Jennifer Paige's spice mixes bind a creative partnership.

Jennifer Paige is bursting with excitement. After years of frustration, of not quite finding the right fit, she feels she’s found a way forward for her business – and it’s all just beginning.

Paige is the founder of The Yolk Marketplace and the creator behind a lineup of what she calls “flavor accelerators” – unique spice and herb mixes that can be added while cooking. The journey that led to the creation of the company and the spice mixes is one that follows Paige’s own creative path – from a career in fashion and furniture design to food styling to product development and marketing for juice and chocolate companies. At one point she went to culinary school and started working as a private chef. The more she cooked, the more of her own herb and spice blends she created.

Soon, she decided to share. Paige launched the Yolk Marketplace website in early October 2022 to sell directly to consumers and in November her blends were added to the shelves at Elroy’s in Monterey.

The original – the “main chick,” as Paige puts it – was Golden Girl, a mix of turmeric, ginger, citrus peels and more that adds a bright zing to everything it touches. “I literally have a jug of it in my kitchen,” Paige says. There’s also Party Mix Tape, a smoky and spicy blend of paprika, allspice, garlic, red pepper flakes, cayenne, etc., which makes an excellent meat rub. Ocean’s Kiss is a take on the Japanese furikake (seaweed, sesame seed, garlic, onion, poppy seed, salt); Picnic Basket features aromatic dried herbs perfect for sprinkling on top of a sandwich or avocado toast; and Kitten Hug is a sweet blend of ginger, cinnamon and cardamom that one might add to cookies, coffee or French toast batter.

Paige buys the ingredients for each blend from Watsonville-based wholesaler Monterey Bay Herb Co., and packages in squat, sizeable jars.

But let’s say you’d like to try before you buy, or you can’t quite imagine how you would use a mix like these until you’ve tasted them. That’s where Paige’s newest project comes in: a pop-up, with Chef David Pasculli, at the Monterey Sports Center’s long-vacant concession stand. There, on the weekends of Feb. 4-5 and 18-19, Pasculli will be serving the gourmet sandwiches he makes under his Sammich’d brand, with Yolk Marketplace spice mixes playing a starring role in many.

The partnership came easily, Paige says, after Pasculli sent her a message on Instagram. They started talking about food and feeding off one another’s excitement. “We can relate on such an amazing level,” Paige says. They’ve got different strengths, but a similar passion for high-quality craftsmanship in the kitchen. So they decided to team up: “We both have so much more opportunity [together] than we would have on our own.”

The menu includes Curry in a Hurry (a curried chicken salad sandwich on toasted brioche featuring the Picnic Basket herb blend; $12), Pranzo (tomato, mozzarella, basil and arugula on a baguette; $12) and a breakfast parfait with yogurt, raspberry jam and homemade granola featuring the Kitten Hug spice mix ($10). (Because the concession stand is inside the Sports Center, customers must enter the gym, through membership or a pass, to partake.)

The Sports Center opportunity also came easily, more easily than Paige expected. After noticing that the concession stand was closed, she asked whether the city-run fitness facility might be open to a takeover. “It happened in like one email,” Paige recounts. “It was crazy.” (It also seems to have spurred an idea for the Sports Center – a spokesperson tells the Weekly the gym is currently working to identify future vendors.)

Meanwhile, Paige and Pasculli are already brainstorming ways to continue working together, like offering menus for wineries that don’t have their own food service. They also want to bring in more collaborators – sandwich bread by Otto Kramm of Otto’s Bread Company, for example. Paige says she’s surprised, but very gratified, by the way small business owners in Monterey County are open to working together. “There’s so much yielded by that camaraderie,” she says.

Find THE YOLK MARKETPLACE and SAMMICH’D 8am-2:30pm at the Monterey Sports Center, 301 E Franklin St., Monterey. More at instagram.com/yolkmarketplace and instagram.com/sammichd