When Hansen Shieh was eight years old, his obviously awesome (wait for it) mom took him out for lunch. As he bit into his first Sichuan pepper, his mouth exploded in flavor and heat. And his mom, the badass that she so clearly is, just laughed at him. Now, some 30 years later, Hansen is on a mission to bring the kick of Sichuan and other flavors, including Chinese fermented black bean, tamarind and fish sauce to the mainstream with his…
(Photo credit:Meredith Jenks) When Scott Norton and his co-founder, Mark Ramadan, were in college, they had a thought: why are American consumers totally chill about their ketchup? After all, the stuff we all grew up on is loaded with junk like high fructose corn syrup, canola oil and tomato paste. But instead of going back to bonging beers and eating take-out pizza like most college kids would do at this point, they took their concept a step further and asked themselves, “What…
Anarchy In A Jar started with humble beginnings but has now blossomed into a jam company that anyone would be proud to write home about. For starters, the ingredients come from local farms, the founder, Laena, is handcrafting each batch out of Brooklyn, NY, and everyone from the NY Times to Saveur to that food blogger you follow religiously are singing Anarchy’s praises. Not. too. shabby. Plus, Laena cleared this little confusing ditty up for me, which basically was the highlight of my…
Zesty Z is the brainchild of founder Alexander Harik, who pitched the idea to his family at the dinner table. They promptly laughed him off before taking him seriously. But unlike the other ideas he’d dreamt up in the past, the one for Zesty Z stuck. Here’s how he describes the lightning flash that led to where he is today: “Why don’t we just take mom’s recipe, change it up a little bit, make it ready made, come up with a…
What is this space? In truth, it’s a living, breathing thing, so in some ways, I’ll figure it out as I go along. But my goal here is to showcase the makers, and I’m starting with small batch food purveyors. Because yum. But also, because I believe that all (okay, most) of them have a story worth sharing. The finance dude who quit to start a za’atar business with his mom. The sisters who put aside their dad’s caution and launched…