As featured in...

Salting as a deliberate act.Sounds a bit intense. And for Mark Bitterman, it is. It's a call to action, a plan to banish bland food. "Think about salting as a deliberate act," says Bitterman, author of "Salted" (Ten Speed Press, 2010), a 312-page devotional to salt. "This isn't about being a fancy chef. It's about how to make every single food you eat in your daily life come alive.View Here>> Also Published in the Winnipeg Free Press

Oregon Homes featured The Meadow in its article about shopping on North Mississippi. An excerpt:The four year old shop - which also sells flowers, wine and chocolate - is small, but Parisien pretty, which is no coincidence, since owner Mark Bitterman lived there for a year after marrying. "There was the sweetest little butcher shop five blocks from where we lived in Paris," Jennifer says of the inspiration for the shop. "Just a tiny space with meats, five mustards and five bottles of wine. It was so subtle and sweet."

Cooking Light featured Mark Bitterman and the Meadow in its feature on local food heros. An excerpt: [Mark] tells of the day an older Welsh couple stopped in, the wife practically dragging her husband by his ear. The man looked dismissive. Bitterman pulled out a jar of Halen Mon Gold, an amber-colored smoked sea salt from Wales, and told them the story behind the salt. An 800-year-old oak tree fell, devastating the property owners, who mourned until they decided they could use the wood to smoke a local salt. "The husband’s eyes just went wide," Bitterman gleefully recounts. "I knew he’d love that gorgeous, oaky, barbecuey salt. It’s a manly favor. They became regular customers after that."View Here>>

The Washington Post Food Section wrote an article on Mark and the most important spice in the world, salt. An excerpt:  "As far as my research goes, kosher salt is obtained from the sea and does not contain additives. Mark disagrees: “I think if squeeze-tube margarine is your butter, hot dogs are your meat, and spray-whiz nacho sauce is your cheese, then I suppose kosher can be your salt. Otherwise, reach for a natural salt"...So what salt does he use instead of regular old table salt? “I use sel gris. Think of sel gris as a whole food: it contains 84 trace minerals occurring naturally in the sea, has irregular, chunky crystals and plenty of residual moisture that lends each crystal a supple crunch.”  View Here>>

Food and Wine Magazine featured Mark Bitterman and The Meadow in it's March 2010 Tastemaker column. The article discusses Mark's quest to find the perfect salt for every dish. The perfect salt for Vanilla ice cream? Iburi Jio Cherry salt from Japan. View Here>>

Mark Bitterman, owner of specialty food shop The Meadow in Portland, Oregon, has been obsessed with artisanal salts for years, and he’s found a perfect pairing for—believe it or not—vanilla ice cream! Iburi Jio Cherry salt is cooked over a cherry-wood fire for three days until its flavor is caramel-y, which, it turns out, might be better than chocolate sauce on your ice cream sundae.

Liz Crane has written a book on food in Portland, and has included The Meadow in it. An Excerpt:"…. Mark Bitterman opened The Meadow in the summer of 2006 as a small floral shop with a decent section of specialty salts in the corner that he'd acquired during years of travel. The small North Mississippi shop is now home to more than 90 specialty salts, a wall of hard-to-find wines, ciders, bitters and vermouths, more than 300 types of chocolate bars, edible flowers such as acacia, apple blossoms, hibiscus and more. It's the kind of place where you crouch down to see what's on a low shelf and discover what Mark Bitterman deems, "A game changing soy sauce." Then you turn 90 degrees and discover a tin of the couple's favorite anchovies. The wooden table toward the back of the shop nestled in the wine section is usually topped with a taster or two for you to nibble or sip on -- a local hard cider that they can't get enough of, a just-in deep sea salt from Kona reminiscent of champagne, some rare Icelandic sea salt slowly evaporated and chock full of minerals and flavor. The Meadow regularly hosts classes in the evenings on everything from Himalayan salt block cooking, to an introduction to artisan salt or salted caramels. These small classes usually cost $15-$20 and fill up fast…"

Cooking Light featured our Starter set in their Editor’s Choice section. View Here>>

Mark talks about The Meadow's approach to chocolate: "What inspired you to become a chocolatier?: We're not chocolatiers, we're sellers, much like a wine seller bottle shop, of exotic salts, chocolates, and more. We offer 350+ bars from all over the world. They're organized by vintages, regions, markers, single plantation, or not. We do tinker a little bit; the chocolates we make explore chocolate through the mineral lens of salt. Salt enhances the flavor of nearly everything, and chocolate is no exception." View Here (Pg.50-53)>>