While we love selling spices online to home chefs, we will never forget where we started — in person, with restaurants. What began as a few wholesale spice orders to restaurants in the Rocky Mountains has grown to more than 400 restaurant partners across the country. We’re inspired by these chefs every day, so we figured it’s only fair to share them with you so you can be inspired in your own kitchen too.
Bill Miner, Chef & Owner — il porcellino salumi
Today it’s a pleasure to introduce you to Bill, the owner and chef at il porcellino salumi — a whole-animal butchery and sandwich shop in Denver. With his team, Bill makes everything from salami and pastrami to prosciutto, sausage and more. We’ve been working with them for more than a year to perfectly season those products, all of which you can see here. More from Bill below.
Why do you choose to work with The Spice Guy?
Zach’s awesome. He just randomly came into the store one day with some samples. I think the quality is better than anything else available in Colorado. With what we do, the flavor is so important. The flavors we’ve been getting out of our finished products with his help have been second to none.
What TSG products do you incorporate into your dishes? Do you have a favorite?
We use bold flavors in our salami so I really like the quality of his fennel seed, juniper berry, coriander, mustard seed, peppercorns and more. We toast the whole spices to get a more robust flavor. Really, everything I get from him is top notch.
What do you wish more people knew about using herbs and spices?
Don’t be afraid to season things at home. When I’m cooking at home, I taste things along the way to make sure they’re flavored.
To toast spices at home like we do in the kitchen, heat a small sauté pan over medium heat, get the pan warmed up, get your whole seeds or peppercorns in there, move them around until you start to smell the aroma. That’s it. It just brings out a better flavor.
What are you most excited about right now?
Well, quite a bit! We just opened our wholesale facility up in Basalt. And, our products are hitting the wholesale product market at the Italco food show on June 3. We’ll start with fermented and dried salamis and add on whole muscle products this fall.
And, we’re also excited about all of the farmer’s markets this summer. We’ll be at the ones in Boulder County, Longmont, Union Station and more selling a wide variety of products we make. We’re just excited about spreading our wings.