Alda Love You Need Spice Rub

Chef’s Palette

To get the pun behind Alda Love You Need, a spice rub from Chef’s Palette, you just have to recall a detail from the television series M*A*S*H*. Alan Alda’s character passed the time by drinking gin. Chef Dyon Foster’s rub – one of eight he blends from his Marina kitchen – is loaded with juniper berries.

There’s a warmth to the blend that’s compelling. Foster orchestrates a fruity sweetness gliding over an earthy, Southwestern bassline sparked by a peppery heat that lingers when sampled raw but recedes into the background as it cooks into meat. And always there is the resinous note of juniper. If one could bottle a martini in dry rub form…

Obviously Foster has figured out how. And thanks to labels bearing lists of ingredients, we can learn his secret. There’s onion, garlic, smoked paprika, orange and lemon zest, spices – damn.

“We don’t want to put everything on there,” Foster says with a laugh. “But there are botanicals you find in gin.”

Foster is currently working on Chef Palette’s ninth blend. In addition to Trió Carmel, you can find Alda and the others on Amazon and at a few local wine tasting rooms.

CHEF’S PALETTE SPICE RUBS, available at Trió Carmel, Dolores between Ocean and Seventh, Carmel. chefspalettespicerubs.com