Sunday, September 20, 2009

World Spice (not to be confused with Spice World)


This weekend brought me an amazing and unexpected gift: World Spice just underneath Pike Place market. I'd heard about it from a Seattle-area PPKer, but never really pursued it. We happened upon it by chance and I am so glad we did!

It's a supercute, totally packed spice shop where they really encourage you to smell and taste everything. Buying spices in bulk is 100% the way to go than buying them in the grocery store, because your spices are fresher and, more importantly, much cheaper. World Spice has a pretty cool setup where they display 1oz jars of each kind of spice. This is good, because they sell their spices and blends in 1oz increments - this allows you to see how much you are buying. It really illuminates how much you pay for packaging when you buy spices pre-packaged.

Even if you don't live in the Seattle area, they do sell online. Not sure how the prices and shipping rates compare to Penzey's, but I can assure you they have excellent service. Also, they carry a wide range of salts, which is so cool, including the famed black salt included in Vegan Brunch's omelet recipe. Basically, it makes tofu tastes just like eggs, which is creepy yet neat.

Monday, September 14, 2009

New toys!

Boy, oh boy, am I going to have fun in the kitchen this weekend! Not only do we have NOTHING planned Sat/Sun (and it's staying that way!), but I also have a plethora of kitchen items arriving this week, and some that I recently accquired. Best part: they all cost me about $10 total, because I had a ton of gift cards!

From Williams-Sonoma: pizza stone, pizza peel (wooden cutting board-looking thing you use to get pizzas in/out of the oven), pizza chopper (totally badass, as you can see at right), new spatula, and a waffle maker.
From Amazon: IMMERSION BLENDER (I have dreamed of this day for so long!), and copies of Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker and Vegan Brunch.
From random used bookstores in the San Juan Islands (visited this past weekend w/ the parents): Millenium Cookbook, Vegetarian PacNW (probably somewhat outdate but I'm ok with that), and American Vegetarian Cookbook. Yaaaay!!!!

Tentative menu plan:
Saturday - cornbread waffles w/ blueberry sauce from VB, pizza of course!, tomato basil soup, and maybe slow-cooked seitan just to see how that works
Sunday - chocolate beer waffles from VB, tomato rosemary scones from VB (on the pizza stone), possibly slow cooker pot pie of some sort

And tonight I already prepped my first slow-cooked meal from FFVSC: a peanuty, apricoty South African stew. I am so excited to get home from work tomorrow! More excited than usual, in fact.