I like catalogs. I like cooking/kitchen catalogs. I don't cook all that much, but I do like to eat and some of the stuff is fun.
The latest Chefs catalog arrived over the weekend, and I think the people who put this issue together must have put in a few overlong weeks.
There exists such a thing as artisan salt. Who knew? On one page, we have the
Natural Maine Sea Salt, the capture of which, we are told, "is not for the faint of heart." Then there's the
Black Hawaiian Sea Salt, harvested from the "mineral-rich Pacific. It is Hawaiian clay that "naturally imbues the salt" and "enriches it with iron oxide".
Iron oxide is rust. Yum.
But my favorite, I think, is the
Pink Himalayan Sea Salt, which in fact comes from mines deep in the mountains. We are told that "Once a year, in the springtime, caravans led by yaks transport the salt down from the mountains to the Nepalese valleys."
Yaks, mind you. The locations of the salt mines are so secret that they don't even let the Sherpas up there.
They also offer olive oil obtained from groves "accessible only by foot along a medieval stone road."
Now, a quiz--what does
this look like to you?
[
Poll #751770]