Make Your Own Celery Salt

Before my friend Hugh chimes in to ridicule my new obsession as being one step removed from Lawry’s seasoned salt, I’d just like to hold my head high and say it: I love homemade celery salt. And it’s easy to make. Just grind up sea salt and celery seed with a mortar and pestle (about 1.5 parts sea salt to 1 part celery seed). It adds a great sort of grassy, savory, and slightly bitter note (in a good way) to all sorts of scenarios. The classic use is in a Bloody Mary, which I totally support, but I also love celery salt in tuna salad, tossed with green beans and butter, or sprinkled on gorgeous spring onions, which is what we did last night, and then grilled them with two thick-cut heritage Berkshire pork chops. (And while we’re at it, can we just take a moment to admire Mr. Foodinista’s grill marks on that chop???)

Porky’s

Six-Spotted Berkshire

Apologies for the pork-heavy week, but little did I know when I served an herb-roasted pork loin on Tuesday night that yesterday a heavy box bound from Decorah, Iowa, would land on my doorstep.

My heritage pork chops are here! I can’t tell you how excited I am to have a freezer full of big, beautiful Six-Spotted Berkshire pork chops! I had initially thought I’d be getting Red Wattle chops, but I am thrilled with these brightly colored, marbled beauties from Certified Humane® farmer David Holthaus, who has been raising pigs since 1974. Stay tuned for more adventures in pork!

This Little Piggy

Heritage Red Wattle Pig

The other day I got an email from Heritage Foods USA about a “Recession Special” on 14-ounce pork chops (15 for $75). At $5/chop I couldn’t resist. If you have more freezer space, the savings get even better – 30 chops for $130, ora quarter Red Wattle hog for $250 (35 lbs of steaks, shoulders, chops, bacon, ribs, osso buco shanks—you name it!). Their website describes the Red Wattle as having the “porkiest taste of all our breeds.” The Red Wattle is known for dark, lean meat that is particularly flavorful. Think of it as the Native American answer to Kurobata (the Japanese name for the British Berkshire breed). 

What’s more, you’re helping small, sustainable family farms while helping to preserve Native American breeds, which increases diversity in the food supply that has been threatened by industrial farming. But I’ll get off the soap box, and just say that the quality of these chops is superior. Period. Next time my friend Katie and I are going to go in on the quarter hog special and divvy it up so we can try out all those amazing cuts. In the meantime, I’m so excited for my order to arrive next week!