I have a big collection of salts—Indonesian, Himalayan, Japanese, smoked, curried—and I am not shy about liberally sprinkling them as finishing touches on everything from salad to oatmeal. I've also experimented with adding my own flavors (black trumpet mushroom, wild lime, shiso seed) and recently was inspired by this lovely post to try some new ones. If you have not yet discovered the wonders of sea salt in all its sparkling, saline glory (maybe you missed this post?), this is your chance. Of late I have sprinkled black trumpet salt on mushroom risotto, smoked salt on ricotta, cacao salt on beans, citrus salt on tempura and cumin salt on lamb. It adds a wonderful crunch and a pure burst of flavor that dissolves on the tongue. Irresistible.
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Much has been said already about Heidi Swanson, a talented writer, photographer and designer with a popular blog, 101 Cookbooks, and cookbook, Super Natural Cooking. With its gorgeous visuals and original approach to healthy eating, her blog really inspired me to create my own. It helped me realize that there is an audience out there of people eager to forgo fast foods and trendy diets in favor of sophisticated cooking with whole foods. Heidi’s got a great aesthetic, an earthy NoCal sensibility and a soulful approach to living. She’s vegetarian but not in a preachy way, and many of her recipes are easily adapted to include meat (or chicken or fish). She likes bright flavors, seasonal produce and ethnic cuisines. In short, a girl after my own heart. So it was with great pleasure that I received a review copy of her new cookbook, Super Natural Every Day: Well-Loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen, already highly acclaimed in the blogosphere and climbing the ranks at Amazon and on The New York Times' bestseller list. It's a beautifully photographed compendium of her favorite everyday preparations, most of them pretty quick and easy. 
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