Salted Chocolate Shortbread

My friend Ben harvests sea salt on the Oregon coast. He traipses knee-deep out into the chilly Pacific Ocean to gather buckets of water and then he carries the salt water home, where time and heat will work their slow magic. The result? Beautifully intricate flakes of sea salt. As with anything you cook or bake, using good ingredients is crucial, even if that ingredient has just a small role in the final product. Everything from the cacao beans we purchase down to the fleur