Just a quick line here to share the joy that is Not Pouring Salt From a Goddamn Spout. This might be old news to a lot of you, but it’s brand spanking new to me. I have no idea why I never thought of it before.

It began when I bought a carton of salt with a bum spout. Until then, lo these many years, I measured all my teeny ¼ and ½ teaspoons of salt by pouring it out of that giant spout. Since this method is clumsy, to say the least, I always did it over a sink so I didn’t accidentally dump several tablespoons of salt into, say, cookie dough, while trying to measure it out.

But then I got the bum spout. It tore out completely from the carton. Being somewhat rigid and OCD, I was at a loss. How would I measure my salt? Ohnoes!

how to store salt! (exciting)

As a temporary solution, I dumped the contents into an el cheapo plastic storage container, the kind you put leftovers in. I thought it was a kludge, just a way to hold the salt til I burned through it and bought another canister.

Ha! Do you know how flippin’ easy it is to just stick the measuring spoon in to the salt? Or your fingers, if you’re one of those hippie feel-good non-measury types? The little plastic container became my default for salt storage.

why isn’t this on page 1 of “how to cook”?

Apparently I am not alone. According to the food geeks populating the Jamie Oliver forums, who all seem to keep their salt in jars or other non-salt containers, maybe this is just something obvious I’ve missed all these years. This really should be in the front of every beginner cooking book/lesson. “Save your sanity and get your salt out of the pour-spout container.”

I bet one of those half-cup canning jars would be a purty way to store salt, too. I’m going to stick with the cheapo Rubbermaid plastic, though, cause those nice jars are going to hold strawberry jam, a much more valuable commodity.

look, a poll