Marianna requested a round of Kitchen Science for December and I more than happily agreed! I think I'll share what we've studied here fairly regularly, maybe not every day but hopefully several times a week at least, so do keep checking back to see how our budding chef boils over with her new-found culinary skills!



The first topic we addressed was SALT, the only natural rock consumed by humans. The Story of Salt by that wonderful author, Mark Kurlansky, who also wrote those fabulous books, COD and The Girl Who Swam to Euskadi which is a bilingual book in English and Euskera, (the Basque language) was a great starting point for us.

But our spine is What Einstein Told His Cook, which is very much along the lines of what would happen if Bill Bryson was set down in the kitchen, very readable in a highly intelligent, yet humorously snortable way.



We next decided to try our hand at a bit of a salty art project. The first step is to saturate the page with watercolor, making certain to thoroughly wet the page while laying down a thick coat of paint.



While the paint is still wet sprinkle salt on the wet paint.



Let everything dry and then use a dry brush to knock the salt crystals off the paper. Where the salt landed nice little random white dots will be left leaving lovely background paper for all sorts of science reports, personal stationary, or recipes!

A great recipe celebrating all things salty would be Chicken with Green Onion Salt Dip, a yummy Vietnamese recipe. The chicken is cooked and chopped into bite sized pieces and then dipped into the flavorful sauce just before eating.

1/4 cup green onion
2 Tbsp grated fresh ginger
2 1/2 Tbsp Oil
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 cups cooked chicken
2 cups hot cooked rice

Combine first four ingredients in a bowl, stirring with a whisk. Arrange chicken over rice, serve with the dip.

Other cool links:
The Exploratoreum has a Science of Cooking area, which we recently found thanks to Theresa!

This link to Salt Stories has a great listing of salty stories and I'm (for once) not talking only of the ocean! You'll find links tracing such wonderous stories as Like Meat Love Salt and Cap o' Rushes throughout the world from Asia to the Bard's rendering in King Lear. Great place to browse on a December afternoon!

Do you have a favorite salty story?