It just had to happen. Aldi is selling Himalayan salt. People are queuing up and a special isle (nr3) has been set-up to cope with the demand. No one wants to be seen serving food at their Christmas turkey laden tables without this special pink salt. Just imagine the ignominy of it? It started in the US; where else? Since then it has taken a foothold in Europe. I have been told the salt has, since last week, spread to Latvia, Lithuania and even Estonia. Pink salt waves are swamping the world.
This salt has magic healing properties. A lame man was seen rising from his bed after just a single sprinkle of this magic salt on his eggs, sunny side up, after years of living horizontally. Special trace elements are imbued in this salt. Cooks now swear by it and no restaurant worth their salt would dare to serve food without this Himalayan salt, mined in Pakistan. Corns, sciatica, vertigo and nervous dispositions are all curable. No parliament subject to limp indecisions can afford not to have those pink salt containers on their front benches. As soon as a hiatus is reached, the opposition will just walk over to an obstinate senator, and sprinkle some magic salt.
Of course, this iron oxide laden pink salt has to be combined with serving food on wooden slabs. No one seems to know exactly if the wooden food platters came first or if the magic pink salt can lay claim to that distinction. We had our first experience with the food on a wooden slate in a Bowral pub well over a year ago. I though it was a mistake and that a carpenter was perhaps helping out with timber off-cuts. Perhaps the pub’s ceramic plates were in the dishwasher, who knows? It was well before the pink salt period.
It was difficult to eat from this wooden platter. It’s shape had a protruding handle to hold a grip on when the buzzer announced the T-bone was ready to be picked up from the counter. As I like my meat rare, it took careful balancing not to dribble the juice over other diners while walking with it back to our table. Once seated, I built a little dyke around my T-bone steak with the clever use of arranging the chips tuck-pointed with the tomatoes. It stemmed the flow. Helvi did not have any things flooding over, as she had ordered a pizza, the Napoli special.
Since then the Himalayan salt containers and wooden serving platters are now everywhere. No restaurant use normal salt or silly ceramic plates. The diners nod knowingly to each other and we are all now so terribly ‘in’. We joined the real world and nothing scares us now.
In between all this chaos in salt and wooden platters there is the Himalayan salt rock lamps making inroads in our interiors. Positive ions emitted from those lamps cure those suffering from the more mental afflictions together with those with dark or grey marital unevenness. The person suffering from clear-sighted despair, the hopelessly addicted to moodiness and heavy thoughts are best advised to turn those lights on next to the book case or even the TV.
Not even Isis will make an inroad. We just sprinkle them with special salt, turn on the salt rock lamp and hurl wooden boards at them. That will teach them a lesson.
We have won.
Tags: Bowral, Corns, Himalayen salt, Pakistan, Sciatica, T-bone, Vertigo
November 24, 2015 at 12:57 am |
You’re funny!
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November 24, 2015 at 8:00 pm |
It’s the pink salt!
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November 24, 2015 at 1:29 am |
Aldi’s counterpart here, Trader Joe’s, sell Himalayan salt in tiny meta; cans in a stack with two other amazing salts from across the world. You would be wise to buy all 3 to take care of every condition you may come down with. Forget the wood slab, just eat it out of the can. You will be able to leap across the tallest building.
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November 24, 2015 at 8:04 pm |
Yes, there is more to salt than just sodium chloride. I hope its helps my hypothyroidism. (apart from anything else)
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November 24, 2015 at 9:01 am |
Gerard: I thought I was reading a post from “The shovel” for a minute. But I have to admit that my name is Amanda and I’m a Himalayan saltaholic. My son placed it on the middle shelf of my pantry when he moved back home and that was it. I was a goner! But I am wary of too eating too much on wooden boards. Are they rubbing them with salt (himalayan if you must) then placing them in the sun to sanitize them? I love my wooden cutting and serving boards but doubt it should be used in Commercial quantities?
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November 24, 2015 at 8:08 pm |
That’s a nice name. Amanda! We have normal salt with added iodine. The pink salt is pink because of its iron content. It’s claim to have many added trace elements for robust health. The wooden boards at restaurants are a bit overboard. I like normal glazed ceramic plates. My cutting board is like a butcher’s block. Very firm and many a slice of sour dough has been cut on it.
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November 24, 2015 at 8:21 pm
The iodised salt is also in my pantry! This predilection for alternatives to the trusty ceramic plate is beginning to be all pervasive in the hospitality industry. It is not as nice drinking tea or coffee from a disposable plastic or polystyrene cup either. Bring back the ceramics. Perhaps we need a new lobby group to ensure the ceramic plate’s survival? Lol! And a wooden cutting board is just that….
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November 24, 2015 at 10:36 am |
I like the image of your chip and tomato dyke. Many years ago, from a bargain-conscious friend, I learned the art of doubling the height of the sides of the help-yourself-salad bowl by careful construction of a cucumber slice wall.
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November 24, 2015 at 8:10 pm |
Yes, I too try and load the self- help salad by careful constructions but use potatoes as building blocks.
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November 24, 2015 at 8:46 pm
Nice!
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November 24, 2015 at 2:25 pm |
I have to stay away from salt as much as I can and use herbs and other spices instead. I have never heard of Himalayan salt and have never seen it here at Aldi’s
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November 24, 2015 at 8:14 pm |
The Aldi here sells the pink salt. I had a look at the mines where the salt comes from. Just googled it!
There are hotel rooms hewn out of this pink salt. All looks very romantic and pink. I am not sure I would want to be surrounded by pink salt with all those good eons being emitted.
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November 25, 2015 at 1:26 am |
Thanks so much for the lesson, Gerard. It’s good to know what I have to do to be “in.” –Curt
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November 25, 2015 at 11:08 pm |
Yes Curt. You can take those boards with you on your safari trips. If not for eating from but perhaps for knocking the grizzly on its head.
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November 26, 2015 at 5:21 pm
I suspect the grizzly might get a little irritated… or make that more irritated. –Curt
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November 25, 2015 at 7:17 pm |
Gerard, one of our favourite places has wooden boards for plates, with off cuts of 100 ml copper pipe sitting on end to act as bowls for chips, salad etc. As for Himalayan salt, I guess it can be added to to the scented candles, hand made soap and the infused truffle oil!
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November 25, 2015 at 11:10 pm |
Yes, one wonders what might come next! Those boards and that salt has taken the world by storm, reflecting all the Isis issues and confusing the enemy.
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November 25, 2015 at 8:08 pm |
I do use this salt, as it has a different flavor from other salts and it is very pretty. Though I must say, it’s not cured any of my ills (hah!) and my favorite salt is still sea salt.
Humourous post, Gerald and a very enjoyable read. 🙂
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November 25, 2015 at 11:11 pm |
Thank you. Glad you like it. Nothing like praise to lift the spirit.
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November 27, 2015 at 9:59 pm |
Hmm, for a price, I can do you some magic nettle soup.
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November 27, 2015 at 10:48 pm |
Yes, I bet it would be nice and healthy.
I remember a nettle in Holland that was dreadful when touched. During the war, I was on a train with my mother going somewhere. All of a sudden we had to leave the train mid-field. All the passengers running over this field which had that stinging nettle. My mother and another passenger just grabbed me and lifted me across this field while running away from the train.
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November 29, 2015 at 1:18 am |
Hmm I am somewhat worried that the HImalayas are being ground down due to this trend. On the other hand i guess more people will be able to claim they trekked the Himalayas, at some point, when they are reduced to the size of a hill small enough for a gentle afternoon stroll. That has to be good for tourism in Pakistan. I avoid HImalayan salt as it has no iodine. And wooden boards…eeek! The bacteria! Thanks, Gerard, very funny blog!
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November 30, 2015 at 9:35 am |
Glad you took the hike down the Himalayan salt valley. How fickle the consumer. I have to take tablets to add iodene.
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November 30, 2015 at 3:40 am |
Dear Gerard, I have been caught in the TT time warp and not replied of late. Your humour is as infectious as ever, a fresh Himalayan breeze just blew around me, a fragrant vesper of live and light.
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November 30, 2015 at 9:41 am |
Hi Chris. H tells me the trolls at B.E blog keep abusing as much as ever. No doubt the usual suspects. I was chased away because I was not complimentary of suburbs and zinc alume fences.
Glad you got some sustenance from this blog. No abusers ever seem to come here.
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November 30, 2015 at 10:10 am
Thanks Gerard. Your blog is a sanctuary by comparison. Will drop in more often, cheers to you and the redoubtable Helvi.
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November 30, 2015 at 3:41 am |
love and light
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