I’m going to kick the month off with EXCITEMENT.  In the form of a contest!  Read on! It is the only way to find out more!

So K and I recently depleted a standard 26 oz salt. This happened over Thanksgiving weekend, which had domestic disaster written all over it, except that, you know, it’s just salt.  We had coarse salt and worked around it.  But we did buy a new salt as soon as possible.

I thought if I Googled salt, Morton’s site would be the top hit.  Instead there’s a bunch of stuff about some Angelina Jolie movie called Salt that evidently came out this year (61% on Rotten Tomatoes! That’s better than 50%!).  There’s something about The Strategic Arms Limitations Talks.  Then, thankfully, something about salt salt.

However, I do not know if The Salt Institute page is a parody.  If I had to choose, I would say yes, it is. They have helpful salt tips and Did You Know? pages.  My favorite part is that they have developed a high school curriculum using salt as a teaching medium.  As part of this you can order the VHS-formatted video “Salt, the Essence of Life.”  If I had a fantastical machine that would play VHS-formatted videos I would seriously consider buying this.

Morton salt, pretty much the only brand anyone could possibly name, does not appear until the second page of Google results.  (If you are a SEO consulting firm looking for clients, you could do a lot worse*.)  But their site is also worth the wait.  It is full of salt facts, recipes, and lore.  I will probably discuss some more salt lore later on, since of course there is so much to talk about when it comes to salt.  For now, let’s move on to the big contest.

Announcing the Guess How Long It Takes to Use Up Salt and Win Salt Contest!

K and I purchased our 26-oz salt on November 27.  At this moment it remains unopened.  I would surmise it will be opened not later than this weekend.  Your task is to guess when we will use up this salt. At what far off future date will this salt finally be used up?  Comment or e-mail me with a date to enter.  Important facts which may influence your guess:

• We cook 2-3 meals a week and like salt.
• We do not use regular iodized salt for table salt.  For reasons too elaborate to get into here, we have a salt grinder.  So the contest salt will pretty much only be used for cooking and baking.

If you make the closest guess, you win: salt! I will send you a brand new 26-oz Morton Salt as well as an additional salt-related mystery prize (hint: the mystery prize is also salt, but a different form). Comment or e-mail by the end of December to win.  Note that K and I have both made guesses and are absolutely eligible to win this contest since I would say we have no idea how long it will take to use it all up either.

*Attention SEO consulting firms: please forward my 6% finder’s fee as soon as possible. I need the money for a VHS-formatted video machine.