Our Story
Welcome to Salted Smoke, a kitchen where we care about the timeless ingredients we have been using for medicine, food for ourselves, our friends, and loved ones.
As a young child, I was taught to always give back to your community, whether it’s your time, money, or energy. And I desire to continue giving back in ways that speak to me. Through the ability to exemplify the community by nourishing bodies and feeding souls.
I was born and raised in Youngstown, Ohio and I have spent hours in the kitchen, helping family members out with the meals. As I grew up in a large family, it instilled in me the importance of where ingredients come from, which furthered to influence my deep love of the culinary art.
Food has always been central to life, and central to my family and community, just as it is for people all over the globe. Through family get-togethers, special occasions, or the passing of a community member, food was always there.
Food has become the source of my drive and passion, which gradually turned into therapy through cooking. This is where I started to feel the calling that has become my life’s work.
My journey into the culinary arts industry began when I met my partner in 2003. I was offered an opportunity to work for the challenging and exciting industry that was the nation’s largest foodservice staffing company. My job had me ensure that the clients had staff that were at the top of their field and ended the service with them [the clients] truly loving the work that we had done together. Due to this experience, I will never forget the talented people that I have helped place at some of San Diego’s top employers. Even with all of my success, I always felt as if there was something missing for me. Some tiny spark, something critical, and I just couldn’t put my finger on it.
After a few years of difficult times and streaks of tragic losses of those I loved, I decided to turn my life upside down and commit to my dream of becoming a chef. After graduating, I was given numerous opportunities to work for some of San Diego’s finest fine dining establishments and a high-end boutique grocer that specialized in vegan, vegetarian, and non-allergenic wholesome foods.
During my time at the boutique grocer, I was able to learn a lot about sustainable and natural ingredients that come directly from earth’s sources. My learnings helped inspire me to create my own seasoning blends and oils from raw ingredients after seeing the mass amount of filler, cheap substitutes that line grocery stores. Instead of using factories and a mechanical process to create seasonings, I began to treat them with respect and care, using only natural curing methods. Most seasoning blends cure naturally for 3 to 4 weeks. After the initial test batches, I realized that there was something missing. So I took my love of smoked ingredients and decided to combine it with my products.
Our seasoning love begins it’s adventure with various salts being carefully smoked over 24 to 36 hours. Once they cool, the magic happens, and everything gets hand cured for a truly flavorful experience. Heat is not added to any of the other ingredients, and the salts start to naturally cure, leaving only the essence of the natural oils behind. We use only natural, organic, and non-GMO ingredients in each batch.
I hope that you enjoy the time, effort, and heart that was put into my seasonings and oils, and use them to season your soul. From my kitchen to yours,
Chef Jim Daniels