From healthful to sinful: the evolution of celery salt...

Mr. Mustard, Baby Balsamic and I are off on our annual reunion visit with a group of our old friends. They are good people even though one of them once tried to put a *bottled* salad dressing onto a salad that I had already covered in my homemade divine goddess elixir. It was five years ago, but I'm looking at you, GIL!

Anyway, as we dallied in the airport, waiting for our plane, Mr. Mustard and I decided that vacation doesn't begin until you pour alcohol down your throat. For those of you with your hands on the phone to call CPS about Baby Balsamic, we didn't give her her own drink, but she insisted on stealing the lemon out of my Bloody Mary to suck on.

So, this Bloody Mary. Well, I did get it at the airport, so I wasn't expecting much, and I wasn't delighted or further disappointed. BUT, it only had ONE green olive in it. For me, the greatest Bloody Mary involves many pickled vegetables swimming in a bath of spicy tomato-ey goodness. Acidity soothes me. However, the whole experience was made sublime by the glistening coat of brownish-green salt on the rim of my glass: celery salt.

Celery is fine on its own, as long as you have a decent dipping sauce. It does provide a crunchy, juicy experience that especially goes well with mayonnaise or cream-based dips. But it's not like I walk through the store and get all excited when I see celery "We have to buy celery! Right now!"

When I first heard of celery salt, I was not excited. The best part of celery, if there is a best part, is its moisture content. Why would anyone want to take away the water, reduce it to a fine powder and mix it with salt? Which leads to my other question about most everything in the world: how did someone first discover it? Was someone for some strange reason barbequeing celery? Did they then turn away to admire the sunset, then turn back to discover a fine powder and in disgust they knocked salt on top of it? Then there was one of those Reeses moments of celery? Salt? Together? Did they then swipe their finger through the new mixture and delight in the new flavor treat?

However it happened, I was eternally grateful as I licked the earthy, sharp, salty granules before taking a sip of a very weak drink. This is how much I like celery salt: Baby Balsamic lunged for the lemon in my drink and inadvertently wiped her hand through the salt on my glass. Did I prevent my little darling from ingesting the least bit of alcohol? No, I grabbed her hand and licked all the salt off of it quickly.

"I don't want her getting too thirsty on the plane." I explained to Mr. Mustard with a small grin. He snorted in disgust and finished his Corona. He knows the deepest salt mines of my soul.

Celery salt is also delicious on hot dogs (it's part of the Chicago style experience). In fact, we're barbequeing hot dogs tonight and I think I'm going to have to go find some celery salt to complete the experience. And this time, I'll let Baby Balsamic have some too.

Condiment Grrl

What came first: the Cocktail sauce or the Cocktail?

It's very hot in the Northwest right now which irritates me greatly. I left sunny California for a reason. My skin (and Baby Balsamic's as well) is a delicate shade of triple cream (now there's a condiment that I'll blog about after I finish the Danskin Triathlon in August, because I'll be shoveling it into my mouth). Anyway, with my northern European build and coloring, I was meant to be dropping babies as I dig potatoes out of green fields under gray skies.

So tonight, Mr. Mustard prepared a cold dinner: cold shrimp and a Mediterranean salad. And where there's shrimp, there must be cocktail sauce. Cocktail sauce is what I like to term a "complex condiment," meaning it consists of other condiments mixed together to create the final product. It's basically ketchup with horseradish sauce mixed in, perhaps some lemon juice and worchestshire sauce tossed in for good measure. I consider it the condiment form of the Bloody Mary without the vodka.

Which leads me to my question: How did it get to be called cocktail sauce? Wikipedia had no answer. Is it because it's used in the dish shrimp cocktail which arranges the shrimp around the edges of a glass filled with the red, tart sauce?

Nothing conjures up the 50s and early 60s for me like the idea of shrimp cocktail. If I lived back then, I could see myself greeting Mr. Mustard at the front door wearing a shiny green dress with a collar not unlike the tailfins of a 1960 Thunderbird. I would have a martini in one hand and a shrimp cocktail in the other. Baby Balsamic would be toddling around in a haze of second-hand smoke. If I were really ambitious, I would have thickened a Bloody Mary and placed it in the center of the circle of shrimp to truly combine the two experiences at once. Perhaps I will do that at my next cocktail party.

Now, if I could only find a metallic green dress.

Condiment Grrl

A Plate is Not a Condiment

I was at the cafeteria at work last week, when I noticed an innocuous little placard next to the napkins and plastic forks: "Condiments: 6" paper plate - .15, fork .05."

Look, god knows I am willing to stretch the definition of the word condiment. In my charming childhood story of delighting in the treat of whole cloves of garlic with a tall glass of milk, I am still unsure which of the two was a condiment, or if a condiment was even involved. Officially, garlic might be the condiment, but it depends on your preference and tastes. Which of the flavors did I savor as I crunched the garlic, then took a sip of cool milk? I haven't done this for years and I may just have to right now to see which I enjoyed more. Or if, in fact, in my old age, I have lost the taste for this childhood experience like the delight I used to take in walking the sewer tunnels that ran under our neighborhood. A fun memory, but not something I would willingly do now that I've been participating in the creation of sewer runoff for many years.

So, today, I will try a clove of garlic with a glass of milk. And I will report back to you.

Condiment Grrl

How Does One Decide, Part One

So...I was wandering the aisles of a local purveyor of foodstuffs and perusing the condiment selection. My goodness, there are many, many relishes, mustards, chutneys, marinades, dressings, etc. to choose from. How does one decide? I think you find something you like, then you pick foods to match the condiment you're craving. Right now, I'm madly, madly in love with my Lemon Dill and Capers Sauce, so I've insisted on roast chicken twice this week because it goes especially good with fowl. And with seafood. I requested salmon last night.

I started thinking about a good creamy horseradish sauce and now I might need a roast beef. I might. We'll see if my craving for mint jelly with lamb beats it out anytime soon.

Make the food fit the condiment. It's the only way.

Sweet memories of Branston Pickle

I was thirteen the first time I travelled to Jolly Olde Englande. Yes, I enjoyed Buckingham Palace and Stonehenge and the theater and London's incredible history, but what really stuck with me were the food stuffs I couldn't get here in the U.S.A. Especially two condiments: Branston Pickle and Sainsbury's Chocolate Spread. Branston pickle is sort of a sweet chutneyesque relish that you can spoon onto a cheese sandwich or just eat right out of the jar. Brown, sweet and savory, it reminds me of my favorite English actor, Naveen Andrews. It's chunky and surprising and you can put it on anything. It's especially good with pork.

Now Sainsbury's Chocolate Spread is definately for those with a sweet tooth. It tastes sort of like a thick Hershey's syrup that you can spread on bread. Oh, yum, I'm salivating now. Just the memory of my friend Donald's lower level kitchen (like in most London houses), looking out on the garden as I covered a piece of bread with the divine sweet substance. Nice.

There were other things you used to not be able to get anymore: Salt n' Vinegar chips and Yorkie bars being the two items with the most meaning to me. Now, of course, you can get most of these things (not Sainsbury's Chocolate spread and NO, Nutella is not the same thing. It's a little too arty and nutty for my tastes).

I was reminded of Branston Pickle this last weekend when I vacationed on Orcas Island with Baby Balsamic, my mother and two family friends, one of whom visited from England and brought her niece, the other family friend, a bottle of Branston Pickle. Now, it was a squeeze bottle, which they didn't have in my day. But as soon as I squeezed the bottle and smelled the distinct aroma, I was taken back to a younger, simpler time when there weren't McDonald's next to the Roman Colisseum and Starbucks in the wilds of Cambodia. I believe you can get the Branston Pickle here now, but I am hesitant to seek it out because I love the whole process of only receiving a sacred bottle after begging someone traveling there to bring me one back.

So, if you're going to England, please bring me back a bottle of Branston Pickle and a tub of Sainsbury's Chocolate Spread. And give my regards to the Queen.

Condiment Grrl

Indispensible Condiment?

So...here's a poll for my readers -- what condiment do you absolutely need at all times? I remember being impressed with Dan Rather a few years ago when he admitted to carrying a bottle of Tabasco sauce with him at all times. He often travelled the world and frequently found himself at state dinners with all kinds of strange foods and found that the way to make it all go down easier was to dump Tabasco sauce on top. He earned my eternal respect with that statement. I resemble that remark.

Right now, I'm staring sadly at an empty jar of Lemon Dill & Capers Sauce made by Robert Rothschild Farm . I waxed rhapsodic about this creamy, sassy sauce that I just used to eat some chicken with some tabouleh. It is a bit heavy, so I'm not feeling as light and free with the words as I usually am. Maybe this is a winter sauce.

Anyway, I always keep a bottle of Balsamic vinegar in my drawer at work to sprinkle on whatever it is I've scraped out of our cafeteria for lunch. It saves everything. It's especially good on what passes for a Chicken Caesar salad.

So..please let me know what is your indispensible condiment? Ketchup? Mint Jelly?

Condiment Grrl

P.S. Run out and buy the new Broadway soundtrack to "The Pajama Game." Oh my God, if they could bottle Harry Connick, Jr's voice, I would pour it on EVERYTHING.

How much is too much?

Short post tonight because it's late. We've been watching the entire last season of "Big Love" (an HBO show about a polygamist) the last few days and it's oddly engrossing. I tried to get my husband, Mr. Mustard, to cop to who amongst our friends he would take as a second wife and he wouldn't play along. Whoever came after me would have to buy their own friggin' condiments though. I wouldn't be hip to coming home and finding the second wife spooning the last of my garlic onion jelly onto her cold lamb chop. There would be hell to pay.

So we had ham, rice and salad for dinner and I went a little crazy with my "meal enhancers." In fact, I feel a little condiment-hangover coming on. I put soy sauce AND rice vinegar on the rice. I spooned a honey balsamic mustard on the ham and poured a homemade balsamic vinaigrette on the salad. The wine helped bind all the disparate elements, but I can't help but think that I need to seek a support group of some kind.

Have you ever binged on condiments? How much is too much?

Love and salsa

Condiment Grrl

Edible panties are a Condiment if you're a cannibal...

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a "Passion party." For those of you not in the know, these are parties where the offered goods are nipple creams, vibrators and the like. But, least you think I am a depraved woman whose child should be placed in a good, two-condiment home, know that it was to raise money for a friend who's doing a walk to raise money for breast cancer research.

I won't go into the lurid details except to say that it was great fun and everyone should buy a bottle of "Ultimate Enhancer." And to give a shout out to my friend who named herself "kind of kinky Karen" for the day.

So, I'm flipping through the product catalog and there are all kinds of tasty treats: lubricants flavored in strawberry, cherry and key lime. Plum passion lotion. Notice a connection? All the flavors are FRUIT flavors. I don't mind a bite or two of a lemon tart now and again, but what about those of us whose tastes run to the savory? What is there for us? Where is the fennel-cranberry body paste? The garlic aioli love cream? The shallot salt love sprinkles? Obviously, these are not for everybody, but why is there the assumption that fruit = sex?

Here's a scene from one of my books-in-progress "Condiment Grrl and the Quest for the Sizzling Chutney" (seriously, that is the title of a new work of mine):

Kirby rested her head on Gyan's still-panting chest. She tentatively stuck her tongue out and licked a bead of sweat that had formed in the depression right between his nipples. It was salty.

"I'm hungry," she whispered into his belly.

Gyan sighed and opened his eyes. "For chrissakes, Kirby, it's three-thirty in the morning and --"

"Not for you." Kirby lifted her head and reached into the nightstand for the jar she had lovingly placed there hours ago, anticipating this very moment.

"Oh. Thanks. But, you know --" He began stroking her hair, teasing its ends up.

Kirby unscrewed the lid of the jar and held it under his nose. "Well, kinda for you."

"What is that? That's not..."

"Maybe. You're the guinea pig." She reached her right hand in the jar and began smearing its contents onto his belly, stroking downwards.

Gyan laughed. "It's chutney. I should have known. I guess I should be grateful it's not mustard. Don't want to walk around all day tomorrow smelling like a hot dog."

Kirby scooped the final bit of chutney out of the jar and held it up over Gyan. "Yes, but not just any chutney. I think I did it. I think I found the right recipe." She put one finger in her mouth. "It definately sizzles in my mouth, but does it sizzle elsewhere?" She began lowering her hand, pushing past his belly.

"Oh God, no Kirby, not there." Gyan groaned, but did not roll away.

"Does it sizzle?"

Well, my goodness campers. It's time to wake Baby Balsamic up from her nap. Remember what I said the next time you feel the urge to be creative.

Condiment Grrl