By The Sea Salt - a unique food seasoning, created and blended on Martha's Vineyard MA

*Who we are and how we got to our original blend*
bout ten tears ago armed with a toddler, a friend, Lizzie McGhee, and a spice recipe given to her by her mother, Cherrilla Brown started “By The Sea Salt”. It was, and still is, a small home business. Cherrilla’s mom and grandmother used to mix the spices in their little shop called “Sara Putnam’s” in Riverton, Connecticut. asked Cherrilla if the recipe had originated with her grandmother or maybe gone back even further but she said while that it was possible it was not probable since any family recipe that went past her mother usually had rum in it.	n the early days the labels were made by hand. Each letter and wave was carved into an eraser and individually stamped onto the label. Some were upside down some not. Real collectors items. “You have, here, an early Cherrilla Brown. Probably worth $3.99.” very week Cherrilla, Lizzie, and Coco the toddler set up a table at the West Tisbury Farmer’s Market and on a good day sold a dozen jars.	hat wasn’t a lot but it was fun to meet so many like minded people. Over the years while Cherrilla has been working at the Alley Store and quilting as well, “By The Sea Salt” has made it’s way into many Vineyard stores and, through word of mouth and the mail, all over the country, business has gotten to the point of needing more people and exposure to the internet in the hope that Cherrilla can finally buy a car that runs... all the time... no tinkering... even in the rain... every time she turns the key.

*How Cherilla got her web site...*
t all started for Cherrila Brown when she decided that it was time to let her spice business grow. Get out there and sell it. Go for it, as it were. To start easy and work into it she thought she’d head over to Cuttyhunk, a tiny island near the Vineyard, with a winter population of 20 and a little grocery store run by the Lombards... easy pickings. It all started for Cuttyhunk Island months before, after the tourist season was over. The lobster pots were in, the striped bass had gone south along with the summer folks. The pond was frozen, the mail boat was down to once a week, maybe, and a general vegetative state had set in. During this time everybody was open to just about anything and Seth Garfield got the idea that they all needed to learn cpr. A pretty good idea since there are no medical facilities at all, excepting Ellen, the post mistress, who says that she thinks she was a nurse on the mainland in around 1951 before “the funk” set in and she had to move to the island. “I haven’t lost one yet, “ she says. If she has performed surgery I’m not aware of it and if it was brain surgery it would explain a lot. Well anyway, the whole town, except for “Untsey” who has been living on coke, potato chips and camels for fifteen years and saw no reason, since he was sure to be the first victim, decided to learn CPR. That’s Kennith Untsey with an “i”. He says that his mother just wanted to be “a little different”. I don’t know about her but he certainly is. Well, it was pretty interesting to watch everybody do those strange things to the blow-up doll that Wilfred Tilton got out of the “Fredrick’s of Hollywood” catalogue. nd here is where the trouble started. Everybody just bursting with ability and nowhere to use it. Quite the phenomenon. People started watching everybody else for signs of a heart attack which made other people think that they were having one. Likely candidates were being stalked. Untsey, who had never in his life eaten a meal in another persons house, was invited out ever night. Something had to give. December 4 was a very nice day, too nice I’m afraid. The whole town was down at the ferry dock milling around and chewing the fat. The mail boat landed, as usual, and one lone strange soul stepped off, Cherrilla Brown, Ms. “By the Sea Salt” on her first business junket.	No one’s quite sure just what happened to start the ball rolling. Mary Sarmento is certain that she saw Cherrilla grab her chest. Untsey swears that she burped. All anybody really knows for sure is that before she knew what hit her Mary had her by the ankles, “hard hat” Wilder got her about waist level and A.P. Tilton tipped her over. Arms and legs were flying everywhere… she was being saved. Talk about an 'Outpost" - Cuttyhunk It didn't take long for somebody to figure out that if Cherrilla was having a heart attack three simultaneous doses of CPR were not going to save her. So, one by one somebody had the presence of mind to grab them by the feet and haul them off. Well there she was out, out cold, and looking pretty sick. They threw her, sea salt and all, into the back of Kris’s truck, she’s the storekeeper, and headed for the nearest house. That was mistake number two. Dickie Cornell is a fisherman and has been since the day he was born. He works when there is light and sleeps when it’s dark, a fairly basic approach. Dickie, therefore, has never seen the need for an elaborate electrical system, hence the one and only one electrical outlet. Now, the customary (not to be confused with correct) procedure when medivaccing an injured person off of Cuttyhunk Island is as follows. The injured person is brought to a house and made comfortable, the house being determined by who is still talking to whom….. a very fluid condition. While this is going on the entire rest of the town has arrived, plugged in their hand held vhf radios and begun, “en masse”, to direct the coast guard rescue helicopter to the landing pad. Sheer chaos, and to know that no one has ever died as a result has to at least suggest the existence of God.	ell, they got Cherrilla to Dickie’s alright, (good guy of the month) but another pig-pile broke out over the lone outlet. Captain Ray had to run back to the mail boat to call the Coast Guard in. The fight lasted right up until the helicopter arrived………casualties mounted. Mary, dear heart, had thrown her body, all seventy five pounds of gristle, bone, and religion over Cherrilla to protect her. They think that’s how Cherrilla’s jaw got cracked. The Coast Guard loved it, the simplest rescue they’d ever made from Cuttyhunk. It made the fact that they had to come back three times a little easier to take . When the smoke cleared there were nine people who had to be taken off island for treatment, including Cherrilla (remember her, the ” by the sea salt” salesperson on an easy run- through for her sales pitch?) and seven others who were treated at the post office and released. Needless to say there wasn’t any mail that day. Ellen was in heaven. She hadn’t treated so many since “hurricane Carol in nineteen hundred and fifty four.” Cherrilla suffered that cracked jaw, three broken ribs, multiple bruises, a five year setback in her ballroom dancing asperations, and a black eye which could only have been the result of mistaken identity…….No heart attack , although Mary says that if you live they can’t tell. The rest of the injured included the three selectmen, the first aid coordinator, two first responders, and Jack and Gladys Ashworth who are in their late eighties and were given hand held radios at the Town Christmas party in case they got lost and were there just to try them out. The injuries, though varied, were not life threatening. Jack and Gladys gave the radios back. They said that they appreciated the gesture but getting lost was the safer option to any kind of rescue. Well, there you have it, the beginning and end to Cherrilla Brown’s selling on the road career. As soon as she was up and about she marched over to Al Mahoney’s, the website man, “Hook me up.” she said, “It’s a dangerous world out there.” What’s all this got to do with “By The Sea Salt”? Nothing, but it isn’t easy for a fifty year old woman to come to the realization that the internet is the way to go……. we just thought you should know that. hear that there’s a sign hanging from the Cuttyhunk Island ferry dock they put up after their latest class: Warning this Island is armed with the Heimlich Maneuver! Visit often - I don't think that the fun is over.