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By Root 875 0

of real mayonnaise, a bite of egg, a sip of crisp lager, and you will want for little else in life, ever again, so long as you live. The waiter will scrupulously not talk to you. The beauty who spares you a cigarette flashes only a fleeting smile before vanishing. You are free, wonderfully alone. Most of my jotted remembrances and ideas revolved around my unending astonishment at just how good real mayonnaise can be. To emphasize the distinction between the ethereal wholesomeness of handmade mayo and the gelatinous goop that comes from a jar, I still refer to it by its breathy French name—just say it: oeuf mayonnaise. Homemade mayonnaise normally calls for a sprinkle of salt, but dissolving the salt in the sauce is a missed opportunity. Sprinkling little rubies of coarse alaea salt over a plop of mayonnaise reveals the clandestine romance of salt and sauce, animating this inscrutable dish, drawing attention to its splendors, and lending a glimpse of Paris to your day.

4 large eggs

4 three-finger pinches sel gris

2 egg yolks, large

1 teaspoon fine Dijon mustard

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice or white wine vinegar

3 grinds finely ground black pepper

1 cup sunflower oil

1 clove garlic, peeled

4 leaves iceberg or other large-leaf lettuce

8 two-finger pinches coarse alaea volcanic salt

1 crusty French baguette, sliced diagonally into thick pieces

Start with all ingredients at room temperature. Put the eggs in a small pan, cover with cold water, and add the sel gris. Cover the pan, place over high heat, and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to a simmer and cook the eggs for 8 minutes. Drain, cool the eggs under cold running water, and refrigerate.

Combine the egg yolks, mustard, lemon juice, and pepper in a mixing bowl. Beat with a whisk until the yolks turn foamy and pale yellow. Slowly drizzle in the oil 1 or 2 tablespoons at a time, whisking continuously to emulsify the oil with the egg. The yolk-oil mixture should thicken as more oil is added. Continue until all the oil is incorporated and the mayonnaise is as thick as pudding. Insert the garlic clove in the middle of the sauce. The mayonnaise can be refrigerated to store (tastes best within a week).

Meanwhile, peel the eggs, slice in half, and arrange them atop the lettuce on 4 serving plates. Put a large dollop of mayonnaise over each of the egg halves and sprinkle with the alaea salt. Serve with the baguette slices.

MANGO SALSA WITH HAWAIIAN BLACK LAVA SALT

SERVES 6

Sauce is basically salt in liquid form, gussied up with any manner of delicious glutamates, lipids, acids, and aromatics. There are nuances, sure, but the nuances are, well, nuances. Sauces can be more than that. Mango salsa is an example of a sauce so succulent that it challenges the raison d’être of the food for which it was created. Tacos, empanadas, tortilla chips, hamburgers, pizza—all become mere delivery vehicles for the lush, tart, spicy salsa. All the more so when the salt is introduced as a distinctive ingredient in its own right. Confettied with onyx black or garnet red crystals of Hawaiian salt, this salsa brings a firecracker pop of festivity that celebrates saucing not just for flavor, but as visual and textural celebration of food. Use it atop anything from fried fish tacos to green salad to yogurt to steak.

2 ripe mangos

1 red chile pepper such as medusa head, red serrano, or red jalapeño pepper, minced

3 tablespoons minced red onion

Juice of 2 limes

3 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro leaves

1 three-finger pinch coarse Hawaiian black lava salt or alaea Hawaiian salt, plus more for sprinkling

Using a sharp knife, cut the flesh of the mangos from the pits, leaving two halves with the skin still on. Make parallel cuts ¼ inch apart into the cut surface of each mango half, slicing through the flesh but not through the skin. Make another set of cuts the same way, this time running perpendicular to the first cuts to make squares. Slice the mango cubes from the skin by inverting each mango half and running your knife carefully between the flesh and the skin.

Combine