NO SPAM, JUST YUM.: FOODS WITH BENEFITS Simplified

Ringing in the New Year 2020, Follow Your Bliss Catering Co. was a busy private chef service in Tampa Bay, Florida, with various international menus, including “garde manger” (cold foods), warm appetizers, entrees, and desserts. Melon carvings were also one of our specialties, a rare expertise I had learned from one of the many mentors along my two-decade culinary journey.Then everything changed. With the onset of COVID-19, we (like every person in the United States and beyond, and certainly every food-service business) were confronted with an unknown future.Faced with fewer catering bookings, I launched Follow Your Bliss Catering Co.’s own lines of spices and natural salts many of which I had been using in my catering recipes for years. If I couldn’t cook for a handful of locals for the foreseeable future, why not peddle my proprietary blends online for the masses of quarantined home chefs around the country?I started with four spices, quickly increasing the line to seven, (then ten). Then I added lines of natural salts: More than twenty years of culinary education and creation distilled into two lines of products. They were an online hit from day one.Two months later, my wife, Melissa, introduced me to a gourmet boutique in Treasure Island, Florida. We were invited us to not just look around the corner store a block off the beach, but to taste. It’s an evening I’ll never forget.Sampling the creative fusions and infusions of their fruity olive oils and sweet-and-sour balsamics, my mind began to race with the possibilities. Grabbing the notebook I carry to capture “inspirations”, I began scribbling potential pairings of my products with extra virgin olive oils and premium balsamic vinegar.That first night, I came up with a dozen or so combos. We all tried a few, and the excitement grew. Extra virgin olive oils and balsamic vinegars were the perfect complements to my spices and salts. Originally intent on merely convincing retailers to carry my lines of spices and salts, suddenly the vision began to grow. Why not create a compilation of recipes that included both our products and these authentic ingredients?Bursting with excitement and gratitude, having booked the first storefront to feature Follow Your Bliss’ products, I vowed to begin creating this collaborative cookbook. An often scary and uncertain year later, “Foods With Benefits” is in your hands, and hopefully in your kitchen.These recipes are the union of two all-natural product lines that can help fortify your favorite dishes, boosting their nutritional, vitamin, mineral, and antioxidant content. Crack open “No Spam, Just Yum” and get cooking. Use the finest ingredients you can find and allow our Spice Care Plus spices and salts, and oils and balsamic vinegars to enhance them.I love food for what it means to all of us: nourishment, mental “fuel”, deep emotions, lasting memories, and even genuine happiness. I also love that, if nothing else at times, I can be an integral part of a perfect meal and/or memory, whether to my family, clients, or my newfound readers.On behalf of Spice Care Plus, ChefRobertoCruz.com and all the contributing artists; we are honored to be at your table, sharing life and love through great food. – Chef Roberto Cruz, May 19, 2025 Read more