Life with Bees

Banging through the door after work one evening, I tossed my keys into their bowl and relinquished my bag onto a dining chair. TK was cooking something, I could smell heat and garlic but he was being unusually quiet. Off with the shoes, padding into the little kitchen – nothing. He wasn't there.

Then I discovered the cookie tray on the dining table, heaped with treasure trove – rough crystals speckled through all bright green and ruby. The pile gave off a brilliant, tasty aroma, like someone cooking a chilli dish softly in the next room. From the bedroom, TK emerged with a particularly delighted look on his face. “What's this?” I asked, sniffing suspiciously.

He rubbed his hands together. “Chilli garlic salt. Isn't it great?”


It turned out to be a pretty simple mix of rock salt, green and red chillies and garlic, all blended together and spread out to dry. But it took a couple of days to dry, that delicious smell of chilli and garlic fooling everyone who walked through the door into thinking there was a meal prepping.

Finally TK scraped the mix into a blender and ground it into a fine – perhaps too fine – salt. It gives flavour with a good kick of warmth, if you use it carefully. Simex got a bit carried away and sprinkled a big spoonful onto fresh potato chips, leaving the boys a little choked up. But it's so tasty I sometimes sneak a (tiny) fingertipful if I see the jar on the counter, relishing the garlicky heat and the memory of ruby and green crystals, like Christmas quartz.