An enormous, heavy box was waiting for me when I got home from work a bit ago from LaLocaChristina. Inside the box: meals for dozens of people in need, a tool I'd wanted for a long time, a spice I now have to actually cook with, a spiffy cook book, and a kitchen "pan" that is millions of years old.

First things first: helping the needy. LaLocaChristina, I know this isn't your area of the country, but thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for making some people in my part of the U.S. less desperate and hungry. Your donation to the Nashua Soup Kitchen and Shelter (which is about 40 miles from where I live) will go a long way to helping people who are in desperate need. New Hampshire has no state income tax, so it's also low on the state services ladder (many of those in need come down here to Massachusetts for help). Your overwhelmingly generous donation ($150!) on my behalf is making my heart quite warm and large today. :-)

Really, that would have been enough. The funky black cumin seeds (used for Indian cooking - which we're going to be playing with in the next few months) are really interesting. And the ball-ended whisk was absolutely what I wanted! (I've given four of these as gifts, but never get around to buying one for me.)

And there was a cookbook. The cookbook included "Salt-baked Rustic Apple-Onion Tart with Blue Cheese." In fact, all of the recipes involve salt...because the book is about how to cook on Himalayan Salt Blocks. I have a bit of Himalayan pink salt, and it's pretty cool. But until I opened the last (and seriously heaviest) box, I didn't know what a pink salt block would look like: 1 foot x 1 foot x 4 inches or so...and that is one heavy pot. It can be heated in the oven, over a fire, on the grill - and then used to cure gravlox or tomatoes, cook really interesting recipes (see cookbook), or frozen to be used to make iced cream! An interesting, funky, amazingly cool cooking tool and concept, and we thank you very much.