopping bag. We love free things!

They have also started a program that lets you try out new products before they go to market. The first thing they sent out are new granola bars from Quaker Oats. They are called True Delights and come in 3 flavors:

• Dark chocolate raspberry almond
• Honey roasted cashew mixed berry
• Toasted coconut banana macadamia nut

So how are they, you ask? Well, the flavor names are REALLY long, but luckily they taste good. They are sort of like granola bars for adults. The banana one tastes really banana-y, but I love the Banana Bread flavored instant oatmeal so I am not complaining. They are a little bigger than standard bars, and come in at 140 calories. For me, that is the perfect size to fill me up as an afternoon snack. I don’t usually buy granola bars, but if I did, I think I would pick these up over a standard pack. They are a little more grown-up. You can get a free sample here.

The other big question is if giving out free things to bloggers is a good marketing move. I love free things, so of course I like it. Since I am not a journalist, I am not really concerned with objectivity. At the same time I don’t really have to worry about ad-sales or catchy headlines. I am very lazy, so if I actually manage to post on something it is because I actually like or dislike the product. It will be interesting to see what happens with this trend.

I came across a great Japanese market on my walk home from work. Hana Japanese Market recently opened at 17th and U Street in Northwest Washington, DC. It is a great little market that carries almost any Japanese product you could need. They mostly have dry or frozen goods, but they also get local, fresh Japanese vegetables from a Virginia farm every Thursday. They have a wide selection of frozen, sushi grade fish and a wide variety of miso paste. Best of all they are very helpful and knowledgeable! The manager of Hana used to run the Japan Inn restaurant, which was a DC institution.

I stopped by the Safeway on 17th street first and picked up some thin steaks. The guy at Hana pointed me towards a great Japanese BBQ marinade for the steak. I also picked up some treats to make the lunches I’m going to pack a little more fun.

Expect more Japanese dishes tin the future!

Don’t just take my word for it, check out all the great reviews and photos:

Yelp

City Paper (That is where I got the photo from)

Chow

Prince of Petworth

One of the BigTree Farms products I picked up in Bali was a box of Muntok White Peppercorns. White and black peppercorns are the same thing. The black peppercorns are unripened berries that are cooked briefly and then allowed to dry. The white peppercorns come from fully ripe berries that are soaked in water for a week. The soaking allows the fruit surrounding the seed to fall off.

White pepper has a different flavor than the black variety. Of course describing that difference is tough. Luckily Harold McGee has a great overview on what contributes to the white peppercorn’s flavor.

Muntok is a region in Indonesia famous for peppercorns. Here is an overview of the process of harvesting and processing from the BigTree website:

In the hills behind the village of Muntok, on the Indonesian island of Bangka, pepper farmers climb traditional bamboo tripods and hand-pick fruit spikes of red ripe pepper berries. The fruit spikes are packed into rice sacks and soaked in slow running streams of water that come down off the mountains above. Seven days later the outermost skin of the pepper has disintegrated and the peppercorns are piled together for a traditional trampling called “nari mereca” or the Pepper Dance. The dancing separates the peppercorns from the fruit spike and after a final washing the berries are left to dry in the sun where they will bleach to a whitish-cream.

Can you guess what this is?
Give up?
Well, it is a grain of salt from Bali! The salt is shaped like a little hollow pyramid. I zoomed in 60x with a toy digital microscope I have to get a better look. Below is a picture of the salt grain, but only zoomed in 10x. You can see its shape a lot better and the hollow indentation. The shape gives each grain a nice crunch.

Sea salt is the first product that Big Tree Farms began exporting from Bali. The sea salt is produced using traditional methods that involve lots of labor-intensive steps. They do a great job explaining what goes into making the salt on their website. The process involves the creation of a salty brine which is then allowed to evaporate out in the sun.

The salt I brought back is made up of little pyramids. I am not quite sure how to describe the flavor, other than saying it is salty with a hint of smokiness. The thing that stands out the most for me is the salt’s texture. Each grain has a nice crunch to it, and bursts with saltiness. Sea salt offers a unique texture rather than flavor, so it is wasted on anything where the salt dissolves. I wish tomatoes were still in season because this salt would be perfect on top of a nice thick slab of tomato. I will have to give it a try on top of a steak instead. The Velvet Sea Salt is almost the exact opposite of the coarse salt. Instead of having large grains, the salt is ground to a powder using volcanic rocks. I haven’t tried it, but it sounds really interesting!

Big Tree Farms handcrafted Balinese Velvet Sea Salt – 8.5 ozs.

In Washington, DC there are a bunch of places to find products from Big Tree Farms. There is only one place in Bali, however, where you can get their products. A little challenge makes everything more fun though! I had a free afternoon so I got a car and headed 45 minutes north to the Bali Spirit Kafe in Ubud. Ubud takes pride in their arts scene and is sort of Earthy crunchy and funky…and so is the Kafe. The Kafe also seems to be a bit of an ex-pat hang out, catering to travelers looking for a little inner renewal and other zen improvements.

Bali is a very tropical place and the heat coupled with the humidity can be a little draining. Once I made it to Ubud, I got a seat outside on the porch at the Kafe and ordered a Vanilla Lime Soda, which is vanilla bean syrup & Bali lime with soda. The soda hit the spot and helped refresh.

After being on travel for a week, I was looking for a bit of comfort food; food which didn’t make you think. The Kafe has lots of healthy, whole grain salads and organic foods, but sometimes you just need a burger. Luckily the Kafe came through in a big way. Their burger is made from local free range beef and I got mine topped with sauteed mushrooms and onions. I don’t know if it was my craving for a burger, but this is one of the best burgers I have had.

Of course I needed to order some desert, so I got a banana spice smoothie which is a banana smoothie topped with nutmeg and hazelnut. In order to make sure I left totally full, I also ordered Bubur Injin, a traditional Balinese dish of black rice topped with sweet coconut milk.

The truth is that I wasn’t there for eating food, no matter how good it was, I was there to buy some Big Tree Farm products and some Jam which they served at my hotel. The Kafe has a small shop which sells local products and donates the profits to local charities. Luckily they had everything I was looking for and more. I had a great meal and left with some great souvenirs!

The Kafe’s website has directions, in case you are in the neighborhood, and menus.

When we travel we always try to find interesting food items. Our Vermont cheese tour is an extreme example of that and my recent trip to Bali was no exception. My best “find” was Big Tree Farms–and the funny thing is that I had already discovered their products at my local Whole Foods.

Big Tree Farms was founded by an American couple and started out as a tiny organic farm on borrowed land. The founders were interested in encouraging organic farming and sustainable practices in Bali. The farm became very successful, but in order to keep up with demand they would have had to turn it into a much larger operation. Instead, they decided to look at how they could help sustain traditionally produced Balinese food items. The traditional methods for producing salt and palm sugar are in danger because of competition from mass produced commodities.

You can find many different Big Tree Farm products in stores across the U.S. and online. I am going to do a write up on the different products I brought back. Ironically, there is only one place to buy Big Tree Farm products in Bali and I will do a little write-up on the cafe where they are available.

There is a short Food & Wine article on Big Tree Farms, which does a much better job describing them than I did.

They also have a great website that not only has there products for sale, but also describes the process used to make them: