Celtic Seasoning

Posted on July 2, 2010 by Patty

A story in yesterday’s Chicago Tribune listed some bests of the Taste of Chicago. “Best vegetable: O’Brien’s Celtic corn on the cob. Whatever spices are hiding in O’Brien’s “Celtic Seasoning” shaker sure do bring out the flavor of those juicy corn kernals.” Guess who makes that blend for our neighbors in Old Town? I have wished on more than one occaison that we had a patented system for each blend we seek to create, but each seasoning seems to come with it own formulation of trial and error. We might want to create a new blend because it is the hot trend of the year, or people are doing more ethnic cooking from this country, this year, there are a whole variety of reasons we might choose from for making new blends. Rarely is it to honor the request of our landlord! “So, you guys are masters of spice, why don’t you come up with a Celtic blend that we can shake on O’Brien’s Irish corn that we grill during all of our summer festivals. We will buy it, the lable will have your name on it, and it will be a great way to drum up business.” We have a very savy landlord in Peter O’brien and he has always been good to us about giving us business. So off we went to create our Celtic seasoning. I did my diligent research, knowing already that spices do not actually grown in Ireland, the climate needs to be very tropical. Continue reading →

National Herbs and Spices Day!

Posted on June 11, 2010 by Patty

Imagine my surprise this morning when upon looking through tweets, I learned that today was National Herbs and Spices Day. And they say that twitter is useless, how wrong they are! If only we had known before today, we might have made this into a nice excuse to throw a Spice House party with lots of spicy tidbits and libations for our customers. We are making a note for next year. This made me track down exactly who claimed this to be NHSD. Eventually, I came upon a very interesting list called American Food and Drink Days. Much to my surprise every day of the year is some sort of food day. Some lucky days have multiple foods per day, like August 29th which is More Herbs Less Salt Day (another party op here), Whiskey Sour Day, Lemon Juice Day (which is a lovely coincidence since lemon juice goes into sour mix, which goes into Whiskey Sours), Chop Suey Day AND Swiss Winegrowers day.

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Return of the Farmers' Markets

Posted on May 10, 2010 by Paige

The Evanston Farmers’ Market opened this Saturday, and the Green City Market will have it’s fist day Wednesday. All over the region farmers’ markets are starting up for the season. This is exciting to those of us who love cooking with fresh, local ingredients; who look forward to the one (or more if you’re lucky) morning a week of prowling through stalls filled with just-picked fruits, dirt-streaked vegetables, and radiant greens, who know our favorite farmers by name and have a preferred vendor for different each type of produce.

Wholemarket_brockman

I find that no matter how much of the summer’s fruit I freeze, can, or preserve, by February I’m out of last summer’s produce. By March, when the weather starts hinting at spring, I start perusing harvest schedules, dreaming of ripe strawberries and pea shoots. By April, when morels are sprouting in the woods and good asparagus is available even at chain supermarkets, I’m writing down recipes and getting my reusable bags ready. So when the Evanston market opened for the first time on Saturday, I was there early (before the some of the vendors were even finished setting up), ready to stock up on whatever produce was ripe and ready so early in the spring.

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Baconfest – and a recipe – cool email connections!

Posted on April 8, 2010 by Patty

A most wonderful byproduct of answering the company email is learning how many customers of ours are doing really fun and interesting things. Recently a total stranger and I became acquainted via this email.

“Hello, I wanted to let you know that a recipe i created using your King Creole Spice has been selected as one of 5 finalists at the Nueske’s Amateur Cook-off at Baconfest Chicago on April 10th. Here is the link to my Recipe.

Here is the link to the Baconfest announcement http://baconfestchicago.com/2010/03/22/announcing-the-5-finalists-for-the-nueskes-amateur-cook-off-competition/
I really enjoy the quality and freshness of your spices and have featured them in other recipes on my food blog as well.
I’m hopeful that the King Creole Seasoning will help my recipe shine above the competition! Have a great day.

Brad”

Okay, we are from Wisconsin, where it goes without saying that Nueske’s bacon is THE BEST. Also, no one loves chicken wings more than I do. I had never dreamed of putting the two together. Add King Creole seasoning, and I have to believe in this recipe. Go Brad.

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Is it important to personally answer the company email?

Posted on April 6, 2010 by Patty

As the owners of The Spice House, my husband Tom and I often wrestle with time management issues, there simply is not enough time in the day for all of the hats we must wear. We have learned that, while painful, you can delegate chores. They might not be done to the standard to which we aspire, but they can come close enough. I personally answer the company email for hours every day, and we have discussed whether this is something that could be given to one of our staff members. Many of these emails are very simple, but others are quite complex. Often times, simply out of politeness, unless my box has over 200 emails to get through, I will seek out an answer for someone who is looking to find a product we do not carry, or a recipe. I sometimes wonder if it is possible that so many people out there have no idea how to google the information they need. Or perhaps I have unwittingly turned myself into a Ready Reference resource. Growing up, before the days of computers, we used libraries and reference books. The families that could afford encyclopedias invested serious money in these books which their children could use as a valuable resource for schoolwork. Tom even sold encyclopedias on the road awhile in his youth, if you want a good laugh ask him about those ?good old days?! If you were not lucky enough to have some serious reference books at home, the library had a Ready Reference number you called for help. The person who answered was not hooked into any computer, she would leave the desk, go get a book, and look up the answer for you. So, on the most generic level, I may now be this person. HOWEVER, on the most valuable level, I can?t tell you how many emails I read that are written by remarkable people.

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Chicago's culinary past, present, and future

Posted on March 29, 2010 by Paige

We're always interested in the next generation of chefs at The Spice House, and not just because they'll hopefully be our customers. We're proud to sponsor a variety of events and fundraisers for local culinary schools. Friday, we had the opportunity to attend an event to which we'd contributed: the annual culinary symposium at Robert Morris College.

The theme for this year's event was Culinary Chicago: Past Present and Future, and it included lectures on topics from beer to candy to politics. Speakers included an impressive array of Chicago culinary and industry professionals – keynote speaker Carrie Nahabedian of Naha, Hopleaf owner Mike Roper, Two Brothers Brewery founder Jim Ebel, author Marilyn Pocius, Chef Magazine editor Lacey Griebeler, and many others.

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Boxes of Beautiful Vanilla Beans

Posted on December 10, 2009 by Patty

Everyone is familiar with the excitement of opening beautifully wrapped presents during the holidays. What lovely treasure might be discovered in the box? Maybe a beautiful jewel of a gift, sometimes a dud. We are fortunate to experience that anticipation year round, here at The Spice House, when we open our bulk packages of spices, that come to us from exotic ports all over the Earth. Some hand picked cloves come to us in beautiful wooden crates, stamped with a colored ink design of a ship sailing the ocean. The wooden box is necessary to keep the hand select cloves in perfect condition. Cinnamon from Ceylon comes in five foot tall bundles, the long quills are carefully wrapped and then burlap is sewn around them. Saffron comes from Spain in decorated tins, depicting the harvesting of saffron. Cardamom comes from India, in a box stamped with an elephant, and even through the box, the heady aroma emerges. My favorite box to open is those filled with vanilla bean. We just received a shipment this last week.

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Anticipation

Posted on November 25, 2009 by Patty

It occurs to me that anticipation might be one of the most wonderful things in life. Anticipation is a positive energy of its own volition. Currently we are anticipating Thanksgiving dinner, as the host, my brother, is a fantastic cook! He makes three or four different turkeys, and then packs everyone a leftover care package. We also have business anticipations for the holidays. We are in a nice position, because of the uniqueness of our business, that PR really just floats in to us, usually via email these days. Each holiday season, we get some press for our spice themed gift boxes . We never know where these mentions will come from, and it is always with great anticipation that we look forward to them, whatever the venue. This year we are excited to have several connections working for us, including Saveur Magazine and a new television show about comfort food hosted by Art Smith.

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Anticipation

Posted on November 19, 2009 by Patty

It occurs to me that anticipation might be one of the most wonderful things in life. Anticipation is different from expectations. Expectations can be fulfilled or not fulfilled, and leave you disappointed, while anticipation is always something you look forward to. No one anticipates a trip to the dentist, for example. Anticipation is a positive energy of its own volition. Currently we are anitipating Thanksgiving dinner, as the host, my brother, Bill Penzey Jr., is a fantastic cook! He makes three different turkeys, and then packs everyone a leftover care package. We also have business anticipations for the holidays. We are in such a nice position to have this unique business, that PR really just floats into us, usually via email these days. Each holiday season, we get some press for our spice themed gift boxes . We never know where these will come from, and it is always with great anticipation that we look forward to these press mentions. This year we are excited to have several connections working with us, including Saveur Magazine! and a new television show about comfort food hosted by Art Smith.

We sent gift boxes to the editorial staff of Saveur magazine, and have recently had word that we have been selected to be in their gift guide. We have also sent boxes to be considered for the USA today.com gift guide. In addition, a new show on The Learning Channel, that is doing a show about comfort food, has asked if they can come in with Art Smith on December 19th to film our Chinese 5 Spice being created. Paula Haney, of Hoosier Mama Pie Company uses this blend to create an amazing apple pie. That Saturday is the busiest Saturday of the year, but who says no to a television spot?! One of my alltime favorite anticipations of the year is an episode of Good Eats with Alton Brown which is about free range fruitcake, where Alton filmed a segment in our Evanston shop. The first year it aired, the Food Network had not yet been picked up in Chicago. Much to my surprise, the following year the episode aired again. And it has aired ever since. My hope is that it will continue to air until something about fruitcake changes! Will it air again this year? Is my anticipation warrented? Since I just put in the above link, all I can say it HOORAY, we love you Alton Brown!

Slow Food – City's Edge

Posted on November 9, 2009 by Patty

We try very hard to become active in the communities that are home to each of our shops. We look to make connections with people who are really into food, families, cooking. One easy way to do this is for us to be involved with Slow Food . Members of this organization are pretty serious about food and its sources, and naturally cooking and eating. I truly believe this is a worthwhile organization, it is dedicated to making sure the food we eat is good, clean and fair. I served on the board of directors for the Chicago chapter of Slow Food for almost 8 years, and consequently, was very excited to hear a new chapter was being formed in the same area as our newest Geneva Spice shop, the Western suburbs. They called the chapter City’s Edge. This photo was taken at one of their first convivial dinners, a pot luck held at a local gem of a farm, Heritage Prairie Market, where we dined on the most wonderful dishes. The star of the meal were a few of these Heritage turkeys that were brought by the Cavenys of Caveny Farms (visit this website if you want to order an outstanding Heritage turkey to grace your Thanksgiving day meal.) It is now time for the second annual pot luck dinner.

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