I received a little surprised yesterday and I'm here today to announce a new addition to our household! Now, hold on, folks. Don't get ahead of me! We're not expecting, and we haven't welcomed any new critters into our home lately. I'm talking about salt.

You see, my descendants hail from the Mediterranean and we have a desperate love affair with salt. I don't care what the experts say on the matter - give me a healthy dose of sea salt, olive oil and red wine, and see who outlives whom!

Now, friends, you might be picturing me as the kind of gal who has eleventeen different varieties of salt stashed away in her spice cabinet, but you're wrong. Until now, there were only two kinds of sea salt in our house: coarse and fine sea salt. Yesterday, I came into possession of a small bottle of a different kind of salt and now I'm afraid I might begin collecting even more varieties, because I, dear friends, am a salt fiend.



In my hot little hand, I hold a bottle of Red Alaea Salt from Hawaii. Apparently, it goes well with everything and has a high iron content, making it especially interesting to my dear vegan ears. The bottle in my possession comes from my friends at Mountain Rose Herbs, based in Eugene, OR. I've dealt with them for years as a source of all things herbal, but I often overlook their culinary spice section (partly for fear that I might order half their inventory and put myself and my spice collection out on the street in doing so). This time, I had to indulge.

This 4.5oz bottle will likely last me a looooong time, as I suspect I'll be using this salt more as a garnish than anything. I was still incredibly eager to get into that bottle and have a taste!



It was, after all, taunting me with "100% Organic goodness." Who can't resist that? So, after whipping off the lid and dispensing of the shaker top and safety seal, I finally got to the salt of the matter.



The flavor is difficult to describe, as are most flavors. Although it had been described as "mellow," I thought it had more of a piquant flavor - vaguely reminiscent of rock salt, which I shamelessly adore. And it's red, which is what drew me to it in the first place. (I'm working on a super secret Valentine's Day project involving salt and red things... Hmmm, what could it be? Stay tuned for more hints!)

I can't wait to take this salt for a test drive. I'm not even sure what I'll use it on first, but rest assured, I'll be coming back to tell you all about it soon enough.