Beyond Morton
A salt aficionado searches the world for sodium terroir.
CHICAGO READER / APRIL 2006
On a recent Saturday afternoon at the House of Glunz, Stefana Williams hosted a salt tasting. It was the first time the Old Town wine shop had accommodated such a thing in its 118-year history; Williams, the proprietor of a sea-salt company called Lot’s Wyfe and a self-described “salt evangelist,” was eager for an audience, and she’d successfully convinced the shop that its clientele and her salts would be a perfect match. A Southern California native and former actress with bright blue eyes and a spiky blond hairdo, she stood behind a display case at the rear of the shop, waiting for potential customers. “Let me give you my spiel,” she said whenever anyone approached.
A middle-aged woman stopped in front of Williams’s spread. There were plates of cut-up beets, cucumbers, apples, pineapples, chocolate truffles, and jicama roots–vehicles for the delivery of salt. Williams had placed toothpicks by tins and petri dishes filled with crystals of varying coarseness.
“Do you know anything about sea salt?” Williams asked the woman.
“No, not at all.”…