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  • salt dipped radishes
  • white asparagus, radicchio and meyer lemon salad
  • grilled salmon with hawaiian pink salt
  • roasted root vegetables with herbed salt
  • salty sirens
  • grilled lamb with lavender salt
  • devilled eggs with grilled prawns
  • lick sip suck

  • salty women march 30th 2005

    Greetings!

    I love salty women

    women who will waltz up to a bar and order a martini, double dirty, with a chaser of olives

    bullet-proof lipstick and a take-no-prisoners stance

    with a voice that sets your arteries hardening as soon as it hits your ears...

    too often women are described as sweet

    sweet?

    cakes are sweet. chocolates are sweet. candies are sweet

    sweet, be damned!

    it's much more fun being salty!



    salt dipped radishes
    and cold, cold, beer: the perfect salt sampler!

    for one reason or another, I spent last friday night in the quiet corner of a bar on sunset boulevard, just up from the viper room

    I had come there with a definite intent

    there were two women at the table with me

    there was a box of white powder on the table

    we were huddled over it, discussing prices

    not an altogether unusual scenario for west hollywood

    I licked my finger, dipped it in the box, rolled it in the grains, put my finger to my lips...in an instant, I was transported. every taste bud on my tongue screamed, 'LIFT-OFF!'

    I had just tasted a lime infused maldon salt

    it was one of seven salts before me. the other flavours included maldon salt with lemon and thyme; french sel gris with lavender; celtic grey salt with basil, oregano and thyme; hawaiian pink salt with citrus zest; sel marin with 6 peppers and smoked chili salt

    for the next two hours, as we emptied some pint glasses, I listened, enraptured, as the ladies of makefoodoflove.com led me through the process by which they create these amazing salts

    a sprinkle of these 'finishing salts' achieves so much flavour and cuts out the need for sauces, spice rubs and all sorts of other time consuming steps in the cooking process

    I remembered a character in a John Irving novel who always travelled with a paper bag filled with radishes and a salt cellar

    he would sit on the banks of the danube, armed for an impromptu picnic and eat salted radishes

    there couldn't be a simpler snack to idle away a sunny afternoon: cold, cold beer and a bowl of radishes floating in ice water

    and that's how I got acquainted with these amazing little grains...lined up all seven salts and dipped a radish in each one. I heartily recommend doing the same thing. click on the pic to the right and it will take you to makefoodoflove.com


    white asparagus, radicchio and meyer lemon salad
    the time is now!

    does any other vegetable get headlines the way that white asparagus does? it starts its season like a grand dame returning to the stage; the germans have a 'spargel fest', the belgians, it is said, go quite mad for these creamy spears...and the parisians, well, they'd prefer them to be black (but then, they don't have to wear them)

    in less time than it takes to write this paragraph, I trimmed a bunch of asparagus and steamed it for 2 minutes in the microwave whilst I threw some mache, radicchio, cucumber chunks, oregano leaves and some quartered meyer lemons in a big salad bowl

    I plunged the asparagus into some icy water to blanch it, shook it dry and placed it front and centre in the salad bowl. doused everything in some O&Co lemon infused olive oil, squeezed some meyer lemon juice on top then liberally sprinkled some lemon thyme maldon salt over the whole bowl

    couldn't be simpler

    serve: with grilled turkish bread or flatbread and some grilled sausages, maybe a dollop of hummus instead of mustard and sauce...


    grilled salmon with hawaiian pink salt
    with potato chips

    just as simple:

    douse some olive oil, lemon and lime juice over the salmon steaks, add a couple of flattened garlic cloves

    heat the grill to medium

    whack the salmon on

    turn

    cook the other side

    sprinkle a good pinch of 'citrus pink' salt on top and serve with the asparagus salad above, or a big pile of potato chips and a dollop of sour cream with horseradish stirred through it, maybe some wilted broccoli rabe or steamed beans

    just the thought of it has me chilling the chateauneuf du pape!


    roasted root vegetables with herbed salt
    you've gotta love a hot, salty root

    I have always loved these flavours: parsnip, carrots, swedes (rutabagas) and potatoes

    cut them all into ribbons

    heat some olive oil (I couldn't help it, I added goose fat too) in a pan...hot oven, start it at 500 to get the fat bubbling

    mix 1 tsp cornflour; 1 tspn flour; 1 tspn herb gray salt; 6 grinds of a pepper mill and 3 smashed cloves of garlic. throw this into a freezer bag, add the vegetable ribbons and shake it all up

    put the seasoned vegetables into the hot fat (careful, it spatters!), shuffle them with some tongs to cover all sides with the fat and put back in the oven

    cook 10 mins, move them around a bit with the tongs, turn the oven down to 450 and cook another 15 mins. remove from the oven and scatter a small fistful of the herb grey salt over the hot vegies

    mix: 1 tblspn pesto, 1/2 cup mayonnaise and 2 cloves crushed galic. use this as a dipping sauce


    salty sirens

    marianne faithfull has to be the 'fleur de sel' of salty sirens

    her voice alone; the notes tumbling like crystals of uneven sizes, going through a coarse grind... the briny tang of her lyrics... her bleached weariness...

    it all adds a flavour that elevates anything that she sings as well as the moment that you're hearing it in

    she has an amazing new album out, 'before the poison'. it was produced with p j harvey and nick cave, so you know it's going to be a light hearted romp through the morgue!

    in any case, the playlist this issue has been thoroughly seasoned with her saltiness


    grilled lamb with lavender salt
    I can't help it...

    this is the tastiest combo since debbie and dallas, since lois and clarke, since starsky and hutch...

    I know that I've raved about it before, but there was a lavender salt in the combo box that the girls gave me, so I figured that I could say, just once more, how the salty/ sweetness of both the lamb and the salt sets you adrift into a state of bliss

    click on the pic for the recipe. it's on the site!


    devilled eggs with grilled prawns
    and chipotle salt

    last week, I was at Jar, a restaurant specialising in luxe comfort food

    this was the scene for my devilled egg renaissance

    they had the perfect sweet/creamy/salty balance and each egg had been topped off with a gorgeous, sexy- naughty chunk of crab meat

    everyone has their own recipe...I made mine with some cream cheese, pesto and basil, and a pinch of old bay seasoning...topped each one with a prawn grilled in oil and chili and sprinkled some chipotle salt on top

    click on the pic to e-mail me if you want the exact recipe


    lick sip suck
    the alcohol equivalent of charlie's angels

    salt, tequila, lime

    lick, sip, suck

    lime zested maldon flakes, don julio silver, a wedge of lime

    take no prisoners!

    get 'bit'
    welcome to any newcomers who might have joined after seeing the spot on last week's USA channel. hopefully you've enjoyed getting bit!

    if you'd like to see the back issues, you can e-mail me for PDF's of them

    and, of course, there is thelovebite.com awaiting you

    let the love flow...

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