Nosh Pit

The Gastro Gift Guide Part 2: For Those Who Slather

Rubs, jams, jellies, and condiments galore for a tasteful stocking.

Posted by: Stephanie Rubesh on Dec 08, 2011 at 11:15AM 0 Comments

Tom Douglas dishes out the love freely (well, almost) for happy plates.

Photo Credits: tomdouglas.com

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Tom Douglas dishes out the love freely (well, almost) for happy plates.

Photo Credits: tomdouglas.com

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Pork in a jar for easy Christmas giving.

Photo Credits: Mark Pascua

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Get Dark chocolate, Classic Caramel or Raspberry according to your sweetie’s taste

Photo Credits: Fran’s Chocolates

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Joy in a jar. It’s peachy.

Photo Credits: Zachary D. Lyons

Sometimes Seattle and its sobering rain stats can rub people the wrong way. But believe us when we say Seattle knows how to do rub right. Jellies, spreads, and sauces too. A host of area restaurants, including Skillet, Wild Ginger, and the Tom Douglas empire, have achieved local condiment fame by offering their trade secrets in little containers for you to purchase. And then there are the offerings from our farmers markets, food boutiques, and specialty food shop. Yep, Seattle has rubs, condiments and spreads galore; and for (mostly) under $10, they happen to make excellent small gifts or stocking stuffers.

For the spice lover:

Curry powder from Wild Ginger is a signature spice blend of cumin, anise, ginger, and fennel among others. At $5 a bottle, it can be used as a marinade, in a sauce, or just to kick the flavor up a notch or three in any chosen dish.

The African Peri Peri Rub is a Tom Douglas concoction and part of his Rub with Love line; it’s infused with garlic, black pepper, citrus bursts, and chipotle chilies. Check out Douglas’s online store for more rubs, sauces, or snack mixes.

Pepper-jelly shop Mick’s Peppourri gives you a Red Hot Pepper Jelly: a delicious jalapeno jelly, light on the hot, heavy on the flavor. This is one of their flagship bottles, but go for raspberry pepper jelly, cabernet wine jelly, or hot garlic pepper jelly for a twist on the traditional. Order online or pick them out at Pike Place Market.

Food-truck phenom Marination finally buckled down and bottled their famous Nunya Sauce, a blend of mayo, onions, and a stash of spices that will remind your mouth what it means to be alive. Bottles are available at Marination Station or at the truck.

For the salt fanatic:

If you know Skillet, you know Skillet’s bacon jam. Really though, what’s not to love about bacon, onions, and spices in spreadable form? There was much fanfare and celebration when it hit the shelves in 2010, and now everyone (all but the vegetarians) on your Christmas list can find out why.

Volunteer Park Cafe made a splash in the NY Times with their bottled mac-n-cheese sauce (aka Mac Daddy) and we hear that it may be rolling back into town in time for the holiday season.

For the sweet tooth:

“Try us on toast” is their tagline, and after skimming a list of Deluxe Foods
jams that covers apricot vanilla, almond tea, jeweled strawberry, grape and walnut, gingered rhubarb (among others), all we can say is, “yes, please.” Rebecca Staffel is a jamming authority in these parts, and her creatively combined, locally grown fixings can be found either online or at a crowd of neighborhood shops and markets. Your toast may have met its renaissance.

Local chocolate artist Fran Bigelow transformed her renowned handmade truffles into delectable flowing form to top desserts (or oatmeal, or spoons, or milk) with ease. Fran’s Dark Chocolate Sauce is rich and creamy; buying it supports the work of Neighborhood House, helping with the fight against poverty—so really, you’re giving two gifts in one. Bravo.

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Tags: Tom Douglas, Skillet, Seattle-Made Condiments, Seattle Food Trucks, Holidays 2011, Gastro Gift Guide 2011

Nunya Sauce at Marination Station: It’s Happening

Jars of the signature condiment can be yours shortly.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Oct 20, 2011 at 07:49AM 0 Comments

It’s here! Marination’s Nunya sauce. Photo courtesy Marination facebook.

Back in April when I toured then-unopened Marination Station, co-owner Kamala Saxton spilled that the Capitol Hill counter would one day retail jars of Nunya sauce.

To the initiated, Nunya is a kicky original garnish of gochujang, garlic, green onions, and spices applied to Marination staples like the spicy pork torta and Korean pork tacos. The folks at Good Morning America are fans; Seattleites are batshit for it.

Now the day is here. Saxton says the condiment goes on sale starting Saturday (though a rep for the restaurant said the 24th), as do “Peppers in a Pickle.” One costs eight bucks, but, adds Saxton, “it comes with a free taco or slider. So really $5.75 when it’s all said and done.” Sold.

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Tags: Capitol Hill, Seattle-Made Condiments, Marination Station

The Weekly Spread: Ancho and Molasses BBQ Sauce at Rub With Love Shack

Tom Douglas reveals the formula behind his most popular barbecue sauce.

Posted by: Saba Sulaiman on Aug 11, 2011 at 11:00AM 0 Comments

“It’s spicy,” says Tom Douglas, succinctly summing up this three-kinds-of-pepper-enhanced sauce.

Photo: Tom Douglas Restaurants

Remember the Weekly Spread series? Yeah, it hasn’t so much been weekly. But if we call it the “Whenever-We-Can-Get-Around-To-It Spread” we might seem lazy. Anyway, the condiment coverage is back. Let’s get saucey.

The condiment in question Rub With Love’s Ancho and Molasses BBQ sauce, a rich, rusty-red concoction that packs a smoky-sweet punch.

Made by Rub With Love Shack’s owner Tom Douglas, who recently made his spice rubs and sauces available for purchase, just to compliment his—how many now?—oh yeah, twelve restaurant ventures. This man will one day rule the entire universe. Or at least the better part of downtown Seattle.

Local—and international—garnishing needs are met by producing 10,000 jars per three-month cycle. That’s a lot of sauce, not to mention beer: porter-style ale from Portland beer supplier Deschutes lends extra kick.

Made with molasses, ancho peppers, chipotle peppers, green chili peppers, porter style ale, brown sugar, tomato paste, vinegar, onions, black pepper, cumin, coriander and natural lemon crystals. The sauce is never strained, making it thick and creamy, with occasional bits of onion for crunch.

Available online and at select grocery stores around the country. You can also try it at the Rub With Love Shack by ordering the BBQ Chicken Sandwich.

Parting thought Tom recommends it with Rub With Love’s Pork Rub in a recipe he’s made available online. Or, he says, smoky beef brisket….We like it when he says “smoky beef brisket.”

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Tags: Tom Douglas, Seattle-Made Condiments, The Weekly Spread, Seattle Condiments

The Weekly Spread: Marination’s Nunya Sauce

What makes this zesty condiment so dang…zesty? Nunya business, say its inventors. We asked anyway.

Posted by: Jessica Voelker on Jun 06, 2011 at 02:04PM 1 Comments

Nunya-enhanced treats from Marination.

Photo: Nick Feldman

The condiment in question Marination Mobile’s Nunya Sauce.

Made by The good people of Marination Mobile and Marination Station, who serve up Korean-Hawaiian hybrid food (kimchi quesadillas, spam sliders, kalbi tacos) from their traveling food cart and inside their restaurant above the Pike/Pine QFC on Broadway.

How much do they make of it each day? “Buckets and buckets,” reports Kamala Saxton, who runs the business with partner Roz Edison. “Enough to power a mobile truck road trip to the moon.”

Before launching MM, Saxton and Edison tested the recipe on their friends until they had it just right. "Our friends are a tough crowd! But they pushed us to do better and better before launching the truck, rather than nodding and smiling and wishing us well. A lot of them eat for free now. "

Made with “We call it Nunya Sauce, as in nunya bidness,” says Saxton. Though she admits it has mayo, gochujang, garlic, and green onions, plus “a bunch of other spices.” Secret nunya-business spices.

Available MM’s Nunya Sauce is served on its sliders and its tacos, and soon it will be sold by the 8oz jar. At that point you can buy it and put it on whatever you dang well please.

Parting thought Saxton asked Marination’s Twitter followers to name foods that they liked to eat with Nunya sauce. Here’s what one of them said:

Nunya sauce on umm … EVERYTHING? green salad, stir fry, hotdogs!!! po’dog x marination collab??

From your Twitter feed to God’s ears, Marination Mobile Twitter follower.

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Tags: Street Food, Seattle-Made Condiments, The Weekly Spread, Seattle Condiments

Skillet Is Releasing a New Bacon Jam Flavor

It’s black pepper fennel.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Apr 21, 2011 at 10:10AM 0 Comments

Skillet is producing a black pepper fennel bacon jam.

Skillet, entrepreneur of the local bottle-and-sell-your-condiment craze, is coming out with a second flavor of its wildly popular bacon jam. In a recent newsletter (do you read these? They are reliably rife with fun morsels), the food truck states that a black pepper fennel spread will start lining shelves, “most likely by late summer.”

So in addition to Marination Mobile’s Nunya sauce, Boat Street Cafe’s pickled preserves, the Mac Daddy mac-n-cheese mix of Volunteer Park Cafe, and that original bacon jam (so good on grilled cheese!), you soon will have one more way to mask “blah” home cooking.

Here’s hoping Revel, purveyor of addictive table-side Korean condiments, is the next to hop on the trend.

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Tags: Skillet, Food Trends in Seattle, Seattle-Made Condiments

Marination Mobile Will Bottle, Sell “Nunya” Sauce

You can get it at Marination Station when it opens.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Apr 06, 2011 at 10:05AM 0 Comments

Godspeed replicating these at home, but a bottle of Marination Mobile’s nunya sauce might make it easier.

A sunny bit I spaced on mentioning in Tuesday’s First Look at Marination Station: the Cap Hill street food counter will vend one of Marination Mobile’s signature condiments, the “nunya” sauce.

MM regulars know nunya as that liberal garnish on favorites like the spicy pork torta and Korean pork tacos. It’s also one of the ingredients that helped Marination win the title of America’s best food cart on Good Morning America. (Watch a video of GMA chatting about it here.) What makes nunya so nummy? Don’t bother asking, the name implies “none of your business.”

Also for purchase at the Station will be pickled onions, co-owner Kamala Saxton says.

It’s a wise move, this bottling and selling. As the Marination duo has probably caught on, all the cool kids are doing it.

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Tags: Street Food, Seattle-Made Condiments,

Keeping an Eye on Volunteer Park Cafe’s Mac-n-Cheese Sauce

Here’s your homegrown novelty condiment for 2011.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Mar 23, 2011 at 09:37AM 0 Comments

Photo courtesy Volunteer Park Cafe.

We’re calling it now: When the ladies of Volunteer Park Cafe let fly their Mac Daddy Sauce, it’ll really, well, fly.

Consider VPC’s predecessors, other restaurants to recently bottle and merch coveted condiments—people hoard the stuff. You can’t bat a lash without seeing Boat Street Cafe’s pickled preserves lining some shelves somewhere. Skillet’s bacon jam has fans the country over blogging about it. And besides, the VPC sauce is made with enough cow’s milk to shave a few from the ticker—when have you known fontina, parmesan, Tillamook white cheddar, gruyere, and Mount Townsend Camp Fire, combined, not to be good.

Right now the mac-n-cheese sauce (recent subject of T magazine crushing) is available for purchase at the Capitol Hill cafe. An eight ounce helping costs $15. Taking production up a notch so the product is retailed elsewhere is likely. Talks of not only selling here in Seattle but out of state, too, are in effect, we hear.

On a recent visit to the restaurant, just one jar was chilling by its lonesome in the fridge—a sign of things to come, people.

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Tags: Celebrity Chefs, Volunteer Park Cafe, Seattle-Made Condiments,

The Newest Item to Hit the Shelves of DeLaurenti: Skillet Bacon Jam

And it’s coming soon to Whole Foods, too.

Posted by: Christopher Werner on Aug 17, 2010 at 09:17AM 0 Comments

Skillet bacon jam, now at DeLaurenti. Photo courtesy Skillet.

In our Food Lovers’ Guide we proffer props to Skillet ’s Joshua Henderson for his bacon jam, going so far as to call it “the novelty condiment of 2010.” To the uninitiated, the spread is quite heavenly, a simmered-down mix of rendered bacon, onions, and spices.

Jam junkies will be happy to know more and more retailers, smart gunners that they be, are starting to stock bottled portions around town. They’re now lining the shelves of Pike Place’s DeLaurenti, where an 11 ounce container checks out at $13.99, and according to Skillet’s Facebook page, you should be seeing them this week at Whole Foods.

Bring on the bacon jam–slathered grilled cheese…

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Tags: Trends, Street Food, Grocery Shopping, Skillet, Seattle-Made Condiments