Salty Dog

Our Favorite Dane!

If you are new to Salt Traders, you will soon find out that one of our most favorite products is our one-of-a-kind Danish Viking Smoked Salt! We are proud to be the sole vendor in North America to bring to you this wonderful product direct from Denmark.

The artisan salt maker (pictured) discovered through ancient Viking literature descriptions of smoked salt, which led him to experiment with different smoked wood. The resulting Danish Viking Smoked Salt is a particular blend of juniper, oak, cherry, elm and beech. Sea water is boiled down over this unique wood fire blend. The result: smoky perfection! Saveur Magazine writer Kelly Alexander described it best: “The resulting salt tastes like a bonfire; its strong, haunting flavor is best enjoyed when the crystals are sprinkled on simple dishes like scrambled eggs, baked potatoes, and grilled steaks” (Issue No. 58, page 34).

Give this small but mighty salt a try – you won’t be disappointed! Use it to transform meat, potatoes, chowders, corn on the cob, chocolate and caramel!

Springtime Shoots

Asparagus is in season – and we have brought you four delicious and easy recipes from the kitchen of Didi Davis. We are sure you will find something you love– they are quick, healthy, and most of all delectable.

Click here to see four delightful recipes for using asparagus this spring!

Enjoy – and tell us how you like them!

Exciting Salt Traders News

Spring brings many new developments to Salt Traders, a company that you know and trust for its high quality salt and pepper products. Last month, Rob Seideman and Kelly Hall introduced me as the new owner of Salt Traders. My co-owner Biz Hickey and I want to assure you that we will continue Rob and Kelly’s path of sourcing and bringing to you unique, hand-harvested salt and related products.

My personal love of salt and pepper grew into a passion, resulting in the start of my own artisanal food company, didi davis food in 2004. Among many other distinctive products, we craft handmade salt blends into inventive flavors. Since the birth of didi davis food, I have chosen Salt Traders as a key supplier because of their products’ impeccable quality and superior flavor.

Salt Traders will continue to be a leader in the world of fine salt, pepper and condiments as we source the hand-harvested, wild-crafted, natural, and the exceptional. Our web site will expand, adding recipes, uses, stories, highlighting our blog, and much more, all for the professional chef and the home cook alike. Our hope is to connect all of you to the fascinating world of hand-harvested products and encourage you to integrate them into your everyday cooking.

Contact us with your questions, orders, thoughts, and feedback. We welcome the communication.

From all of us at Salt Traders and didi davis food,

Happy Cooking!

Didi Davis and Biz Hickey

Stress

Not so long ago I read that life span ultimately boils down to how well one handles stress: specifically, that 5% of extended life span can be attributed to good exercise habits, 5% to good diet, and the remaining 90% to how well one handles stress.

While shopping recently at Butchers Block, a specialty food store in Aspen, the woman in front of me was adding to her order several types of cheese. After a few moments, she changed her mind, voicing her reasoning that it would be a healthier decision not to buy any cheese.

Dining in Chicago

Last week I was in Chicago on business. The day got away from me, and by 9:30 that night I still hadn’t eaten dinner. I usually avoid chain restaurants, and do my best to seek out inventive food prepared by a chef with a vision and a conscience.

Saltexpo Naples, Italy

In spite of CASH’s claim (CASH is the Consensus Action on Salt and Health), that “progress that has been made in terms of salt reduction,” the first annual International Salt Expo will be held in Naples May 3-6.

Saltexpò will be held inside the prestigious pavilions of the Mostra d’Oltremare of Naples, with the following features, though I’m most excited about the Face-to-Face lectures by one of my favorite authors, Mark Kurlansky and one of my least favorite (but very talented) food writers, Jeffrey Steingarten.

SALTYFAIR: 350 national and international exhibitors dedicated to the promotion of “salt territories” and salt “curiosities.”

Plus:

The Piazza Piazza Salata Salata (Salty Square) will be broken down into thematic sections, showcasing different areas of interest:
THE SALT PLACE
THE FISH PLACE
THE PLACE OF SALT PRESERVES AND BRINE
THE PLACE OF SALAMIS AND SALT MEATS
THE PLACE OF CURIOUSLY SALTED THINGS
THE CHEESE PLACE
THE MINERAL WATER PLACE
THE BATH SALTS PLACE
THE COCKTAIL SNACK PLACE
THE SAUCES PLACE

SALTYSTAGE: Convention with Chefs at work in the Theatre of Salt
There will be a kitchen set up on the theatre’s stage, where leading professional chefs from Italy and abroad will compete against each other by inventing culinary fantasies having Salt as the main ingredient. In addition to live cooking demonstrations, there will be historical and anthropological presentations of the historical and anthropological importance of salt.

SALTYLABS: ‘Learning with Salt’ by Gambero Rosso
Courses that will teach the secrets of salting and brine for meat, fish, ham, salamis, olives, etc.,
Bread, Oil and Salt
Salt in Bocca
Butter’s Taste
Saké and Shellfish
Irish Wild Salmon
Good Feelings (Filtering of Anchovies)
Dried Salted Cod 
Capers!
Love Weddings (Sushi and soy)
Let’s do it Strange
At the Edge of Edible
Black Gold (Caviar)
Salted Flavours (Pickles)

SALTYLECTURES
Six lectures are planned on the various implications of Salt, with the attendance of scholars, writers, physicians, and well-known personalities to present:
1. Salt and Literature
2. Salt in in European Languages
3. Salt and Health
4. Work and Economy of Salt
5. Salt and the Environment
                                 6. Face to Face: Kurlansky - Laszlo– Steingarten

Mark Kurlansky, author of Salt: A History of the World and a highly -acclaimed American journalist, writer and spreader of salt culture and history.

Pierre Laszlo Pierre Laszlo is an emeritus professor of chemistry at the University of Liège, Belgium, and the École Polytechnique in Paris, with many published works on salt and civilization.

Jeffrey Steingarten, acclaimed food critic of Vogue magazine, author of The Man Who Ate Everything and It Must've Been Something I Ate, as well as the most-hated judge on television’s Iron Chef.

Cookie Magazine

Cookie Magazine recently consulted with top chefs and sommeliers “to find more than 75 special gifts of deliciousness for grown-ups.” To my delight, Salt Traders Gift Crates were among the selections (http://www.cookiemag.com/food/2006/11/foodgiftsweetsavory?currentPage=2).

Among Cookie’s consultants were a host of big time names: Dan Barber, Steven Jenkins and Andrea Immer Robinson. I’m not sure who among this unbelievably talented group informed Cookie about Salt Traders, but when my wife and I owned Cooking School of Aspen, all three taught memorable classes there, and gourmet salt was always on the menu!
Author of Great Wine Made Simple and Everyday Dining with Wine, Andrea, of course, is one of only 14 female Master Sommeliers in the world. She’s also the first woman ever chosen “Best Sommelier in America,” and the first appointed Dean of Wine Studies for The French Culinary Institute.
You can catch Andrea on her new television show, Pairings with Andrea, which currently airs on the Fine Living TV Network. Years ago, I had the treat and honor of appearing with Andrea on her previous show, Simply Wine. I prepared crab cakes and barbecued ribs, which Andrea paired with a Gallo Estate Chardonnay and a St. Francis Zinfandel, respectively.
Steven Jenkins is the author of the award-winning Cheese Primer, now in its record-breaking seventh printing. New York Magazine deemed Steven Jenkins one of "the 100 Smartest New Yorkers," because he’s the first American to be inducted into France's ancient and elite Guilde du St. Uguzon, in 1976, and was further honored in 1980 by being inducted into France's super-honorary Taste-Fromage.
I placed Steven in my list of “100 moments I’ll never forget from Cooking School of Aspen.” During class, Steven was asked the best way to learn about cheese. “Do what I did,” he said. “Head to Europe, rent a car and smoke a bunch of pot. You’ll get lost, but just keep driving around, looking for great cheese and cheesemakers!”
Dan Barber is the award-winning chef of New York City’s Blue Hill Restaurant and the chef and creative director of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture.

Dan’s cooking is truly phenomenal! Even though it was years ago that he appeared at Cooking School of Aspen, I remember vividly one dish in particular: olive oil-poached albino white salmon. Dan cooked it in the oven, and some of the oil must have spilled into the oven while removing it, because the next day—shortly after I turned the oven on—the oven smoked so badly that we had to evacuate all the students from the kitchen!