Have Coffee Grinder, Will Travel

Every once in awhile we exchange gifts with foodie friends that look like they might better be left outdoors. Like knitters have their yarn stashes, many cooks and bakers are avid collectors of seeds and sticks — herbs and spices from various places.

Using whole spices has been beneficial for us. Whole spices can keep up to two years if kept airtight/reasonably dry, but once a spice is ground and it is presented in its little container at the store, the clock is ticking. Essential oils break down easily, and within six months, much of the flavor and scent in ground spices are lost. We’ve also found that ground spices are much more expensive than whole spices, in that we have to use so much more of them to get any flavor, and we have to buy them more frequently.

One of the nicest second-hand gifts we’ve gotten here in the UK has been our coffee grinder. Someone had an extra one they passed along, and though it has a weird plug issue and will shock us if we don’t discharge it onto a steel surface (!!!), it’s a real workhorse, and grinds everything from cashews to cumin. One of the best uses has been to create spice blends. D.’s coworker, Alex, is Romanian, and finds most Scottish foods bland. He’s the recipient of one of D’s infamous spice blends — with plenty of chilies. (We have a similar blend which we use on popcorn. YUM.)

Without a doubt, one of the coolest culinary places we’ve ever been wasn’t a clean and well-lit kitchen store, but a dark and narrow spice merchant’s shop somewhere at Pike’s Place Market in Seattle. The hundred year old market is much more famous for the touristy shiny shops and the fish-flinging up top than for the tiny shops underneath the main arcade. Wedged in dark stalls down walkways and stairways are a whole other world of shops, and there we found our best deals. Piles of spices measured out on scales and twisted into paper sacks. Shelves full of whole spices that towered up to the dim ceiling. An unsmiling proprietor who could have been sitting cross-legged and silent inside a souk somewhere dusty and far away. The place smelled — pungent, sweet, harsh, sharp, and amazing. We could probably never find it again.

Proving yet again that great minds do occasionally think alike, What Smells So Good? posted a Banana Oat Scone with Chocolate Chips on Monday, the same day we bodged up some sconish things to stave off the urge for serious junk food. (As opposed to acceptable junk food. We’re not going to argue that banana bread isn’t mostly just cake.)

We split the dough and created scone-shaped things and a loaf, and since I can’t bring myself to use the amount of butter it takes to make real scones (it’s a personal failing, I feel), I feel it’s only fair to post the picture of the banana bread — Since I’m positive it can legally be called bread. Invoking the word “scone” on these shores might mean I’m up for some judiciously worded discussions with people who actually know how to make them (*cough*).

Of course, we used the grinder to add some allspice and cinnamon, but instead of just chopping up a chocolate bar to add the chips, we had the sort-of bright idea to spoon in a little Nutella in the middle. (This is veering ever closer to cake, yes?) Nutella isn’t completely unfamiliar, as it’s been imported for years to the States, but few people eat it just as a bread spread, which seems to be its primary function here. We’re still a little bewildered as to what to do with it, short of sucking it off of a spoon, and since chocolate and bananas go together of old, it seemed like a great idea. Baking Nutella didn’t have too much of an effect on it; once the bread cooled, the lava middle settled down to just being a ribbon of chocolate. We’re a bit disappointed that the hazelnut flavor didn’t come through more clearly, but we’ll fiddle with it and see what we can do. It’s all in the name of food science.

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.