Losing sleep over Trump’s fascist fever dream? Horrified by endless mass shootings, police-sanctioned murder, heartless denial of basic human kindness to refugees? You might be a member of a new social group I call the Stricken. Welcome to our club—it sucks here. We’d offer you a cup of coffee, but for the last ten minutes we’ve been clutching the empty pot while the water runs and we stare dejectedly out the window.
When you’ve written to your representative and carved some money from the grocery budget for UNICEF, but your heart still feels like one big bruise, where’s a soul to turn for respite? I would like to share an unlikely source of peace and hope with you.
No, it is not a religion. Well, not yet. It is the Penzeys Spices catalog.
Perhaps you received a box of Penzeys Spices as a wedding gift nine years ago, and your name was added like an indelible seal to their mailing list, so that despite three moves, one to Canada, the catalog miraculously arrives without fail. Wait—have you been throwing it away? Fish it out, you beautiful fool!
Besides detailed descriptions of spices by the ounce available for order, the Penzeys catalog includes articles on regular people and their family recipes. And by “regular” people, I mean an actual representative sample of the diverse array of humans living in the Midwest and beyond.
In “Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act,” community college history teacher Jade Roberts recounts her father’s own Great Migration story. “The Compassion of Irish-Born Cooks” showcases Irish artist Joe Caslin’s arresting murals of same-sex couples on the sides of rural castles—and also his recipe for beef stew. “Cinco de Mayo” really crushes it with Mexican-American seamstress Sara Ocampo, who discusses the wedding dresses she can sew in about a week.
Just to be clear, I am still talking about a catalog that sells spices.
The world’s most joyful garment, an Easter dress, in the hands of its creator.
The home cooks who submit their recipes to Penzeys don’t do it just to show off (or, in the case of taco popcorn, surprise those of us who had assumed popcorn could not taste like tacos). They want their signature dishes archived somehow in humanity’s big book, and they want the stories behind the recipes preserved too. Drew Doll’s chili recipe came down from his grandfather and father, both firemen who could be counted on to cook it for their firehouse crew. Leo Bassetto makes his apple pie with apples from his own backyard. Isn’t it wonderful to think of him out there picking them in the late September gloaming?
But maybe people just aren’t your jam. That’s understandable, given how terrible many of the ones on TV seem to be. Instead, let’s talk actual jam—bacon jam. This mixture of fried pork, onions, brown sugar, and maple syrup is simmered for a few hours, then pulsed in a food processor until it is the consistency of everything you’ve ever dreamed of. And then you spread it—do you hear what I am telling you?!—you spread it on bread and eat it until it is gone. Bacon jam is like an American version of a Tibetan Buddhist sand mandala, a lovingly crafted representation of the gods that is designed to be washed away—in this case down your own gaping maw. We can meditate on the transitory nature of material life as we chew.
This bacon jam is made from three pounds of bacon.
Do I actually cook these foods? What an irrelevant question! It is the words of the recipes themselves, the alchemy promised by the proper ratio of bouquet garni to fresh-ground tellicherry peppercorn. Just knowing they exist is enough to buoy me most days. When the time is right, I will be able to make them in my own humble kitchen.
Because this isn’t Real Simple or Martha Stewart, focus-grouping dishes on an algorithm created from women’s online shopping histories. (People who buy Hunter rain boots really like “garlicky kale,” apparently.) Everything about the Penzeys catalog feels homemade, from the recipes themselves to the many photographs of bowls full of mushy brownish things. There are no food stylists on hand at Penzeys, no curation of a Pinterest-page existence, no ad agency’s guess at what diversity looks like. In the family snapshots, people who look all different ways clutch each other with genuine love, wearing nurse’s scrubs or Lee jeans or unironic glasses. The holiday edition is full of recipes for cookies, and about the “reason for the season” some people mention Jesus and others say something like, “Jesus seems nice but I am more concerned about climate change” and those two points of view co-exist on a two-page spread without causing the catalog to spontaneously combust.
The thing about life in 2016 is that sorrow feels inescapable. The sorrow is not new, of course, but the inescapability is. After the San Bernardino shooting, in the throes of helplessness, I signed up with Everytown, the group advocating sensible gun laws. Now I get texts from them about the woeful state of affairs in Congress. Most of them begin with a shout—“BREAKING NEWS!”—but instead of whimpering, I simply throw my phone down the heating vent and turn to the pages of Penzeys. There I find a picture of a family eating dinner and leap inside the image just like Mary Poppins and the kids jump into Burt’s chalk drawing. I pull up a chair. Someone brings me a plate. And of course though we don’t set out to talk politics, a few things come up anyway—it’s inescapable when reasonable people with hearts of kindness get together. We wonder, is it more effective to focus on the alderman’s race and saving the dunes at the end of the block than trying to overcome the effect of the Koch brothers of national races? And even though Uncle Jed is a Republican, he is the Teddy Roosevelt kind and we all agree on the importance of cordial debate and sensible policy. Then Grandma says cheerfully, “well, we won’t solve it tonight!” and we eat hot fudge sundaes.
Men from the local mission gather at the home of Peggy and Wendell Norwood in Elkhart, IN, for Christmas dinner.
I submit that the Penzeys Spices catalog is a more authentic portrait of what real people are actually like than anything you can find on the news, or the echo chamber of social media. And that the portrait proves that people are mostly good, most of the time. If you disagree that’s fine, but you’ll have to keep it to yourself because the Penzeys Spices catalog has no comments section. Penzeys Spices catalog for president!
Have you just come from that community meeting on replacing all the public schools with charter schools and all the current charter schools with preemptive detention centers for shifty-looking preschoolers? I know it’s tempting to eat the entire wilted poinsettia sitting in your cubicle and wait for sweet oblivion, but give me five minutes. May I interest you in a tracing of a small child’s hand, colored in to look like a turkey and submitted for publication by one “Aniella,” a child of indeterminate age? How about six different kinds of ginger? Or a recipe for chocolate syrup shared by Mary Ellen Wooderson, a farmer’s wife from northern Oklahoma? She has ten grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, with “one on the way.” Welcome to the world, tiny person I don’t know. Please make sure Penzeys prints your birth announcement. I and the rest of the Stricken desperately need to see it.
We’re doing what we can, sort of. I mean, probably not enough, but we are so seriously bummed. We are also hungry. And here is a slim volume representing the best of humanity—family, love, bravery, sacrifice, common sense, and food—to talk us down from the ledge. To wit: the other night I read the catalog’s description of Grey Sea Salt “from France” to my husband while lying in bed, then fell into the kind blissful sleep that used to be possible before the invention of the Internet. “Back by popular demand,” it reads. “We discontinued this one for a while, but it made people sad. We don’t want to make people sad; we want them to be happy.”
(image via)
I just going to leave this here, in case anyone else needs it. https://www.penzeys.com/subscription-request/
I got teary while reading this, and then immediately signed up for a catalog. Let’s just spread the good in the world around, please.
I did, too!
I did!
Thank you! I’ve signed up and eagerly await my first catalog.
If anyone’s on the fence, they send coupons for free spices!
I had linked my partner some spice blends earlier, and just now told him I had signed up for the catalogue. l expected him to gently tease me, but instead got told he was pleased because now it means he doesn’t have to do it. XD
Frantically scrolling up and down till I found this. Thank you.
THANK YOU
No international shipping. Sob!
(Understandable, but heartbreaking nonetheless. Whither the comforting spice catalogue full of gentle bonhomie for those of us in Australia?)
Somewhere in the Midwest, the good people of Penzies are trying to figure out why their subscriptions just spiked.
Like, I don’t even cook and now I’m crying and signing up for a spice catalog.
BRB ordering 4lbs of ground nutmeg to help soothe my existential ennui
Oooh. Go with the whole nutmeg. It will bring joy to your soul. <3
if you get the whole nutmeg you can get the meditative joy of grating nutmeg and having the scent develop as you grate
I recently ordered the largest taco-spices size they had, and when it came, I was magically soothed. No lie.
Taco popcorn is the only thing I want in this world. The only balm that will soothe my ever raging soul.
Same, except mine’s bacon jam.
Bacon jam is my jam.
#sorrynotsorry
You all, I love Penzey’s so much. SO MUCH. They really do produce an amazing catalog magazine, and their spices are all delicious. I just placed an order yesterday, in fact (it was the last day to get one of their freebie offers which they have frequently, so frequently I sometimes wonder how they stay in business).
Their editor/owner has published inside-cover letters supporting equal marriage, the elimination of racist sports team names, and tons of other progressive causes. I remember the first time (not the only time, the first time) when I read one of their cook spotlight stories and thought “this family is totally, definitely poly” when the catalog included a photo of the cook and her two partners on a fucking cruise together.
I love Penzey’s and tell people about them any chance I get.
OKAY TELL ME YOUR FAVE PENZEY’S BLENDS. Right now I’m digging Fox Point and Tsardust Memories although with warmer weather coming on, I’ll probably move back to Ruth Ann’s for more stuff.
Fox Point is so good. I’m right in the middle of moving, but once I’m done and settled, I’m going to need to hit up Penzeys and replenish so many spices.
And you can ask for Penzey’s gift certificates if anyone asks about housewarming gifts!
Fox Point is awesome, especially on vegetables. We go through so much Bold Taco Seasoning that we buy it in the big bag. The crystallized ginger is cut to just the right size for adding to baked goods and is never stringy. And the double strength vanilla is my secret weapon for all desserts.
you are the GIF queen!!
I use French Four Spice all the time!
Oooh, I haven’t tried that one! Next order! What are your fave ways to use it?
I use it in a lot of places in place of regular pepper. Most often in spaghetti sauce / tomatoey pasta hacked-together messes AND on meat that’s going onto the grill. Also in scrambled eggs. It’s a little hotter than regular pepper, and adds a little
je ne sais quoi.
That sounds fantastic! Thank you!
Sunny in Paris! So good on chicken, fish, salads, mac and cheese, basically everything. Also, PeriPeri. Also Bavarian. Best wedding registry item ever.
Thank you for the recommendations! I’ve only tried the Bavarian out of the ones you listed. Looking forward to trying new ones next order!
FYI: The changed Peri Peri into Berbere, but it isn’t an exact match. I’m still sad about this. But Berbere will do the spicy trick!
I love love love Penzeys, but I’ve never actually used their blends. What should I do with them?
Oh, gosh, I use them for everything. It’s gotten so I rarely use the single spices unless I’m following a recipe (for the first time). Most of my daily cooking is one-pot meals of a meat and one or two (usually two) vegetables. So, ground beef, chopped peppers, and cauliflower rice for a vaguely Tex-Mex thing? Fajita blend! Ground pork with greens and roasted carrots mixes nice with Greek seasoning (and a dollop of mayo). I use Tsardust Memories in tons of things, including braised chicken thighs (along with balsamic vinegar, coconut aminos, and bone broth simmered down to a glaze while the chicken cooks in the liquid). Shallot pepper and Sandwich Sprinkle are great for roasted vegetables (toss with oil first, then add seasoning, toss again and then spread out on the pan for best distribution of flavor).
Happy cooking!
I want to buy Tsardust Memories just to own the labeled jar, I think.
Thanks, good ideas. I suppose the fact that I only just started cooking / eating meat has something to do with the reason these never appealed to me. I will explore them on my next visit.
Sandwich Sprinkle is the SHIT. It goes on everything I eat.
I used to be anti-spice blend, because I figured I could make any blend out of all the (Penzey’s) spices I already had. NOT SO. I don’t know what it is about the Northwoods Seasoning, but I buy it in the bulk bag now. Also, curry blends natch. And the Greek Seasoning, because I make so many “greek” flavored things that buying the blend pre-mixed saves me time.
ETA: Oh, AND. I love how you get bay leaves and cinnamon and nutmegs in the gift boxes – fresh grated nutmeg>>>>>pre-ground nutmeg.
Saaaame. And I still do, sometimes, blend individual spices together to create the precise flavor profile I want. But there’s nothing like Penzey’s Berbere seasoning for the kind of curries and spicy tomato stews I like to make, and I will happily take everyone’s freebie 4 oz jars of Arizona Dreaming off their hands.
The people making their blends add some sort of magic, I think.
Fresh grated nutmeg is my favorite sweet things spice on the planet. I include it every. single. time. a recipe calls for cinnamon.
I also ADORE their smoked spanish paprika.
Penzey’s is just beyond amazing. I have slowly replaced all the spices in my cabinet with their stuff.
The smoked spanish paprika is THE BEST.
Northwoods is the BEST. Good in burgers, roasted veggies (especially broccoli or potatoes), sauteed cabbage, tuna melts, chicken, chuck roast, adulterated mac and cheese, butternut soup… Basically anywhere you might want thyme or paprika on its own.
When I was restocking on Northwoods and pepper a few weeks ago I grabbed a jar of herbes de Provence because it smelled so good, and haven’t figured out how to use it for food. Any suggestions? Considering sprinkling it under my pillow.
I think chicken is the usual usage…
Herbes de Provence is my go-to for vegetarian bolognese!
I sprinkle herbes de Provence in olive oil and dip crusty bread in it!
SAME
Also, marinara sauces w lots of garlic and red wine 🙂
Northwoods and smoked gouda is the *best* grilled cheese.
I use it all the time – omelets, or with garlic and big white beans in the slow cooker, with mustard seeds on a pork loin – but am now seriously considering as a sachet for the lingerie drawer.
Make a light vinaigrette and eat it on a salad of tiny multi-colored heirloom tomatoes?
I add herbes de Provence to scrambled eggs (along with a little onion powder and heavy cream). It’s the best.
I’ve looked at Northwoods so many times, but have always opted for something else to try instead. Your recommendation definitely ups it into the “try sooner” list. Thank you!
herbes de Provence goes good in homemade chicken noodle soup/stew/whathaveyou.
The Greek blend is what we use when we grill or roast zucchini (with a bit of salt and pepper and a little olive oil to make it stick), and it is fantastic!
I got the Greek blend as a freebie in my order before last one and I fell in love with it. A full-size jar (to hold many future bag-fulls, I’m sure) was on yesterday’s order!
Tsardust is fabulous; I also like their Turkish blend, and the Aleppo pepper is amazing–kind of like a hot, smoky paprika, but better.
Ooo! Thanks for the Aleppo pepper suggestion! I like the Turkish blend, too! I haven’t used it in a while. Need to fix that, obviously.
I am fond of the Bavarian blend which no one else has mentioned, though I am never sure if it is because I actually like this blend in lentil soups, or because of the copy about it which fueled my previously unknown fantasies of being a German-American grandmother.
Yes! I tried that one I and I really liked it in cabbage dishes (obvs), but our household cannot eat much cabbage, alas. So it’s not one that gets regular rotation, but when I use it, it’s wonderful. If I could eat lentils, I would definitely take your suggestion for use with them. That sounds delicious!
It’s also good on pork: roasts, chops, whatever. We sprinkle it on ribeye chops before they go on the grill. Yum.
Sunny Spain! On eggs, on greens, ESPECIALLY on popcorn (add Kosher salt or some French grey or some Maldon* if you desire].
Mixes we have and use (at least sometimes):
Berbere
(various curries/vindaloo/rogan josh)
Parisien bonnes herbes
Sunny Spain
Mixes I have used but probably wouldn’t replace because I prefer throwing in my own combinations:
Arizona Dreaming
Bavarian
Italian
Tsardust Memories
Old World
*I know, Maldon isn’t Penzey’s
How how how have I never noticed Sunny Spain blend before? My mom’s side of the family is Spanish for godssake. Thank you so much for the recommendation! I’ll be adding a small bottle of that in my next order!
ALSO blends that I would definitely not buy again:
– Cake spice (not enough flavor payoff)
– Smoky 4/S (just buy the smoked paprika)
GOOD TO KNOW, thank you! I’d been eyeballing that 4/S, so your warning is appreciated!
Another vote for Northwoods, for everything.
Chicago Steak Seasoning on grilled steaks.
Italian Herb whenever I make tomato sauce.
Krakow Nights makes one of our favorite “Polish” skillet dinners. Saute ground beef or turkey in a skillet, season liberally with Krakow Nights. Add mushrooms and a bag of shredded cabbage, and more seasoning. Cover and let cook down. Eat everything in the skillet.
Oh god that sounds amazing. Hurray for easy and delicious one-pot meals!
The Bangkok what’s-it’s-face (Bangkok Blend?). Turkish seasoning. Tuscan Sunset for pasta. Taco Seasoning. Garam Masala.
Also, when you do a mail order, they always throw in a free jar of something and it’s the best way to discover new stuff. And the coupons! Penzey’s is the best.
Mmmm, yes, Bangkok Blend is my fave of their asian-esque blends, with Singapore Seasoning the runner-up.
Arizona Dreaming! Forget Taco Popcorn. Arizona all the way, baby!
That’s good to know! The Taco one someone mentioned above has stuff in it that I’m allergic to. Good to know Arizona Dreaming is a popcorn alternative.
I’m OBSESSED with the Bicentennial Rub. It’s peppery but a bit citrusy – really just incredible. I use it mostly on chicken with some olive oil and lemon juice and it blows me away every time.
Sounds delicious!
I love the Fox Point blend *and* Fox Point was where my parents where married and I was baptized, back when I was a small person growing up in Milwaukee.
Penzey’s fills me with a weird, fierce home state/town pride.
Aw! So much love for Fox Point!
Also: the Brady Street Cheese Sprinkle (I grew up a short walk from Brady Street! more squee!) is so good on popcorn.
I love the geographic connections people have to the spices! What fun!
Can I tell my favorite Penzey’s story? I am from Milwaukee and go there with my mom from time to time (lucky, I know). On time, when I visited my parents, my mom had like two years’ worth of old, expired coupons that she wanted to use there. So we went, and my mom got seriously a full paper grocery bag’s worth of spices for like fifty cents, because the Penzey’s guy (Mr. Penzey?) honored all of the expired coupons. I just about died of embarrassment.
Anyway. Fox Point is great on fish or chicken. Same with Olde Cedarburg. Mitchell Street is good on salmon or stuff that you want to have a smoky, BBQ flavor. (Some of these might be names used by the Old World Spice Shop, from which Penzeys broke off after a family feud.). All the hot peppers (not blends) are much better and hotter than what you can get in a regular grocery store. I have probably tasted everything they have, if you have questions. Oh yeah, the hot chocolate mix is great.
UGH MOM. Very sweet of the store staff person, though!
That grey sea salt is the BEST for putting on cookies, or anywhere you really care about preserving the texture of the salt. My little bag has lasted for about 6 years, but when you need it, you really need it.
Mmmmmm yes I am here for special salts topping sweet baked goods!
Top matzoh with chocolate chips, microwave in 10 second intervals, spread all over and sprinkle with fancy salt. Weeknight crunchy sweet fancy.
Their stores, or at least the one in suburban Long Island, have people as sweet as those in the catalogs…like a world lovingly curated by Dave Letterman’s mom. Thanks for this true and funny piece to start my day.
That’s the store I go to too when I am visiting. We don’t have a Penzey’s here but I make it a point to visit whenever I’m in NY. The ladies in that store are awesome!!!
The one in Minneapolis is almost too much warmth and sweetness to take, especially for my cold Yankee heart. Love it so much.
There’s one in our neighborhood here in Houston, and the people there are also super nice. They just seem like they are the best at recruiting kind, gentle people.
My dad works at the store in San Diego and he really loves his job. It’s a great company. =)
As someone who regularly gifts Penzeys boxes at weddings, you’re all welcome!
I grew up in Wisconsin, homeland of Penzeys, and have terrific childhood memories of sniffing absolutely everything in the store.
There’s also one in Arlington, MA, and I will be splurging there mighty soon. It’s a wonderful place to sniff and get plain old high on life.
I just wish it wasn’t so hard for a non-car person to get to. When I was in Seattle a couple years ago on a solo trip, I popped into a Penzeys and felt like home. Arlington, on the other hand, is damn hard to get to.
(Thanks, long ago church congregation that made sure the Red Line stopped at Alewife and went no further.)
Firstly, thank pjmorsebooks for telling me there’s one in Arlington. I know what I’m doing this weekend. Also, is that why the red line stops at Alewife? This city!
http://128bc.org/blogs/the-red-line-extension-tha…
Basically, they didn’t want undesirables showing up via train.
Oh, how I love Penzey’s!
Bill tried a magazine, lo these ten-ish years ago, but it didn’t make it off the ground. It was a marvelous thing, full from cover to cover with wonderful homey stories and photos. I miss it.
Oh my gosh, was that TEN YEARS ago?? I still have my promotional issue of One, but I never subscribed because I was a broke grad student. I’m going home tonight and digging it out!
Oh my gosh, was that TEN YEARS ago??
My dad got me hooked on Penzey’s and they are now responsible for all my spices as well as the “Heal the world–cook dinner tonight” mug from which I’m drinking my coffee.
Green Goddess Dressing + yogurt = my go to way to distract friends when I invite them over without considering the less than tidy state of my kitchen.
Greek Seasoning, Arizona Dreaming, Bangkok Blend, all scratch the “I wish this chicken tasted like Greek/Southwest/Thai food but I have no marjoram/ancho chile/lemongrass” itch or taste great on pan toasted garbanzos.
I am lucky enough to live near a brick and mortar Penzey’s conveniently in the same shopping center as a Trader Joe’s, and it is heaven.
A Penzey’s AND a Trader Joe’s?! They might as well just take my entire paycheck.
Luckily they are 20ish minutes out of the way, so convenient enough, but only a monthly hazard to my paycheck.
WAIT are you a Louisvillian????? Because I used to live in Louisville and there was a shopping center 20 minutes out of town that matches this description. And the people at Penzeys were sweet and wonderful.
Greek Seasoning, Arizona Dreaming, Bangkok Blend, all scratch the “I wish this chicken tasted like Greek/Southwest/Thai food but I have no marjoram/ancho chile/lemongrass” itch or taste great on pan toasted garbanzos.
This may have just persuaded me to sign up for the catalogue, if the above essay didn’t already. I am always looking for new things to put on my roasted chickpeas and vegetables.
My local Penzey’s is next to a store that sells fancy olive oils and vinegars. For all your flavoring needs!
I know that Penzeys and love, love, love the fancy oil/vinegar store. I always want to go there when I am visiting my brother (who lives nearby)
Oh my goodness, look at you, you breathtakingly fortunate creature! You win in the culinary luck category for sure.
I love Penzeys! The catalog is a breath of fresh air, and you should definitely get on the mailing list.
Bill Penzey writes a little essay in each one, and gives lots of free coupons. I have a huge drawer of their spices. My current favorites are Turkish Seasoning, and Singapore seasoning (to make some Singapore noodles), and Sate Seasoning…I could go on, just buy some, they are all good.
As they say above,they just like to make people happy.
I’m from Milwaukee and dammit, Penzey’s makes little cracks in my east-coast-hardened heart. I got my boyfriend a gift certificate there a year back to stock his new apartment and so we both get the catalogs now– even though the recipes aren’t much use to a couple vegetarians, one of whom has sworn off “taco” as a flavor since leaving the Midwest, I still love the stories. And I have nearly fought people on the internet who are critical of Penzey’s for being “too political.”
It irritates me to no end that anything progressive is “too political” but that these same people will defend rabidly conservative stores.
“But Hobby Lobby has good American Christian values!”
Just threw up a little bit. Also reflexive rage at the steaming cesspool that is HL.
Well, that was my before-9am-cry.
I love every single thing about this. Also, I own the Christmas plates in that picture, and now when I unpack them in December I’ll be reminded that there is a tiny bit of spicy hope in the world.
And also, bacon jam is the literal best.
Between this and Sansa and the Neurotribes interview, my heart feels a little lighter. Thanks, The Toast. You’re just the best.
If you have never experienced Penzeys spice or a store, it is incredible. When I went to Frontier spices from the likes of McCormick it was a huge step up, the freshness, smell, and taste were just so much more. That is the same experience now moving to Penzeys. Going to the store is so much fun. They have open jars of everything. Smelling the curry and paprika’s is an awakening. Now I need to get on the mailing list.
SUBSCRIBED
An old picture of me at Penzeys:
May I congratulate you on the excellence of your screen name?!
Yes! I will take this opportunity to provide this story: My initials are AH. After taking abstract algebra, I started signing all my emails aH. My adviser started referring to me as “Coset” in person. And from there, the Coset jokes/puns/etc just expanded from there. : )
Math jokes are the best. 😉
I absolutely adore Penzey’s spices but I’ve somehow managed to never hear about their catalog. My aunt gives a box of assorted spices to every family unit for Christmas every year. I adore Arizona Dreaming and Sunny Spain and put the Ancho Chili on just about everything. If you’ve never had cinnamon sugar made with their pumpkin pie spice on toast, you’re missing out. Their spices are so tasty and wonderfully blended.
Now I’m getting ready to start an Arizona Dreaming fan club. Popcorn, fajitas, chicken … it is my sriracha.
“Do I actually cook these foods? What an irrelevant question! It is the words of the recipes themselves, the alchemy promised by the proper ratio of bouquet garni to fresh-ground tellicherry peppercorn. Just knowing they exist is enough to buoy me most days.”
I thought I was the only one who read cookbooks this way. I shall no longer explain to anyone why I read cookbooks in bed before going to sleep, perhaps while picturing myself puttering around the kitchen with grandma, mixing things in bowls.
I do too, as does my mother. You are in good company here. 🙂
I have some cookbooks that sure I’ve cooked from, but I read them more to taste someone else’s home in their own words. Even if it’s just a toss away line before each recipe, sometimes licking other people’s memories of joy is so comforting when I’m running low on my own.
sometimes licking other people’s memories of joy is so comforting when I’m running low on my own
This is so poetic and beautiful and it makes my heart happy.
ok! so! I am currently reading the silver palate cookbook as my in-bed nighttime book, and it is 100% the perfect way to unwind my mind after a day of dealing with politics!bigotry!crazy!war!etc (aka, every single fucking day). I have read cover-to-cover all of the cookbooks I own, and it’s equal parts filing away what came from where and brain soothe.
as an aside, all of the dishes I have made from this cookbook thus far have been A+ and it’s cheap used on amazon.
The Joy of Cooking has been my comfort reading for close on two decades now. Last night, we made, for the first time, a recipe that my high school self pored over with fascination: Champagne Sauce. “Not every householder has to worry about what to do with leftover champagne,” it says, “but should this appalling dilemma be yours, there is no better way than this to solve it and make a light but rich sauce for fish or chicken.”
The sauce was tasty enough (though a little…beige on top of flounder), but the real magic was in the reading all that time.
Here’s this, if you wanted to know a little more about Mary Ellen Wooderson. http://newsok.com/article/5401500
When I was going through a major depressive episode I would read through the Penzey’s catalogs, particularly the recipes and the little stories that people would write in about their lives and the food that accompanied it (ex: “I’m a 45-year-old cattle rancher from West Texas. Whenever the cowhands come in for their midday meal, this [recipe] is one of their favorite requests. They’re just as much a part of my family as our three girls, six horses, two dogs, cat, and hamster that all live with us on the ranch.”) and for some reason I found this sort of literature incredibly soothing and calming. “Here are people, simply existing, enjoying their existence. This is a thing they enjoy eating there. I ought to try it. Thank you, Belinda from West Texas, I will try this Southwestern Skillet of yours.” I have no idea, to this day, why I found the catalog so comforting, but here we are.
On crap days, or days when I’m feeling overwhelmed and alone and “oh fuck I’m almost 30 and have accomplished nothing!” … you know what? I want to read about Belinda from West Texas. Because Belinda from West Texas is a reminder that the world is okay sometimes, and that people do love other humans, and that there are people in the world who take care of others in real, loving, ways like making Southwestern Skillet.
I need the Penzey’s catalog like my mom needs ‘Real Simple.’ A reminder that there is order and goodness in the world.
Would be interested to see the Penzey’s web analytics for today… I had somehow forgotten about them, I now eagerly await my catalog.
This. Why can’t we have more stories in the world like THIS?
I now live in the hometown of Penzeys and have not ever visited a store (please don’t hurt me!). I am lucky enough to live in a house with a little spice cabinet (a revamped ironing board cabinet?) and unfortunately it is FILLED with spices. However, I was gifted a big jar of Saigon Cinnamon one year and I LOVE it so I guess just like I finally decided to be a grown up and start “investing” in a wardrobe I should chuck my McCormick and invest in my spice cabinet. I value food waaaaay more than clothes. SUBSCRIBED.
Thank you so much for this. As one of the Stricken, it made me feel better, and I will now subscribe to the catalog-magazine of hope. May I also suggest another comforting catalog-based activity for the home? Receive the Vermont Country Store catalog. Pick out an item and read the full description in a very soft, comforting voice to a friend, partner, or loved one. The other person will then try to guess the price of the item. They’ll be wrong but will get better as the game progresses. Fun for hours when you’re trying not to think of the Horrors.
I discovered Vermont Country Store maybe in the last five years. It is hilarious. Where else could you get Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific shampoo in this day and age?
There was a Roz Chast cartoon in the New Yorker years ago with a giant collection of shampoos, including one called “Gee, Your Hair Smells Like Donuts”.
I’ve always wished that was real…
Now I want to know if that’s a product you could actually make. Vanilla? How would you get that fried smell?
“the Vermont Country Store catalog”
It is very soothing. And I’m very much looking forward to ordering all of their huge flannel nightgowns, when I finally give up on sex forever.
They sell vibrators (“personal massagers”) and other vaguely sex-related things, it’s awesome.
I will have you know, as a connoisseur of long flannel nightgowns, that they do not kill one’s sex life.
I was given a box of Penzey’s by our realtor, of all people, as a housewarming gift. I had NO IDEA there was a catalog, but of course I am subscribing now.
USPS mistakenly delivered a Penzey’s catalog to me instead of our neighbor with the same last name last fall when I was in a fairly advanced stage of despair, and I have no shame in having kept it for myself.
Get thee on the mailing list!
My husband worked for Bill & Ruth Ann Penzey for a while in high school. They were the original hippies you’d expect them to be and I’m so glad the kids are carrying the flag forward for them.
My Penzey’s mug says ‘Love people. Cook them tasty food.’
It is good.
This is how I feel about seed catalogs. Are you full of existential despair, unable to feel hope that this election cycle will ever end? Hop on over the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed catalog (http://www.rareseeds.com/store/vegetables/) to wash away such dreary thoughts with waves of purple amaranth and more strains of okra then you could possibly have imagined. Or try Prairie Nursery for all things native, and know you are making your little slice of the world a better place for butterflies and birds.
Seed catalogs are the best.
You are my people! I have a stack of seed and bulb catalogs that I keep to pull me through the horrible grey winter. While typing this reply I opened a new tab and requested catalogs from Baker Creek and Prairie Nursery. I’m giddy!
Mm-hmmm. I love Baker Creek. Or Annie’s – pure plant porn. https://www.anniesannuals.com
OH WEIRD! The picture is the Penzey’s in my (thoroughly conservative) home town! You couldn’t have chosen a better image to represent the idea behind this article!
I live a block away from that Penzey’s. So funny to see it on the Toast.
Huh. I’m seeing my local store in Arlington, Massachusetts, which I would not describe as “thoroughly conservative”. (Maybe a tiny bit as Boston suburbs go. Maybe.)
That’s just what I was thinking! Arlington is a lot more liberal than most places I’ve lived. (Except Somerville, of course. But I shopped at this Penzeys when I lived in Somerville.) A lot of Penzeys stores look very much alike, though. They converted old Long John Silver buildings, which are pretty similar.
(Hi neighbors! Waves up the hill at you.)
The only thing that makes me happier than a Penzey’s catalog is knowing that I am not alone in swooning over it.
Seriously, if you’re not putting Mural of Flavor on your porkchops, you’re not truly living!
How about Penzey’s items you’ve accidentally bought wayyy too much of, optimistically or otherwise? I’LL START:
Fenugreek
Sumac berries
Alternately, things you bought on a whim and now are Very Into? For me that’s aleppo pepper, epazote, white pepper, annatto seed — household staples, though the annatto gets used up the slowest.
Basically all of our high-use* spices are Penzey’s at this point, because if we use it a ton, it might as well be high quality. I have a cupboard full of their resealable bags o’ spices because I can’t be arsed to put them in jars 90% of the time.
*cumin, aleppo, white pepper, thyme, oregano, paprika, smoked paprika, kosher salt, high-fat cocoa (dutched and un-dutched), Chinese five-spice, ginger…
Aleppo pepper has totally become a staple. so has smoked paprika.
Haven’t yet used my sumac but I have plans.
Hah – I also bought a bunch of sumac with the intent of making zatar, but it turns out I don’t actually use that much zatar, and then I dropped the jar and it broke open on the kitchen tile. Now Penzey’s just makes a pre-blended zatar that I use on pitas.
The dumb thing for me is that I bought sumac with no intention, just “hm.” Sometimes I just toss it in things that could use lemon or another acidic flavor. And I definitely already had a 1/4c jar of zatar (which I almost never use) at the time of sumac purchase??
There is a wonderful Ottolenghi recipe for roasted vegetables with sumac, I think it’s in the Jerusalem book. I could eat the whole pan every day.
Chinese five spice powder! It’s fantastic on sweet potatoes or winter squash, with a mixture of melted butter and maple syrup.
YEAHHH I love five spice! For me it usually goes into fried rice, congee, or other Chinesey foods, but I may have to try it on roasting veg…
You can use five spice in rhubarb pie! It’s my mom’s secret ingredient.
I bought their smoked paprika on a whim, and now it’s a staple. Same with their zataar. I had never tried either, and now I use them fairly often.
I also rely on their hot chocolate mix. Most good drinking chocolate has dairy in it, or it has a gritty texture I don’t like. The Penzeys version is wonderful…I stir it into oatmeal with dried cherries, as well as making hot chocolate with almond milk.
Until they added the disclaimer about bay leaves being VERY light, I didn’t have to buy any! I would just ask around until I found someone who had bought a half-pound from Penzey’s. 🙂
I LOVE Penzey’s and I think their catalog is incredibly brave. Most people wouldn’t endanger their business by being so unapologetically political. Also, their spices are fantastic. Get the cinnamon.
A coworker once mocked me for buying a pound of cumin. He is obviously not One Of Us.
A decade ago I realised that cumin was That Smell from my great-grandparents house (and hair and clothes and hugs). Casa Kay also buys cumin by the pound.
I just went to the Penzey’s site and their Cook of the Day today :
“Gaige Kerr, like many scientists, believes being able to articulate the changes the planet is experiencing is crucially important to help change the minds of people who doubt what science tells us.”
Oh, this is making my day. I signed up for their e-mail list after a recent mention in the Open Thread, and when I remember to open them they are so, so, so delightful and really firm and specific in their kindness. I think I may need the hard copy experience as well now.
I have never before been so tempted to ask a company to send me a catalog instead of desperately calling them yet again to tell them to stop sending it.
There used to be a Penzey’s near my apartment in Oak Park, IL. Then it closed, and I haven’t found another in the Chicago area since. It’s a real loss. I was never a reader of the magazine, but the store was one of my happy places.
There was one in Naperville. I don’t know if it’s still there.
You guys, there was an issue of the catalog in my mailbox when I got home today!! It’s wonderful synchronicity.
This was wonderfully soothing and I’ve put myself back on their mailing list.
“Love People, Cook Them Tasty Food”. Really, what else do we need in life?
My late husband introduced me to Penzey’s. He learned to cook while working on schooners. Somehow he got into using Penzey’s for everything, and our cabinet was stocked with nothing but. We went on dates to the local Penzey’s and then got hamburgers afterward. He passed away suddenly a few years ago, and one of the things I included in a little display in his honor at his funeral were a couple of our Penzey’s jars. His boss even mentioned his love of Penzey’s in her eulogy listing her favorite things about him.
My Penzey’s stash doesn’t fit in a regular shelf anymore. I have a small standalone cabinet for it now 🙂
I don’t know, you guys, I have never bought spices from white people before and I am having a lot of trouble getting this idea into my head.
I learned about Penzey’s when my friend *cough cough more than friend cough* in college had a box of Italian spices — I think it was a gift box and probably along the lines of “make spaghetti with this box.” It was awesome. We used it to make pasta and veggies in our dorm before/after having really lovely, awesome, body-affirming sex. I therefore associate Penzey’s with nice people from the midwest, springtime in western Massachusetts, lazy-sexy afternoons during reading week my junior year of college, and early modern theater.
(I <3 u, Penzey’s!)
I love Penzeys. I love it so much. Duder gets coupons in his email every month and we always use them. Right now we have like $11 worth of tandoori spices on the dining room table that he got for free because he bought garlic. I not-so-secretly hope that when we get married someone will get us the biggest gift box they sell. And I will use every last one of those jars.
Have you guys tried the Mural of Flavor jar? IT GOES SO WELL ON CHICKEN.
I love Penzeys spices and their catalog! I tell everyone about their wonderful spices! I keep my oldest son supplied in spices. I love to just open a bottle of vanilla and smell it! I have one of the catalogs sitting on my table right now. I am planning on making a chocolate pie this weekend.
-Fox Point forever.
-Trinidad Lemon Garlic Marinade (a recent discovery – kicks ass on cauliflower)
-Garden Salad Sprinkle (this is what you want to put on your pasta salads to ramp up whatever else you have going on there)
-not a blend, but their Coarse Grind Tellicherry Black Pepper is perfect for Cacio e peppe and I really like it. Until I get a gigantic kitchen mortar and pestle some day this’ll work for me. I really like all their black pepper. I dream of having all of their pepper varieties and when I’ve visted their store spend most of the time in the pepper section.
I used to work next to the Penzeys in Santa Monica, and they were the warmest, most friendly real people with amazing spices ever.
HOW DID I MISS THIS?! As someone who shares a hometown with Penzeys, this post made me so happy–their catalog does do so much to remind me of the good things and good people in the Southeastern Wisconsin area when I’m feeling low, as stated here.
Just wanted to flag, as I didn’t see it mentioned, that the company also does a lot to support teachers, particularly public school teachers, who have had so much crap in WI over the last few years.
As for favourites, their Spanish smoked paprika is my standby for basically everything savoury, and I just put Arizona Dreaming in some tacos tonight.
I love that the Arlington, MA Penzey’s is pictured here. It is the only one in Massachusetts, and therefore the one I drive to when I need to be in spice land. It smells SO GOOD in there. The people who work there are helpful and kind. I love the catalog and also order from the web site when I can’t drive to the Arlington Penzey’s. The coupon deals are good.
I bought way too much cayenne pepper and now use some of it in my composter to keep flying insects away. I save some of the recipes from the catalog to try, and since I’m a vegetarian, I try to make them over sometimes.
In the past year or so, I’ve noticed way more Penzey’s bumper stickers on cars than I ever used to, so I’m now thinking that the Stricken is not only a club I belong to, but it is far larger than I ever knew.
This is EXACTLY how the J. Peterman catalog makes me feel. In 1998, when I was 14 years old, a relative gifted me some of their reproduction Titanic memorabilia (White Star Line stationery, an ‘authentic’ officer’s whistle) and those things somehow came with apparently a lifetime subscription to the catalog, which has somehow managed to find me even though I have moved almost a dozen times in my adult life. Reading it brings me a sense of INCREDIBLE PEACE.
Spice House is operated by Bill Penzey's sister…so you're still part of the family.