Sides & Sauces

Fanned potatoes, crisp at every edge, catch a last pinch of beautifully colored crystals: Place des Épices’ wine salt, a handcrafted Île de Ré salt infused with Cabernet Sauvignon and spices, adds a subtly fruity, winey depth.

Halved while still warm, new potatoes drink in their vinaigrette, and this one tastes of spring woods: Le Paulmier’s Wild Garlic Apple Cider Vinegar, made with wild garlic picked by hand each April in Normandy.

Few things beat a coin of cold butter melting slowly over grilled fish or steak, especially one mashed with Haranea’s Espelette Pepper Purée, a concentrated organic purée of ripe pepper with a gentle, fruity heat.

A quarter of a nutmeg grated into simmering cream is enough to perfume a whole gratin: Place des Épices’ organic whole nutmeg, hand-harvested and sun-dried for weeks, lends its incomparably powerful fragrance to golden layers of potato.

Halved potatoes crisping in a hot oven beside crushed garlic cloves, the whole kitchen smelling of the garrigue: Domaine Salvator’s Thyme Olive Oil, organic Provençal olives crushed with fresh thyme sprigs, is warm, herbaceous and gently resinous.

Autumn on a platter: caramelized squash, crisp sage leaves, toasted hazelnuts and, at the last moment, a few dark drops of Le Paulmier’s La Pommée des Bois Vinegar, where chestnuts, acorns and roasted hazelnuts steep in apple balsamic.

Caramelized at the edges, carrots and parsnips go back into the oven for three minutes with a drizzle of Granhota’s Réserve Vinegar, aged three years in oak, whose licorice and aged rum notes and gentle sweetness turn into a glaze.

Every grain of basmati turns gold after a minute in the pot with butter and onion: Place des Épices’ organic ground turmeric, a Suroma variety from India prized for its high curcumin content, brings its warm, earthy flavor to the pilaf.

Zucchini and eggplant come off the grill tender and striped, and two spoonfuls of Granhota’s Plain Balsamic Vinegar, silky and lightly acidic, rich with dried fruit, prune and red berry notes, give the platter its finishing gloss.

Kernels charred in spots, butter melting into every row, a squeeze of lime: mashed into that butter, Les Terres Blanches’ Fleur de Sel Smoked Greece Large, Aegean salt smoked by ancestral techniques, brings warm, smoky depth to grilled corn.

Diced mango and avocado, red onion, cilantro and a squeeze of lime make a bowl of pure color: Sauce Martin’s Naga Mango hot sauce, with mango, pineapple, passion fruit and the Naga pepper of Assam, adds a vivid, warming heat.

Sip the first cup while cooking, then chop the tender steeped leaves into blanched spinach: Dammann Frères’ Sencha Fukuyu Tea N°42, a pure-origin Japanese sencha with marine and spinach notes, is enjoyed twice, in the cup and on the plate.