worth his salt - make your own salt.
Maple syrup for sweetness, salt for seasoning—gifts from the world around us. Slow down with me. Let’s take a closer look.
Salt. From the clean sea. Emphasis on clean! Clean oceans are not a given. Cleaning beaches take work but this beach is beautifully clean. And the sea is wonderfully clean.
Salt making is as old as the proverbial hills.
Humans have been harvesting and drying salt for thousands of years. The earliest evidence of salt production dates back to around 6,000 BCE in what is now Romania and China. Ancient civilizations, including the Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and Chinese, used evaporation techniques to extract salt from seawater or brine.
In hot, dry climates, salt was naturally dried in shallow pools by the sun. In colder regions, salt was extracted from brine through boiling or heating in clay pots. By the time of the Romans, large-scale salt production was well established, with roads like the Via Salaria built specifically for its transport.
Salt has always been essential not just for flavor but for preserving food, making it one of the most valuable commodities in human history.
So why not us. We can do this. Just give it a go! I am certainly going to be doing this in Melbourne though it is a bit of a drive to the sea. About a 45 minute drive as opposed to a 3 minute walk but there you are.
I think I can manage that and I have the perfect baking hot corner of the city garden in mind.
How to make salt at home
Get a big wide shallow reflective container. Pour in a bucket of fresh sea water.
Place in a sunny spot with a lid to keep the rain off and box in with mosquito net to keep the bugs off and encourage air flow then let the water evaporate.
Once the brine is concentrated pour into shallow food safe bowls to finish evaporating.
This is not a sterile process so if you are into all those ultra-processed, ultra-radiated, ultra- pasteurized food stuffs it is possible you are on the wrong page! 😬 You are not though. You are in the right place! Because this is salt.
Some people clean the salt by fast rinsing with cold sea water and drying again. The crystals are big, a little sticky (no additives) and super tasty.
Orry talks about the benefits of sea salt below.
A note from Granny Nanny.
When we talk about a humble person, or maybe even a humble tree - they are reminiscent of each other in my opinion - we often picture someone small, pressed into a corner, overshadowed, overlooked. As if to be humble is to be weak. Retiring. But that is not true.
In fact it is the opposite.
Being humble is strong. It is knowing. Humble is beloved by many. Mocked by the few who are afraid of the humble person. But trusted. This quiet spoken humble person of steel. The one who won’t react to taunts.
Humility is knowing your own faults as well as your own strengths. It is standing steady, grounded, unshaken, even when afraid. Even when bullied. Even when you can’t find the right words at the right time. Because you, my love, have nothing to prove. Humble listens. Humble furrows a brow to think, to understand. Watching as they listen. Humble absorbs words, turns them over, rolls them through the belly like a cow. Then speaks.
Only then do they speak.
Did you read this?
I recently found a picture of the girl who wrote it.
I can’t believe I was ever that young. Let alone that young with kids. Who thought it was a good idea to let that girl be in charge of all those kids.
The Beach in New Zealand
Kids and beaches are the perfect combo. Yesterday was Sunday in New Zealand so we spent most of the day on the beach.
Protecting our wild spaces is the work of ages. And much of this protection has come and will now come from volunteers. Another excellent way to help protect and not only sustain but nourish our environment is to get in touch with our local parks and reserves and offer our services. I am hoping we can help keep the American parks safe until our park rangers and EMT’s are able to return.
Back in the USA
The sap is running.
Maple syrup is an annual crop and it had been a cold end of winter.
There was a nice warm break straight after the cold, so the sap is running in the maple trees and the US family is gathering and boiling down a years worth of sweetener.
I know you were expecting to see a forest of trees to be tapped for maple syrup but these old maples are now surrounded in two generations of decaying old cars. This is a thing in the rural Midwest.
They would rather fields than trees.
But the trees don’t care. They just grow in the un-groomed spaces. Like thoughts. And stories. They grow out of cracks in the ground. Trees don’t care about dates or placement, or cars or buildings in their way, their only ambition is to take the land back and re-establish that glorious plethora of interconnected root comms and gorgeous canopies above. Trees are clever that way.
Trees are humble and strong and worthy of our ears.
I read a meme once (I am not sure who to attribute this to: something like “Imagine if trees gave off Wi-Fi signals, we would be planting tree as fast as we could. Too bad they only produce the oxygen we breathe.“ And maple syrup.
Shakes head.
Go thank a tree - they certainly deserve our thanks. And instead of dumping water down the sink carry it out to your tree and water her.
The city garden in Australia
The city garden with a country heart - the compact kitchens garden: is waiting for me. I have no new pictures today but we will be there in a few days you and I. And have a good look about.
My daughter, while diligently growing her baby, and eagerly awaiting the arrival of her Mother/Doula/Nanny flatmate has discovered the Tip Shop full of things for my plant growing enterprise. From there we will find containers, potting bench, gardening tools. Stuff like that.
All articles recovered from a working dump. One man’s treasure, etc. I love dump shops, tip shops.
“A weed is just a plant in the wrong place”. I am not sure who said that either but I say it often.
And here is that little tomato plant that was discovered in the rose garden in the city. It struggled up in the wrong place but has been deemed worthy. It looks hungry and a bit strained. And now, sensing the coming of autumn, it is throwing out flowers as fast as it can. We are going to let it go and mother it through hoping this little tomato will ripen before the frosts (there is little chance of this but weather is weird - it might have time) and we will collect the seeds. Melbourne gets super hot and a plant that has adapted to that environment is the best to take seeds from. If it tastes alright. I like little cherry tomatoes.
And this little plant deserves the chance.
We will find its rightful place in my Compact Kitchen’s Garden.
Tomatoes are a staple in my summer.
BedTime Stories
Here is today’s chapter of Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne.
The last chapter for this book!
"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"
"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting to-day?" said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully.
"It's the same thing," he said.
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Talk soon.
Celi
Love this!
We harvested salt from a holiday on the east coast of Ireland. Makes for a lovely souvenir and a memory of summer every time you sprinkle