Worth My Salt

Charlie looked at me from across the dinner table last night with a furrowed brow, "We're almost out of salt." As Shrove Tuesday fast approaches we are both accutely aware of what's stocked in the pantry. And more importantly, what is not stocked. We have been using a big box of coarse kosher salt for more than a year, and now each time I pick it up I notice a conspicuous lack of heft to it. The goods rattle in the bottom and I'm wondering how long it will last. Most certainly not until Easter.

Getting some salt from Oregon should be easy. There's a big vast ocean filled with it, just about 40 minutes away from my doorstep. I called the Seaside Museum yesterday. Seaside, Oregon is the fabled place where Lewis & Clark set up their "salt works" to restock their supplies before heading Back East. I
had seen on the museum website that they sell Seaside sea salt and I was calling to ask if I could buy some over the phone. The very kind woman who answered the phone gently told me "Oh honey, this isn't cooking salt. It's not edible. This salt is just for show. They make it here at the museum to show how Lewis & Clark did it, but it's full of sand and grit and stuff." ...Dang. This was my one source for Oregon sea salt. And it was going to be so satisfying to get it from the very location where the most famous westward trailblazers had also gotten it. Salt was going to be the easy part. I anticipated some difficulty with flour, but salt...and what was that she said about the salt being "just for show?" Sounds like the little rose-shaped soaps that used to sit by the sink at my grandmother's house. "Don't use those, they're just for show." Anything produced "just for show" is really dumb.