Spice up summer grilling with Sonoma County-made dry rubs
If you’ve got some old spices taking up real estate in a dark corner of your cupboard, it’s time to start tossing and stocking up on some fresh dry rubs and seasonings to make entertaining a breeze this summer.
Here in Sonoma County, there are companies that buy spices whole, then grind, toast and hand-blend them in small batches, creating artisanal products that deliver peak freshness and flavor. These can be rubbed directly on your drumsticks and pork tenderloins or blended with oil and vinegar to marinate meaty portobello mushrooms and T-bone steaks.
We rounded up three local brands - Sonoma Spice Queen of Petaluma, owned by Wind McAlister; Savory Spice, with retail shops in Santa Rosa and Sonoma; and the new kid on the block, Chef Josef’s Gourmet Seasoning Blends, recently launched by longtime Santa Rosa chef Josef Keller of Santa Rosa - to give your Memorial Day grill some extra sizzle and pizazz.
By sourcing a few authentic spice blends, you can easily whisk your guests off to exotic destinations, from Morocco and Spain to Cuba and Latin America, without ever leaving the backyard.
“People love to make international foods,” said McAlister, who started out selling her spices in 2014 at the Petaluma farmers markets. “I wanted to make it easy for people, who with one product, can turn their dishes into something special.”
McAlister started the business because whenever she threw a theme dinner party, she had a hard time finding organic spices that were culturally authentic.
“People always asked me what spice I was putting in my food,” she said. “I wanted a healthy product that is completely transparent. All the ingredients are listed on the label.”
As the company grew, McAlister moved into her own retail space on the ground floor of a Petaluma Victorian, where she recently put in her own commercial kitchen. Her line now includes 70 individual spices, 30 spice blends and 10 to 15 salts. Among those are four dry rubs, but almost all her products can be turned into some kind of rub or marinade for the barbecue.
“Yesterday, my family wanted Thai chicken,” she said. “So we blended the Thai Yellow Curry into a marinade with lime, sugar and coconut milk.”
Her most popular rub is one of her first: the Java and Spice BBQ, which she spikes with low-acid decaf espresso made by Retrograde Coffee Roasters of Sebastopol.
“It has a medium heat, with a little bit of earthy coffee and a rich, robust spice,” she said. “We use it as a dry rub for ribs, then we make a barbecue sauce from it.”
Her barbecue rub highlights typical barbecue flavors like smoked paprika, cumin and brown sugar but is not too spicy, so it’s perfect for kids.
“It’s a classic,” she said. “A little smoky and a little sweet.”
Her Sonoma Herb Rub, made from thyme and rosemary and lemon, is an all-purpose seasoning that can be used year-round in the oven as well as the grill for vegetables and chicken. “You can add olive oil and vinegar and marinate portobello mushrooms,” she said. “My vegetarian customers use it on tofu to add flavor.”
Her newest rub - the Spicy Carolina Rub - tastes earthy and sweet, with a nice, spicy kick. “We put in bird’s eye chiles and cayenne for heat, plus coriander and thyme and smoked cherrywood salt and cane sugar,” she said. “We use just a little sugar and salt to enhance the cooking.”
Sonoma Spice Queen products can be found at the retail shop, 407 C St. in Petaluma, the Petaluma farmers markets and Oakville Grocery in Healdsburg, where McAlister will do a barbecue rub cooking demo from noon to 4 p.m. June 3. sonomaspicequeen.com.
Savory Spice was started in Denver in 2004 and has grown to more than 30 stores nationwide, including shops in both Santa Rosa and Sonoma, where the high-quality spices are available in three sizes of glass bottles as well as in smaller, resealable bags.
The shop features a wide range of single spices and hard-to-find spice blends from all over the world, ranging from the Cuban Island Spice, ideal for an authentic marinade, to the more exotic Mapuche-Style Merken Seasoning from Chile.
“That’s a smoked chile pepper that is hard to find,” Santa Rosa store manager Lola Huras said of the merken.
There are all kinds of all-American spices as well, including the Pike’s Peak Butcher Rub, which is great on beef, pork or chicken, and the Georgia Boys All-Purpose BBQ Rub, a terrific flavoring for juicy steaks.
“Team Sweet Mama’s BBQ Chicken Rub reminds me of my mom’s fried chicken,” Huras said. “And for ribs, try the Team Sweet Mama’s Kansas City Rub.”
If your taste runs more toward seafood and vegetables, the Pearl Street Plank Rub will add a mild kick to wild salmon.
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