Missed Gift Idea 1? Visit it here.
GIFT IDEA 2: KOSHER SALT AND FLEUR DE SEL
Just like fat is flavor, so is salt. Without getting to Chemistry-Geeky, salt expands flavors, 
both by drawing out the moisture in the food and forming what is essentially a snowflake packed with the essence of the food’s flavor.
It sits on your tongue and – when added in harmonious balance – that’s when all those flavors stimulate your brain’s pleasure centers.
Kosher salt is readily available, and is a prized commodity in any kitchen because of its grain size and purity. It doesn’t contain any iodine, and has mostly neutral additives – if any are present.
The large grain size means that even though you’re adding a tablespoon of it to a stock, it’s doing the work of three tablespoons of regular table salt. Plus, it doesn’t contain that sharp bitterness of table salt.
Fleur de sel, on the other hand, is salt laced with naturally occurring trace minerals that come from the sea itself. It literally translates to “the flower of the sea,” and its makers are pretty proud of it: expect to pay somewhere in the ten dollar range for a mere five ounces.
It’s expensive because it’s all harvested by hand, but the kicker is: you really don’t need much. That five-ounce jar you get can last a long-while, because nobody uses it for cooking. They use it as a garnishing salt, pinching just a slight bit over freshly grilled meat. But that small bit -oh, Boy – is Heavenly
Part 3 Coming Next…
This was a guest post series by Nicholas Joseph of LearnfromMe, a writer over at elance.com. You can also catch him here on The Examiner. If you would like to contribute a guest post, please contact me at contact (AT) simpleitaliancooking.com.
