Have you ever shopped for spices in Marrakesh? Okay, shopping at Penzey's is as adventurous but some of the smells are the same. Are you looking for Justice? It's in the seasoned salt section. Goes great on asparagus. Not in anyway like other boutique bourgeois spice shops. I love this place. But shopping here does make me feel a little guilty.
My mother was Japanese, my father from Sri Lanka. Growing up in an Asian immigrant family in 1960s America meant trying to adapt groceries from the local A&P (the fresh produce was iceberg lettuce, Idaho potatoes, hard red tasteless tomatoes, yellow onions, carrots and celery) and stale, old spices mailed from relatives to imitate traditional meals. We never did figure out what to do with Uncle Ben's racist perverted rice but we did like the fiber-free Wonder Bread. When the end of the Vietnam War brought America a new wave of Southeast Asian immigration and then the digital technology developments of the 1990s coupled with information age outsourcing resulted in a new wave of South Asian immigration the turn of this century ushered in a welcome shopping experience for us. The Asian Grocery Store. Life became so much better. So, so much better. And those of us who came here by way of Asian countries like Thailand, Laos, Pakistan, India or Canada quickly learned that the only place to buy spices are Asian grocery stores.
Frank Zappa once asked "...is that a real poncho or is that a Sears poncho?" ("Cosmik Debris," a reference to "Camarillo Brillo." Please ignore if you're under 55 years old I'm just working on a metaphor here). Well we might wonder if that's real chili powder or is that Kroger chili powder? Yes, you can sometimes get fenugreek from Whole Foods but not without a preposterous White know-it-all attitude and you sure don't want to ask anyone there where the Aji-no-moto is because they will give you some serious ethnocentric judgement. Asian grocery stores would never give the whole range of spices used on the continent, being specific to a subcontinental region, but they are also places to catch up on community news and gossip. And THE freshest ethnic-specific spices until....Penzey's.
The variety of fresh spices found in a combination of Far East, Southeast and South Asian grocery stores with fair pricing. Add the full range of European herbs and spices. Knowledgeable staff without ethnocentrism or pretension, combining the best combination of competence with friendly customer service.
The only problem with this location is that to get here you need to survive a scary suburban roundabout that in some ways reminds me of driving into the aforementioned Marrakesh. read more