Latest Line of Culinary Staples for Your Kitchen Unveiled at Nearby Healdsburg SHED

HEALDSBURG, CA – PHOTOS by Al Francis of the latest spices, preserves, shrubs and pickled goods now available for purchase at the market, café and gathering spot Healdsburg SHED. Scroll down to see the photoshow!

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Healdsburg SHED held a "Pantry Party" over the weekend, offering tastings and demonstrations of its new SHED Pantry line of spices, powders, salt blends, peppers, pickles, preserves and shrubs for the home cook.

Coming to fruition under the direction of SHED co-owner Cindy Daniel, creating a line of SHED products was something she wanted to do before the doors of her store even opened.

“It's always been a dream of Cindy's and really, it just makes so much sense,” Executive Chef Perry Hoffman said. “Basically, we’re distilling the pantry essentials that we cook with everyday in the Cafe — and sharing them with home cooks.”

SHED's Pantry line is also an effort to connect the community and tell the story of good farming, good cooking, and good eating.

“Canning, drying, pickling, and fermenting are wonderful ways to preserve the bounty from our local farms, and to capture seasonal flavors. We’re very excited to share these new products, and hope they’ll inspire new worlds of flavor in the home kitchen,” Daniel said.

Hoffman said the "line is not done growing," hinting more products are in the works. At the weekend event, he used a large table block to prepare a salad like a master painter, starting first with a creamy salad dressing, then layering local ingredients to create a culinary masterpiece topped with eggs and served up on individual plates.

A Napa Valley native whose grandparents were the original owners of The French Laundry in Yountville, Hoffman worked at Domain Chandon's acclaimed etoile Restaurant and also at Auberge du Soleil in the hills near St. Helena. Hoffman, the youngest chef ever to win a Michelin star at 25, resides with his wife, Kristen, in Healdsburg.

• To participate in an upcoming event with Hoffman, see: Culinary Adventures – Foraging with Chef Perry.

The SHED Pantry line can be found in the SHED store at 25 North Street in Healdsburg, or online
via the SHED webstore link here.

The SHED PANTRY LINE includes:

SHED Powders, $15 each / Set of Three $46

Charred Eggplant, Nicoise Olive, Tarragon Caper
Smoked Onion, Shiitake, Padron Pepper

A distillation of flavor, SHED powders are a unique finishing touch that pack a punch. Available in individual two-ounce jars and also in sets of three, they are the essential taste of the vegetables from which they're made. Dehydrated in SHED’s Production Kitchen, and then pulverized before being mixed with Jacobsen Salt, these powders are intended to be used just before serving.

"I've been using powders for 16 years," Perry said. “The tradition really comes from fine dining. They're flavor enhancers. When you dehydrate produce, you concentrate the flavor of that element.”

SHED Salt Blends, $13 / Set of Four $54

Shiso Salt, Black Lime Salt, Lemon Salt, and Green Salt.

SHED's salt blends layer dehydrated herbs, spices and other special ingredients with Jacobsen Salt to create finishing salts.

“As a chef, you have the opportunity to cook this way because you have many of these ingredients in your own pantry, and home cooks want to have the same options that chefs do, “ Perry explained. “This is a way of being able to capture those flavors in a jar and be close to the same outcome.”

Utilizing an increasingly popular Japanese culinary herb, Shiso Salt can be sprinkled upon fish before serving. For chicken, lamb, pork loin, and other roasts, the Rosemary and Fennel Salt is, Perry said, simply, "A natural love affair.”

SHED Shrubs (12 oz) $16 / Set of Three (4 oz) $30

Shrubs are seasonally-based drinking vinegars, created during the Colonial Era to preserve fruit long after harvest. The technique for creating this concentrate hasn't changed for a few hundred years. “We do this just as they would have in the 1800s,” Perry says. Shrubs can be enjoyed with sparkling water for a refreshing drink, mixed with sparkling wine, or used to create a cocktail.

Preserves $15
Having fresh jam made with seasonal fruit at the peak of flavor is a hallmark of the SHED Pantry line. A devoted home cook, Daniel has always spent part of her each season putting up preserves.

Pickled Vegetables $12

Pickling is a core value at SHED. "We pickle everything. It was so hard to even choose what to put in the jar," Perry said.

Herb & Spice Collections $32 or $42

SHED’s collections of herbs and spices include both everyday ingredients and globally inspired sets for cooking and baking.

Healdsburg SHED is located 25 North St, Healdsburg, CA 95448. Open Wednesday to Monday, 8am -9pm; and 8am to 6pm on Tuesdays.

ABOUT SHED: Winner of the 2014 James Beard Award for restaurant design, SHED is a market, café, and community gathering space designed to bring us closer to the way we grow, prepare, and share our food.

--Product information courtesy of SHED

• Photos by Al Francis of NapaSonomaPhotos.com