I returned to the U.S. from Paris in late May and completed my required 14-day quarantine, without travail. I’m now installed in an Airbnb apartment in Arlington, Virginia and looking ahead to spending an unexpected summer here. In a few weeks, I’ll move begin house-sitting nearby for a friend and that will last until September or October. It’s not what I imagined I’d be doing now a year ago, but we all have to make the best of the Current Situation.
This week I visited my old friend Dave Forbes at his Disturbingly Delicious Foods store in nearby Falls Church. Dave is an IT consultant who decided to get into the condiments business, hence his unofficial local title as “The Sauce King”.
Face it! Here in the U.S. we’re hooked on condiments (we’re talking about ketchup, mayo, barbecue sauce, etc.) and most of those sold in the U.S. are loaded with salt, sugar or corn syrup, and fat, i.e. they’re not very good for you.
Dave set out to create “delicious, healthy, artisanal, plant-based sauces, spreads, and dips” as an alternative. Visit his fun web site to see his philosophy and information about the foods he creates. I made a small contribution by suggesting the name MAYONOT for his alternative to mayonnaise.
Imagine, if you will, a condiment that tastes a lot like ketchup but is made from kale, rather than tomatoes. That would be Dave’s KALECHUP sauce.
When I dropped in on him, Dave was busy bottling a batch of his tasty new HUNKY DORY sauce. This is a tangy red sauce that goes well with a broad range of foods and has no added sugar or fats and very little salt in it.
I particularly like this quote from his web site:
“Thus we offer to you, dear consumer of ketchups, BBQ, steak, and hot sauces, relishes, mustards, mayonnaises, aiolis, and quesos, an entire family of super delicious, post-modern, New American condiments, sauces, toppings, and dips that manifest the spirit of the original (some more so than others — whilst we consider ourselves non-traditional traditionalists we also dabble in being traditional non-traditionalists) while embracing being as good for you as possible.“
Dave does have a good sense of humor. It’s been fun to watch him, over the last few years, become quite a food scientist and he’s been certified by the county, the state, and the FDA. He also holds several patents for his recipes.
So, just how healthy are Dave’s sauces? Check out the Nutrition Label for MAYONOT:
That last time I saw that many zeroes was on a bottle of spring water. Now go look at the label on that mayonnaise you have in your refrigerator. Quite a difference, no?
Dave’s business is a deliberately a small operation and he’s very hands-on in the production process. It was entertaining watching him deftly bottle his new product.
The store is jammed with interesting products and he has some co-marketing arrangements with other local artisanal food producers, such as Stachowski’s Meats and Sausages.
The store is filled with an incredible array of sauces, spreads, and dips, and it’s a lot of fun to peruse the stock. These products check all the good food boxes: extremely healthy, tasty and versatile, locally-made, and fairly-priced.
If you’re in the area, you can visit Dave at 455 S. Maple Avenue in Falls Church, behind the pocket Target store. Tell him I sent you!
P.S. Yes, I’m enthusiastic about this and I was given a free bottle of HUNKY DORY, but I got it because I helped Dave unbox/box the empty/filled bottles.
The Occasionally-Examined Life 