This is not your ordinary relish. Cottage Lane Kitchen is a woman owned; family business founded by Samantha Cheek Swan. In 2011 Samantha debuted with “Get Me A Switch” Relish, made with chile peppers and sweet bell peppers. She added “Cape Fear” Relish, made with habanero, citrus, and pineapple, a year later. Their “Hissy Fit Hot Sauce,” made with cayenne peppers, joined her family of products in 2020. Samantha’s goal? To make flavorful pepper relishes that complement food without overpowering it and to “share and spread the pepper love to everyone.”
Samantha has deep generational ties to Chapel Hill, NC and an abiding love of all things spicy. Samantha says that Cottage Lane is not just a business, but a special place. Cottage Lane in Chapel Hill, where Samanatha’s family has lived since colonial times, is where four generations of relish makers have cooked and preserved chile peppers out of love and tradition. Samantha’s multi-award-winning heirloom recipe spicy pepper relishes are based on her great-grandmother’s recipe and are made the old-fashioned way.
Samantha herself grew up all over the world, attended UNC-Chapel Hill to study art history, and then worked in Texas. In 2009 she traveled the world with her husband and delighted in bringing home exciting condiments from other lands. Returning to visit family in NC December 2010, Samantha, with her father, made her first batch of the family pepper relish. No one had made it since the 1990s – her grandfather was the last to cook a batch – and that supply was dwindling. There was no written recipe, so she set out to record her father’s ‘dash of this’ and ‘that looks about right’ with measurements in cups and teaspoons. After carefully refining the ingredients and standardizing the types of peppers to use (historically, the family used whatever type of pepper that was grown in their garden that season), “The Switch” was ready to be shared.
Samantha’s says that family history surrounds her on Cottage Lane. Here, on this street she has known all her life, her company could not possibly have been named anything other than ‘Cottage Lane Kitchen’ where they create relishes and sauces that embody their slogan to “Relish…Every Day!” Be sure to visit their website at: http://www.cottagelanekitchen.com.