Saturday, June 24, 2000.
.
The Harley bikers are again going past the Spice House.  They are in town; in Milwaukee; once again
for a special Harley riders event.  Milwaukee, you know, is where the Harleys are made.  I like these
people, and I'll tell you why. Because they are independent.  Ruth & I talk about them ... she sez they're not like they used to be ... they're all doctors & lawyers now ... cuz the bikes run $ 50,000 ... no
way I say; yes, some of them, but mostly they're the same group of men ( mostly ) as they always have
been .. they're todays cowboys.  Look what it takes just to hang on to one ; look how much rugged
perseverance they have.  She keeps insisting that they are mostly professional people now ... she
certainly can get wacky at times, yes, a good woman; a fine  woman, but she can get wacky at times.
O.K. I say ... I'll tell you what ... during August ( our month off when this Spice House is closed ), let's
get Tom & Patty to take us to the Biker's bar there in Chicago near their " loft " and go have some of
that Tandoori spiced food that the bikers like to eat ... Tom sells them his Tandoori Spices ... and ..
well, this is a story in itself just why Tandoori is sold in a tough biker's bar .... but here is one Summer
Special we are going to offer:
.
buy a two cup size of our " Milwaukee Iron Spices " for $ 9.59 (net wt. 10 oz. ),
and receive a free one quarter cup of our Tandoori India Spices ( with saffron ), a $ 2.49 bonus.
.
The reason the Harley bikers are going past the Spice House is that they are put up at the Wisconsin State Fairs grounds, not too far from here ... & we are on their route to downtown Milwaukee
where all the action is.  Let's talk about David & Rosslyn & the first batch of Milwaukee Iron.
.
What else today?  Oh yes, putting together the three ingredients for the Dunn's to take to their
brother down in New Orleans for making that spice mixture used in the middle east on fresh baked
bread with olive oil drizzled over it .... sesame seeds, sumac, & a special brash style of thyme
leaves known in the spice trade as " Morocco Thyme " ... he had a cafe in New Orleans for years.
Let's talk a little about this mixture; the proportions.  Zat'tar.
.
A lady comes in still asking for Jamaican ginger. We talk with her about this & why it's hard to get.
.
Sharon comes in looking for some bulk Sunny Paris Seasoning ... a nice no salt mixture with shallots
as a base, then with a run of French herbs mixed in.  We hand rub this mixture fresh each time we do
it.  But we are all out.  " Oh, no! " sez Sharon," and your daughter Pam, what a lovely young lady,
said you would take car of me on this one. "  O.K. so I move around fast .. get all the herbs weighed
off in their correct proportions ... then get the shallots measured ... I take the store in f ront & Ruth
goes to the back to do the sifting; the rubbing; the mixing.  Yes, it took about half an hour, but
Sharon takes a 4 cup refill pouch of it home with her ... all super fresh too.  She also buys two
no salt specials ... the $ l4.95 pure beef extract, where you get a $ 3.95 real tomato powder free.
Her husband has to eat no salt but he loves his gravy; Ruth tells Sharon how to make good gravy without salt.
.
We grind those delicious, very rich, sweet red bell pepper flakes up ... some for the Italian salad
dressing seasoning we blend with little pieces of minced garlic & oregano in too ... also we need
some for another batch of the very popular North Face Sunset Seasoning ... a salad sprinkle style
seasoning that is delicious on pasta .....
.
North Face ... lots of rich grated cheeses, shallots, green herbs, sweet red bell peppers ... very low
salt ... only 2 cups out of a 22 cup batch are salt.  Good on cottage cheese; sliced tomatoes, eggs too.
.
What did I taste today?  Chicago Oldtown Spiced Sugar for one.  With Mary, Tammy Taylor's buddy.
.
 

Friday, June 23, 2000.
.
Small spice grinder just for grinding whole Tabil Spices into a powder as part of the Jollys birthday present ... use a small Zassenhaus turret pepper mill ... re: the roasted or unroasted Tabil Spices ...
maybe will the roasted grind easier?  but be careful not to lose the rich taste of these aromatic seeds.
.
Put up a link for  Elizabeth David
.... post her nice saffron article, cuz now we have permission from  Jill Norman to do so.
Tell the
story about the " Peppercorns Saveur " mixture ... what is food writing?  But what is food writing that
becomes literature? In this peppercorn mixture  Julia Child  is black peppercorns;  Dione Lucas is
white peppercorns;  Elizabeth David is green peppercorns; and  M.F.K. Fisher  is pink peppercorns.
Then we add a little roasted coriander seed to the blend; the roasted coriander seed is Paula Wolfert.
This original peppercorn mixed was first offered when we had the spice work of James Arthur of the
Arthur family from Ponape in Micronesia as the main part of it.  Meaning that this mixture was composed of 8 of the 12 parts being a superb quality of Ponape pepper that James Arthur did himself;
we could buy the Ponape black berries, yes, but this was a super grade, his grade AA ... the black berries were meticulously sorted & resorted & resorted ... so that only the most excellent berries
survived the process all dark nearly glowing black berries ... no berries that were light colored;
no imperfections of any kind ... then the berries were size to be very uniform; a smaller size than usual; they were sized along the lines of the well known but hardlay ever available " shot pepper "
of the 1800's ... small heavy berries ... and because they were small & heavy they would grind up
in a copious fashion in the peppermills ... shot pepper ... the grade AA black ponape were very
expensive, running three times the cost of the usual grades of black ponape peppercorns.
.
This is  the super quality black pepper that was the 8 parts in 12 base of our peppercorn saveur
mixture ... this base we took to be the Julia Child part of the peppercorn mixture.  Why?
Because when Julia Child was in the Spice House, and Billy was acting as her host ... and she
spent the better part of an hour with him & the other kids too ... later when Ruth & I returned to
Milwaukee .. I asked Billy how did it go with Julia Child?  He said is went well; very well, but he
added that she did something quite surprising ... she nibbled on black peppercorns for nearly the
entire hour ... the different varieties we have available, yes ... but she just kept nibbling on black
peppercorns!  The mark of a true pepper lover.
.
The part of the mixture that is Dione Lucas is the white peppercorns ... the part that is green
peppercorns is Elizabeth David ... the part that is pink peppercorns is M.F.K. Fisher .... and then
of course, the roasted sweet Morocco coriander seeds is Paula Wolfert.
.
When we sold the clear acrylic heavy lucite pyramid pepper mills, for a number of years, we always
filled them, complimentary, with this aromatic & pretty peppercorn mixture.  Originally we called
this  mixture " Peppercorns Sovour " after the group of Sovours in a book we read at a Spice House
apprentice meeting here up at the house back in 1988 ... the Sovours were a group of various artists
some were painters, some were musicians, some were sculptors ... who formed a group to investigate
the way things were arranged ... for instance when we ask the question of what is food writing?
But then was is food writing that becomes literature?  This would be a question the sovours might ask.
.
However about two years ago James Arthur came to the situation where things were of such a state
that it was very difficult to continue on in his small plantation there in Ponape.  So we have not had
the Peppercorns Saveur to sell for the last two years.  We changed the name to Peppercorns Saveur
when Billy & Pam's Spice House was featured in a small article of the very first issue of the new
Saveur food magazine.  I think the word saveur pertains to " a seeker of a certain level of excellence;
a seeker after things we special qualities; extraordinary qualities ".  Am I far wrong on this?
.
The idea behind making up a special peppercorn mixture like this was to introduce our young Spice House apprentices to the depth developing world of food literature as represented by possibly the finest writers of food literature of our generation ... if we can borrow this idea of " organic "
from Frank Lloyd Wright ..yes, he called his architecture " organic architecture ".  Why?  Can we
develop a spice line that might also have a little of this organic quality?  Meaning that the makers of
it; the Spice House apprentices; would start to see the full connectiveness of spices to things in a
larger sense; but also for them to grow too as they worked with the spice line; that the spice line
itself was organic in that it germinated good things; good developments; for those that used them, yes,
but also for those that made them.  so we've tried to sew in; patch in; extra features in our spice
mixtures; things that might be invisible, or things that might take years to finally activate in someone.
.
More for Friday June 23, 2000.
Ruth makes chicken salad with two of our spice mixtures ... N. Lake Drive Spices .... and also with
North Face Sunset Seasoning.  Post her recipes here ( both with walnuts ).
.
Barry is  in Israel in a small cafe eating with his wife .. he is wearing his Star of David outside of his
shirt.. an Arabian man comes over with a loaf of bread ... some olive oil to share with Barry ... " you cannot break bread with your enemy " .... they eat together, it is a meal with lamb & spices ... the talk
turns to spices ... we come way from this story with another facet of meaning as to what spices are;
really are ... from what this older Arabian man says to a young Jewish man about spices.
.
Barry & I talk about spice books ... which are  the good spice books ... we talk about two of them:
the one by Tom Stobart ... the other by Milo Miloradovich ( Dover books ) ... more on this ....
.
is this the place to get into the story about the spices with Jill Prescott & Fave Levy & the Rabbi
Spice Mixture? ... and how it came about that, because of this, Patty shared the stage with the icon
Julia Child for a few minutes; and we have a marvelous marvelous photograph to post on our web site?  It's a bit long for here ..but a beautiful spice story ...
.
Christine is working today ... she brings in two small pots with herbs in; one is pepermint, the other is
lemon thyme .... we talk about the English Princess Seasoning with lemon-thyme ... we turn the markers in the pots down so no one can read what these herbs are ... now when we get the little kids to
taste them they'll have to move their brains just a little to dig out what these lovely things are ... and are named.  No sir; no Maa'm ... we are not going to make it easy for our litlle spice students.
.
We look outside ... we've broadcast just a whole bunch of seeds aalong the south side of the Spice
House, but Ruth & forgot to mark down wht these spice seeds were ... and now we've got just lots & lots of these two foot high grass like herb plants growing; almost like wheat ..Christine pulls one apart
& is able to show us that there are some small dark seeds inside here ... very small ... they've     eluded
Ruth & I but Christine sees them & shows us .... we taste them; they are hard ... more to come ...
..
.

Thursday, June 22, 2000.
.
Powdering dill weed for use in blending today;  blending the Washington Highlands Seasoning; and
also blending the Old World Third Street Seasoning.  A nice email from  Jill Norman in London.  She
talks about visiting the Hemphills in Australia at their Herb Shop.  One of the most elegant of the spice
books is Rosemary Hemphills book on spices.  Not a thick volume; but very well done.  She has a recipe in it for  mixing up a spice sugar made from just sugar & allspice ... then this is sprinkled on
orange slices & cooked with roast duckling ... Ruth & I have used this recipe for some years now.
I sent Jill a copy of a saffron article from the Kashmir times that is filled with information about the
growing of saffron in India.  We'll post the article when we get a chance.  You know we are studying
the relationship between the music of India & the curry spice mixtures of India; whether in powder
form or as the combinations deep fried in oil or clarified butter ... we are attempting to take our sweet
curry powder ... it has quite a following nationally & internationally ... & turn it into a musical pattern;
so that we can begin to look at it side by side with India musics patterns .. Christine is doing it with
the ancient Hindu " Om " symbol; I am doing it with the Islam crescent; and now Ruth has decided
to do hers using the flag of India; i.e. to fit our spice fomula for curry powder into the design of the
flag of India.  Am I correct here?  that the flag has a orange bar which is saffron color ... said to
symbolize " renunciation "?  does the flag in some way accomodate both Hindu & Islam groups?
The approach of these two religions is a little different as to their thinking of the function of spices???
.Please see Wednesday, June 14 entry ... towards the bottom with the cover of book illustrated.
.
Old World Third Street Seasoning is an old fashioned central European style of spice mixture.
It's main ingredient is really rich, high pigment, Hungarian paprika.  then comes large flake salt
crystals, then comes goodly amounts of freshly ground celery seed ( a favorite in German cooking ),
with a good black pepper; the India premier Telllicherry grade; then good amounts of garlic & onion
powders; a little sugar used here instead of MSG, then smaller amounts of ground caraway, ground
cumin, ground fennel, & a little of our strong good flavored sweet curry powder.  A little pure
tomato powder also, used for its  flavor enhancing effect .... then we add tiny amounts of 8 different
powdered herbs:  thyme, rosemary, basil, marjoram, dill weed, tarragon, bay leaves, & oregano.
( Ruth & I joke with the spice helpers ... if you have a fine orchestra with 130 chairs, but l person
is not there ... so you have now 129 chairs ... can you tell the difference in the sound? Well,
probably not, but some people can; so we have to be thorough; not miss a single spice or herb here )
We mix this all together 500 times, having sifted it slowly first; then sift it again, with another 500
stirs; then we add in chive flakes, dill weed leaves; & parsley flakes; hand rubbing these through a
15 mesh screen sifter; then there is a last 500 turns.  then it is ready to sell.  It is a very rich, quite
low in salt all purpose seasoning; there are alot of seasoned salts on the market which are very
tasty ... like Lawry's Seasoned Salt for instance ... these give a really nice flavor to all cuts of meat
& also to chicken & fish ... but if you want to cut down on the salt...you can use our Old World 3rd
Street Seasoning ... if you take a cup of this blend & mix it with a cup of table salt ... then you will
have a nice seasoned salt which is very tasty indeed.
.
Incidentally, Mr. Lawry originally came from Milwaukee .. then the family acheived fame after they
moved to Chicago & really developed their business.  When our oldest child, Patty, was little, we
lived on the south side of Milwaukee ... on 29th & Lincoln .. near the cemetary where Mr. Lawry
is buried.  Ruth's Father, Joe, often would take little Patty for a walk in the neighborhood there, &
they would sometimes walk through the cemetary ... why is it little kids like to walk through cemetaries?  Lots of flowers usually; very quiet; lots of art work, lots of birds singing.
.
We have a man who does " spanferkels " for picnics who comes into our store to buy his spices.
He loves the Old World Seasoning for pork ... he has a very large railroad engine type oil can ... he
fills it with a mixture of vegetable oil & our Old World Third Street Spices... then he uses this method
to season the turning pork suckling on the spit ... he sort of injects it into the pig as it cooks.
.
It was a high velocity day in the store today .... lots of ferment; spice customers coming in clusters
rather than an even pace.  A group of five ladies ... new to our shop .... came in during the afternoon
after dining at Jollys ... yes, they were very pleased with their food at  Jollys & the service too ...
they have a little club, the the five of them, & they go out for each lady's brthday.  they are all from
the Grafton area just north of us by about 25 miles.  They bought a number of custom style spice
gifts; they had ideas on which spices they wanted ... it is a feature of our Spice House that we do
our gift boxes in a very flexible manner .... some of them took the delicious Chicago Oldtown
Spiced Sugar ... & when we sell these we like to read that nice " Desiderata " piece, sort of good
words to live by, as Ruth sez it ... I scurried around finishing off the spice gift boxes, while young
Jennie did the reading, which we do out loud.  the ladies were touched ... and it was a good thing
for Jennie to do ... to read this out loud to others.  She was on a trip with the Wauwatosa Band to
Toronto not too long ago, and there she saw a street person selling copies of this beautiful piece
of literature.  I showed the ladies the picture of our grandchildren planting the saffron flower bulbs
which hangs over our front door ( and is on our web site ) ... they were interested in learning about
how the misty figures of the three angels or what we call the Kavanaugh Hill fairies got to be on that
photograph ... it is a good question & how would one answer it?  some say one explanation has
to do with the person holding the camera having exceptional  love in their hands ... and with an
exceptional bond to the subject matter in the photograph.  In this case it was a loving Grand mother
who held the camera ... Ruth ... Ruth held the camera for this exceptional shot.
.
We wanted to ask Jennie to maybe do a little Tai Chi with us ... Ruth & I ... as we did a quick
3 minutes on the floor ... not enuf room for three to do it ... with that number we usually have to go
outside to do it.  The remarkable man that accepted Ruth & I as his students ( & also daughter Pam )
... Master Yin was General Yin in the army of China under chang Kai Shek in the late l940's ... he
went through the gigantic upheaval when the Communists forced the Chang Kai shek forces from the
mainland...& a number of years later he ende up living here in Wauwatosa in Ravenswood.
He would look at Ruth ... at Ruth's eyes ... and in his broken English would always say
" Live be hundred! " In the older ways of China they culd tell very much about a person from the
structure of their eyes.  Yes, " live be hundred " sounds good ... and especially maybe happen with
daily exercise??? With daily Tai Chi?  Slow & steady & smooth ... like moving water.
But Jennie did watch us do the first 9 forms in the 108 form sequence.  Gen . Yin taught " Wu " style.
He lived to be 88 ... was buried from St. Judes ... the priests allowed me to sprinkle a small amount of
cinnamon from China on the altar whe he was in state ... a calligraphy art work of his ( & Mjrs. Yin's )
hangs on the wall here in the Spice House.  It is about being right with all the segments that we have
being in balance; being accomodated to each other correctly. His wife read it out loud here in Chinese.
Jennie & I rehang General Yin's calligrahy on the shelf next to the Oxford dictionary with the little
goat statue on it ... later I notice when outside the beautiful poster with the Russian Icon is
attached to the reverse side of the Chinese calligraphy ... the poster from the University of Chicago
Russian choir that Tom took us to hear late in the afternoon when we visitied for the Oldtown
Spice House Sundayopening.
.
Telemachos gets two good books for the price of one:  the Commentaries by Dr. Maurice Nicoll,
and Honey from a Weed, by Patience Gray.  both have to do with Greek cooking ... the first just a
little; the second quite a lot. More to come on these two books that we think very much of.
.
Phyliss buys a full cup of our Winnebago Ave. Jewish Chicken Soup Spices.  She gives me lots of uses for it; how she uses it ... different uses.  She buys a nice wedding gift box; asks me please to
replace the $ 4.95 saffron with the $ 4.95 Jewish Chicken Soup Spice, which has a good amount of
saffron in it.  Give her uses here ( Ruth as got the notes ).
.
Mary Jean sends her husband in to pick up their big  bag of allspice berries.... in his hands he has the
sweet-sour pickled beets with the allspice berries floatng on to of the delicious red red spiced liquid.
What did I taste today?  This delicious spiced preserved vegetable.  Get into allspice a little ... about its
bring taken into the cooking of the Nordic peoples .... how French dresssing is transformed into
Russian dressing simply with the addition of some powdered allspice.  Give the nifty story of the
battle of 1812 ... Moscow ... how the Russian soldier's kept awake after 3 days without sleep by
having irritating little allspice berries in their boots ... every one was starving ... there was no food ...
but in a warehouse a soldier found some filled  sack of whole allspice berries from
Jamaica ... this was in Moscow in 1812.  Why were they there?  How they are used in fishing.
.
.
 .
Wednesday, June 21, 2000.
.
What did I taste today?  What did I eat today?  Dieting: N. Lake Drive Spices on a small steak.
.
The dialog on the Tabil Spices between Telemachos & Ruth & I:  which coriander? India or Morocco ... Telemachos suggests the Morocco ... yes, O.K. but which style?  Unroasted or roasted?  We decide
to do two separate batches ... one with the roasted Morocco coriander seeds .. the other with the
unroasted Morocco coriander seeds.  Ruth & Tellemachos continue on unraveling the Tabil from
our last mixing of it ... I've misplaced the formula ... the one that Paula Wolfert sent us when she
special ordered $ 100. worth of it ... she sent a small sample of it to perhaps the 100 leading food
writers in America ... it was a great service on her part ... she introduced all these people to this
spice mixture that is at least 500 years old from the records she worked with as to authenticity of the
aromatic spice seeds which compose it mostly ... but also she brought all these people a little closer
to seeing the richness & the intricate - and healthy - sublety of the diet of this segment of the
North African cuisine ... a very healthy style of food making incidentally.  We had put up the freshly
mixed Tabil Spices in little quarter cup sparkling clear vials with nice nickel lids as the seal.
.
Yet, this is still a part of the spice birthday present for Allan Jolly from his wife Laurie ... now the
question is ... we are not too far awaay from mixing the spices together ... should we ask the Jollys.
to send up their No. 1 kitchen person to do the honorary spice mixing?  Angela.  Or should we ask
to give them the separate spices & let them all mix it together in the kitchen down there at Jollys?
.
Ruth & Telemachos have their magifying glass in high gear now ... they see mostly coriander seed, yes, but also cumin seed, fennel seed, anise seed, a little crushed red pepper, and also a seed that
they can't identify.  Ruth sez to Telemachos to set aside those mystery seeds so William can look
at them ( that's me )
.
Gisele comes in today to work from 1 until 3 ... she has been shopping with us for years ... is a
librarian ... from Chicago originally .. has a masters in library science ( just what Sarah is wanting
to be able to do )...she knows all our spices ... likes the Porto Rico Adobo especially ... gave me one
of the finest compliments I've ever had ... she said " You know, William, my Mother would have loved you ".  Her Mother has been gone now for some years.
.
A lady from San Diego comes in for a supply of Washington Highlands ... 2 full cups of it ... sez her
13 year old daughter loves it mixed into a yogurt dip ... delicious but low fat; low caalories ... really
delicious she sez ... for dipping fresh vegetables all year around ... also on baked potatoes.  Ruth
sez she might see her first name on the internet ... she sez " Please, mention my entire name, it would
be an honor " ... Mrs. D'Ambrosi, ..... Elizabeth.
.
This brings Ruth & I to thinking that maybe we should have the Washington Highlands as a Summer
Spice Special, and yes, that is what we're going to do:
.
buy a 2 cup size of Washington Highlands for $ l2.80 ( net wt. 8 oz. )
and receive a complimentary half cup of our N. Lake Drive Spices; a $ 4.95 value.
so I guess we'll have to send Mrs. D'Ambrosi a complimentary jar of N. LakeDrive now.
.
When we originally did the very first batch of Washington Highlands back in 1992, we asked the
question " what is art? " ....and when we did the very first mixing of the N. Lake Drive spices
we asked the question " what is beauty? " ... we  do a short reading for each of these two with the
young spice helpers when we mix these together  ... the N. Lake Drive reading is the chapter
The Eternal Fugitive, from Claude Bragdon's TheArch Lectures ... a first edition of a very rare book
that was sent to us by the well known Racine Wisconsin poet David Kherdian  back in 1985.
We should figure out some way to makes these readings available when one buys the spices.
The reading for the Washington Highlands is from The Book of Tea, it also came to us from David.
.
I am in the middle of placing a label order from our supplier Compulabel in Minneapols .. talking
with Kurt ... he is hoping to maybe sell some of his labels to our kids spice house operations ...
.
I quote him the line that Ruth & I use so often Kurt ..." the spice kids are maddeningly autonomous ".
.

Tuesday, June 20, 2000.
.
Jennie is now with us for a few weeks ... Corrina has gone to a Summer music school in Colorado.
.
Meredith S. phones in for a 8 jar wedding spice gift box, & of course, as it is her favorite; N. Lake Drive Spices should be one of the eight jars for sure. I ask Jennie to fill some spice jars with N. Lake Drive Spices ...  Jennie fills the jars & then adds the pretty pink peppercorns to the top of each
 jar ... 7 of them ... she asks a bunch of questions ... then we talk just
a little about the seventh sense .. the sense of apreciation.... we talk about the reading about beauty
that goes with this special spice mixture .... about the major & the minor themes in this spice blend.
.
Ruth come in with little Lucas ... he is in to give us a hand today for a bit.  We go to  the back of the
Spice House to prepare to cut cinnamon sticks ... nice thick quills of cassia vera AA long 18 inch
quills we received from Sumatra awhile back ... but the long electric extension chord needed is
missing ... ha! ... it is up at the house, where Kyle was using it for his electric painter ... so Lucas &
I go up to the house, yes, we do find it .. while there we go online to check something out on our
computer ... while I am looking through notes he is going in search of gemstones on the internet ... he
is liking alot the gemstone " malachite " these days, so he punches up malachite on a search engine
& comes up with a whole bunch of leads.  But I am thinking as he works that Billy should review
just where he is with his computer familiarity .... maybe Billy should help him get a more comfortable
set up; a private situation ... yes, very very comfortable ... this is going to be super important in his
life; in his studies ...
.
We go back down to the Spice House & do our stick cinnamon cutting .... important to use the right
type of blade; the right speed for the blade ... so as to get egdes that are " kids lips friendly " if the
blade is not right it makes a sharp jagged edge to the end of the stick of cinnamon that can cut a lip ...
.
Later I wait on a lady buying spices with her 16 year old daughter.  After awhile it seems that I become invisible to them & they talk about cooking the meal ... the Mother is trying to get the daughter to accept the role of doing the cooking at home in the kitchen one day a week ... but to do it all.  It is really a priviledge for me  to be allowed to listen to talk of this type .. it is so personal, and so
filled with content .... a Mother nurturing her daughter in the ways of things ... and what she is
trying to keep alive is one of the critical issues of our times .. to continue cooking in the kitchen & all
that that means .... the lady's name was Nafisa ... Nafisa A.
She & her daughter bought 1/4 cup amounts of cloves, shallots, Hungarian paprika, Greek oregano,
Genovese sweet basil, & parsley flakes; 1/2 cup amounts of garlic powder & Jamaican Jerk Spice;
and a full cup of the premium black Tellicherry pepper from south India; 20/30 mesh style.
.
Norma Peterson comes in with her son Francis Peterson & Louise, her daughter in law ... she lived
here in auwatosa for years but now has moved further out to Hubertus ... they joke on who is going to
buy the most spices ... they also joke about Mr. Peterson, he's gone now, being able to smell the goings
on in their kitchen now, as they have fresh spices once again.  they each buy $ 50. worth, within a
dollar of each other.  Thier favorites are English Prime Rib rub ... Walnut St. Pork Chop seasoning.
.

.
Margaret gives us her check for her double strength pure vanilla & shares with us her secrets on how
to make those really great oatmeal cookies .... secret No. 1 she covers her raisins with water & micro waves them for 10 seconds; then drains.  Secret No. 2 she uses our pure double strength vanilla extract
full strength, ... yes, she sez, where it calls for l tsp. of pure vanilla extract in the recipe, she does use
l tsp. of her double strength pure vanilla extract she buys from us ... the recipe she uses is the one on
the Quaker Oats box ... we'll give it here when we do a re write.
.
.

.
Monday, June 19, 2000.
.
The confirmation from Spain that yes, we will be getting 1,000 nice saffron flower bulbs from
La Mancha very soon.  Sharing our good fortune; Ruth & I discuss it ... we really should set aside 100 saffron bulbs for Patty & Tom to plant in their just completed Chicago Oldtown Spice House for the lovely courtyard behind the store.  Also Pam should have 100 too for planting with the kids on the
grounds of their new home in rural Wales.  And of course Billy should get 100 of these saffron bulbs for planting in his govern'or's house gardens with the home he just bought here in Wauwatosa on Menomonee River Parkway ( the Frank Lloyd Wright style Gov. Heil home built about 1950 ) ...Attempting to contact Julia Child, Paula Wolfert,
Jill Norman in London.  ... and of course 100 for here on Kavanaugh Hill to plant in a
separate patch  away from the Schwenkfelder Pa. Dutch Saffron  Bulbs .
.
Attempting to contact  Julia Child  in Cambridge, Mass. ... Paula Wolfert in San Francisco ... Patricia
Wells in Paris .... Jill Norman in London .... & John & Matt Thorne of Simple Cooking ....& Edward Behr of The Art of Cooking ........ these are old Spice House acquaintainces that are
connected to us; with us; through the rare spice saffron in one way or another.  Each is an interesting
saffron story which we can tell; share; as we get time to do it here  ... Ruth & I talk about our allottment ... those 1000 bulbs ... yes, we have to to the thing we usually do ... pass out 112 ; one to each home here on Kavanaugh Hill .... and we do need maybe 200 or so to take care of the spice
customers who purchased saffron in the shop while we have our" special" going where they get a free
saffron bulb for planting with each saffron spice purchase ... still, we figure, we can set aside a good
dozen or so for each of the well known food writers listed above .... and of course we for sure have
to save a dozen for Don & Jean Fisher of the Herb society of America ... without them we would
have never received the precious Schwenkfelder Pa. Dutch vintage saffron bulbs that started our
planting of saffron bulbs here on Kavanaugh Hill back in 1992.
.
.About our attempt to get saffron bulbs from many rare gardens all over the Earth ... to make
Kavanaugh Hill perhaps the " saffron hill " of America.
.

.
Pammy & Ruth were giving new little Lucas a bath and I was standing close by reading Julia Child's
The Way To Cook ... I was standing just outside the room where they were, looking at the reference
to Julia Child's spice mixture for pork ... p. 203, when in a flash they came out asking me to take him in his seat & please put him on the table ... I was surprised; quickly put the book down ( you'll see it's
on the far left edge of the table ) and took the " hand off " & set him down on the table top.  Ruth
quickly took this snapshot ... and they we are; my grandson Lucas William Penzey Moog and myself.
.

.
What a great picture for the entire Penzey family to be proud of.  From left to right:  Jill Prescott, the
founding chef of the Ecole du Cuisine at the American Club in Kohler Wisconsin, Dr. Frederic Austerman, the grand lady herself ( measuring out the saffron for the French Chicken Marengo w/lobster she was cooking that evening, and our daughter Patty Penzey Erd.  Tom Erd, our son-in-
law, took the photo.  It is a good story on how & daughter Patty shared the stage with Julia Child
for just a few minutes that evening.  It all started when Jill & Faye Levy came into the Spice House
& knelt down on the floor & pounded long quills of stock cinnamon into small chunks for a ......
( to be continued )
.
I phone Julia Child ... magic ... there she is on the other end of the phone line ... Billy & I are always
talking about Elvis ... TTB ... tend to business ... Elvis & Julia ... there she is answering the phone herself ... but she sez " I'm on another line talking long distance, can you call me back in 10 minutes? "
sure, no problem, I say " ... I wait 20 minutes, then call back & there she is ... I tell her about our good
fortune in - after years of trying - actually getting 1,000 saffron bulbs from La Mancha in Spain ...
and that Ruth & I will send her  a handful if this is O.K. with  her, as soon as they come in ... but I am thinking... this is a lady that has only so much energy ... how she does what she does I do not know beause I am always laying down taking a nap & I'm only 68 ... " But am I making work for you here? Planting saffron bulbs is work ... yes, but Ruth & I have some set aside for you if you want them "
" Yes, I do want them she says emphatically ... I can plant  some here in the garden, ... also I have
friends I'd like to share some with .. please be sure to put in good instructions with them for planting;
for how to tend to them, water them, etc. "  " Sure will, no problem " I reply.  I tell her that I am
writing, that I am putting my daily spice entries in a sort of journal each day.  " Good. " she says.
How she even remembers me I do not know ... it has been four years since we talked last ... but then
... at that time .. she encouraged me to write ... try to write about spices ... as we had exchanged letters ... that is mostly me doing the writing & her being gracious enough to acknowledge them.  How is it the highest people seem to have the most manners?   Those few really on the top? But she read enuf of
my letter writting to know where I was coming from; what I was trying to do ..we talked about our kids a bit and what Ruth & I were hoping for them & what our role might be in helping it happen.
We have some really wonderful pictures of her with our kids ... will post them here soon.
.
I hadn't thought of it at first, but while I was waitingto phone her back, it ocurred to me that maybe
I sshould ask her for her permission to post that marvelous letter she sent me about Dione Lucas.
What a letter; it mut have taken her hours to formulate it.  I knew she was on good terms with the
late Dione Lucas back in the early 1970's ... ( Paula Wolfert actually studied with Dione Lucas in
New York City in the early 50's ) ...
.
there was an occassion when Patty & Tom were giving a talk on spices used in French cooking in
America to the Culinary Historians of Chicago ... and I did ask Julia Child ifs he might set down on
paper her memories of Dione Lucas that Patty & Tom might read to; share with; the audience there
in Chicago with these serious students of food.  Dione Lucas, as many of you know, was, in a
sense, the grand lady before Julia Chcild in b ringing French cooking into American homes .. this was in the late 1940's ... Dione Lucas had a cooking school going on TV in New York City at the time .. in that day the TV sets were big   big pieces of box like furniture .. I remember when my adopted
Father, Mr. Salentine, won one in a contest selling alot of lift trucks for Lewis-Shepard Company of Boston ... and the screen was perhaps 8 inches in size.  Dione Lucas was different in that she studied
with a mystic philosopher who attracted many artists & writers & dancers in New York City ... so she
was into a world that usually food people are not in ... I've always liked the way artists look at things
... and here at the Spice House we've tried to mix in these ways of looking at spices into our spice
blending ... such as the way the artist William Segall uses the word " luminosity " to approach
the qualities that colors seem to possess ... that, it so happens, spices & herbs possess this quality
too .... luminosity ... and it describes this important life aspect; their power, in a way that is not
usually measured ... mostly overlooked .. so I was drawn to Dione Lucas.  She was trained in the
Cordon Bleu School, as was Julia Child, as was Paula Wolfert, as was Richard Sax .. but it was this
artist approach; even more; an artist appproach with this earnest humiity ... " when you take food
you are receiving an honored guest " ... about tasting; really tasting.  And Dione Lucas loved to teach
little children to cook ... little children ... she had a special time each week for them in her cooking classes there at her famous restaurant in New York City .... I started out going to art school ... the
well known Layton School of Art that was just across the street from George Watt's beautiful glassware shop here in Milwaukee on N. Jefferson Street.  It had been the old St. Paul's Church
before two grand ladies; Charlotte Partridge & Miriam Frink turned it into their art school. This was
in 1950, and I remember when I paid my tuition, Mr. & Mrs. Salentine & young David & I went to
the Pfister Hotel to dine that evening ... it was really elegant, and still is of course.  That's where I
got Dinah Shore's authograph, there in the lobby of the Pfister, & how gracioius she was to me.
.
I asked Julia Child if she might approve of my putting her letter  about Dione Lucas on our web  site
here .... gosh she is on top of it ... always thinking in large patterns ... " Well, you know I don't seem
to recall the details of that letter, yes, I recall the letter.  I tell you what, please FAX me a copy of it
and I'll let you know " and then she gave me her FAX number.
.
But I had mislaid the letter ... like I say, I hadn;t really planned on asking her about this ... it just
struck me as I waited to phone her back.  but in thinking about this letter ... I recall it's quite
personal nature ... and it's poignant nature ... maybe it is too personal to be a public letter ... we'll
see what she has to say about it ... but perhaps she'll O.K. our posting of the letter I wrote to her
asking her to write her memories of Dione Lucas.  there's some  good stuff in that letter too.
.
.  Finishing the Powers spice order .... making a fresh new batch of the delicious
Rocky Mountain Seasoning ... examining the best way to do this spice mixture given the delicate
nature of the green peppers of any kind; sweet or hot, in spice compounding.  How to do it best.
.
Two nice comments in the mail from spice customers ... maybe post?
.
Post the two secrets of that lady with the very well received oatmeal cookies.
.
.
Sunday, June 18, 2000.
.
Spices in Japan.   Michio & Aveline Kushi & the Penzeys. Billy is flying from Korea to Tokyo & we
have a talk on the phone about Japanese ideas about spices.  Should he visit a Macrobiotic food shop
while in Tokyo?  About collecting stamps or collecting coins.  About destiny.  About the Jewish word
beshert.
 It is Father's Day.  Pam drops in with Lucas & we do the Tai Chi ... a alittle bit ... out in the
parking lot of the Spice House.  Lucas asks for a bottle of his favorite spiced sugar ... the one he & the
girls helped to first make up a few years ago.
.
 Nick drops in:  what did I taste today?  Nick's gumbo
for one thing.  Delicious with a tiny little green tea taste that I can't quite put my finger on.  Nick also
does the Tai Chi with me.  Later on towards closing Corrina comes in with her sister Kate ... they are
wanting to put together a special Father's Day Spice gift for their Dad ... sweet curry powder, Ruth
Ann's Pepper Lemon, Jamaican Jerk, & a little crystalised ginger, also a compack disc of music:
Mad About Baroque, Orpheus; Pinnocle; Sollscher. $ 10.99
It is 5 pm but Corrina & Kate both come outside & do a couple of minutes of Tai Chi with me.
Good day for me & Tai Chi .... 5 different people to do it with me.  About the rationale for doing
Tai Chi at the Spice House.  Why?
..
Blending a batch of our rich in celery seed taste " Wauwatosa Village Seasoning ".
.
My Father's Day meal ... boy have I got a good thing coming up!  But also I'm going to make
" date cakes " for Ruth.  How she loves her dates ... and I didn't know the first 40 years!
.
.
Saturday, June 17, 2000.
.
" Love of consciousness brings the same in return. "  The small white hand written sign  behind the counter has these words on it.  We lock the Spice House door together; it is about 8 pm, I look around & say to Ruth " You know I just never get used to this place ... all the stuff that goes on in
 here.  Isn't it something?  " Yes, she says, I know what you mean.  I don't get used to it either. "
As we leave I take a few India coriander seeds to chew on; Ruth does too ... but she takes the
roasted ones; the India ... later she sez it seems the roasting has taken the lemony edge off the India
variety; so that it is more like the Morocco coriander.  We have a bit of talking to do, as we have to
blend more of our Doorstep Mulling Spices, which is a mixture of 4 parts coriander seed; 2 parts
China Tung Hing cassia cinnamon; and l part Zanzibar cloves.  We have to talk out which coriander
we should use here;  also what is its purpose here?  Is it for children?  Then which coriander?
.
   Yes, I am often asking the question on a daily basis " what did I taste
today ", as I am a spice compounder, and you might like to be with me invisibly as I go about my work.  But also I should start asking the question " what did I eat today? " as this too, as you might
imagine, most times has to do with spices & aromatic seeds & other aromatics; herbs, etc.  So O.K.,
what did I eat today?  What am I eating today?  Two things I am eating; first we have the chicken
breasts seasoned with our Greek Festival Chicken Spice, even at this very moment the pan is
simmering with seasoned chicken breasts ... Telemachos started them yesterday, but we ran out of
time, so I put the entire fry pan with the seasoned chicken breasts in it, into the freezer overnight.
Now Ruth & I will have them in a short while.  We are doing this today to walk through the recipe;
method that Helen L. gave us yesterday.
.
Once again Ruth brings Pam's vindaloo; & once again I forget to cook up the rice; just eat it warmed.
But the second thing I am eating today is a delicious plate of vindaloo that daughter Pam cooked up
in a spice teaching demonstration given  at the Lake Front last night for the Asian Moon Festival.  Ruth took care of the kids while Pam went down to do the teaching ... Ruth sez there were two separate classes given ... the first was a full house; the second was just about a full house.  Often
 Pam will send some warm food home with Ruth for me when Ruth baby sits ........ the
other night it was these marvelous " shrimp kebobs " on long 6 inch wooden kebob sticks; shrimp
alternating with fresh pineaple chunks; the shrimp seasoned with a combination of spices & herbs;
something like our Cajun Spice mixture, with maybe a little Italian herbs mixed with it.  Just delicious;
really delicious; there were maybe a  dozen of these kebobs on sticks all wraped up nice in plastic
wrap.  These were not from a spice cooking class, but rather from the workings of the effort done
on one of the niftiest food catalogs you'll see today in America ... the one put out by our kids for
their " Penzeys Spices " spice house.  One of the really strong features of this spice effort is the
inclusion of lots & lots of seasonal recipes calling for particular spices or herbs or mixtures ... and
if you follow this catalog ( it is done on a seasonal basis ) you will begin to notice there is one set
of warm & friendly feminine hands you will always see in the photos doing the cooking or food
preparing.  Well, these are the hands of our daughter Pam.  They also play the piano ... Pam just got
a really good deal on a baby grand piano through E-Bay ... saved at least a thousand dollars ... and
when she got it she phoned our message recording answering machine at our Spice House here on
Kavanaugh Hill and played into it a    15 minute rendition of a Mozart piece.  Every so often I have
to clear my messages off the tape; but when I get to her piano playing; I just sit down and listen to it
all over again.  Can anyone erase a telephone call saved on tape like this?
.
The other thing about when Pam does the spice selection cooking for their Penzeys Spices catalog
is that there is alot of good looking food displayed in the pages of their color catalog.  You might
wonder just what happens to all that good looking food after the photos are taken?  Well, I guess I get
 my share of it.    Ruth does too of course,  the spicy Vindaloo was from the spice cooking lessons;
but the shrimp kebobs were from the spice cooking in the Penzeys Spices catalog that Pam sent me.
.
Today: blending hot curry powder, celery salt, Chicago Oldtown Spiced Sugar, Herbes duProvence.
.
I finish the Herbes du Provence just in time.  A lady is asking for it as she is wanting to prepare this
new seemingly delicious recipe  for seasoned pork loin, which calls for this French herb mixture along with a celery seed
style seasoning sort of like our Wauwatosa Village Spices, and which also calls for whipping cream.
She has a large gathering coming up in a month; six pork loins required; and she confides to Ruth
that she is going to cook her husband this new treat ... while also checking it out for the dinner party.
This she is going to make him special for Father's Day tomorrow.  How lucky this man is to be used
as it appears he is ... as a test run recipient.  It is a wonderful thing to have a good woman.  Sometimes
it gets a little peculiar; hard to figure; fathom; interpret; but a meal is a meal is a meal.
.
Tom the Wauwatosa Fire Inspector comes in to get his favorite Historic Third Ward Italian Pepper Garlic Spices ( he just got his other favorite " Downer Avenue " awhile back ) ... he tells Ruth that he
recently inspected the removal of the two very large fuel oil underground tanks from the Governor Heil property here in Wauwatosa that son Billy just recently bought.  Looks like a nice job of removal;
no problems; passed inspection O. K.  but he tells Ruth of some situations like this where the tank had
rusted; eroded; the oil had been going into the earth around the tank saturating the soil ... he knows of
one case where the clean up expense ran into actually over a hundred thousand dollars.  He tells Ruth
of another case where a man surreptitiously took the large oil tank out himself ... not wanting to let the
EPA hear about it ... he flushed all the fuel oil down the toilet of his home and it ended up backing
up the sewers in front of his property, wherein the Wauwatosa Fire Department had to be called in
to flush everything away ... there was an investigation as to where all this fuel oil came from ... well,
it wasn't hard to figure out, and this man got a very heavy fine from the EPA.  But he says Billy's
oil drums; tanks; were in still nice condition when removed; inspected.  No problems.  Quite a house
Tom sez ... he sees Billy is putting quite a bit of money into too, which is good, he sez, as the house
had been let go a bit.
.
The lady is standing at the counter as I come out from the back, and Ruth tells me she is a baker.
We talk about using the little petite Bourbon Isles vanilla bean that is in her bottle of double strength
vanilla extract; drop it in a container of skim milk and it will give a very nice smooth roundedness
with a faint vanilla niceness & take the ugly edge of this milk ... she sez she may use it even in a
quart of regular milk . she just  can't drink milk & she knows she should drink it,  maybe this will help.
.
.
The guests from New York ..." Start Spreading the News ". Is that , perhaps, a New York City accent?
I do my pretty good Frank Sinatra imitation & bring down the " Little Italy NYC Herbs " jar.
.
Paula brings back Paula Wolfert's Mediterranean Grains  book ... we talk about sumac .. sour to prevent  sour.  We bring down the large jar of the deep purple coarse textured powder with ground
sumac berries in it .. give her just a tiny sample to take home.  We taste it together; the sour tart taste.
Function:  it was used to provide a pleasing acidity to soups & broths for centuries, then the lemon
came along & took it's place.  The fusing together of, once again, a function with beauty of taste.
The function of the sourness was to prevent the chicken soup from turning sour; spoiling, so fast.
.
A couple  in Love.  Dr. Lausten does the spice marriage ceremony reading.  We cap up the spice
jar with the air in it containing little sparkling molecules; atoms; of a man & woman in love.
The mixing of the Chicago Oldtown Spiced Sugar while Dr. Lausten does the reading.
.
What did I taste today?  I bring out the four different bowls of coriander seeds from yesterdays doings
to taste with Ruth today:  Morocco coriander seed, straight from the sack; and also roasted ... and the
India coriander seeds, straight from the sack; and also roasted.  Ruth &I go to the door to hold the seeds in the nice seemingly extra rich sunlight here near the end of the day ... the roasted seeds seem
to have taken on a luminosity & a more detailed definition.  They seem to have become more.
.
 .

Friday, June 16, 2000.
.
About Rupena's & the two basic styles of good seasoning that small butcher shops all across America
have as their " house spice mixtures " that they  sprinkle directly on the just cut  meat right there at the wrapping if you'd like this done.  Old World Third Street Seasoning ....... English Prime Rib Rub.
.( more to follow about these two delicious mixtures ).
.
Helen L. comes in  for more Greek Festival Chicken Spices; 2 cups of it; with her daughter, twelve year old Renee.  Renee does the filling of their spice bottles while I take notes on how Helen makes
 her delicious Greek style chicken.  ( complete notes on her recipe; method to follow here ).
.
Lee Aschoff tells me to say hello to Patty & Tom in Chicago.  He has been asked now to become the
managing editor of Reminisce Magazine, which happens to be one of Ruth's favorite magazines.
Lee was the food editor of the Milwaukee Sentinel for a few years; in our opinion was one of the
finest food writers in America.  He remarks how much he likes the work of  Jill Norman  & her spice
writing.  I take him in back & show him her address in London ... they are two exceptional talents &
should get to know each other.  We talk about the last book of Elizabeth David, which Jill helped to
get published after her death ... and what a piece of literature it is ... Harvest of the Cold Months.
I have to write her & ask her permission to post some of Elizabeth David's smaller spice pieces to our
web site here .... esp. the saffron article from The Spectator in 1969 that Jill was nice enough to send a
copy of to Ruth.  It is where we learned of the lovely old English custom of using a 6 D. coin as a sort
of measuring device to portion out enough saffron threads for 4 servings; rice, paella; pilaf, coffe cake.
This coin is no longer in circulation in England; but when Billy was in London he visited a coin shop
& was able to bring back two dozen of them for us Penzeys & acquaintances.  Later we found that the
American penny is exactly the same size ... which is why we  place a penny in each bottle of saffron.
Carefully pinch out enough saffron threads to cover the face of the coin; this is about the correct
amount for four servings ... if you count them you should have between 30 to 40 threads.
saffron prices:  new crop coupe grade: l gram ... $ 5.95
new crop superior grade: l gram ... $ 4.95
Both very good Spanish saffron we buy directly from the saffron farm.  One gram is about 300 threads, which is a supply that will last for ten meals for four people each time.
.
About the  Jill Norman  Spice Book.  It is one of the better spice books.  We had it for $ 14.95 paperback or $ 24.95 hardbound.  But I'll think we're out of stock ... we'll have to order more copies.
It was an unusual spice book in that it contains very much  detailed information about mixing spice
combinations from different parts of the Earth; Ethiopian berbere, etc.  And the art work is beautiful.
.
.
.
 Tabil Spices.  How we learned about this Moorish spice mixture from  Paula Wolfert.
.
One of the finest chefs in our area is Allan Jolly of Jolly's Restaurant.  Ruth & I used to go to his first
restaurant on W. National Ave. some 20 years ago for his famous fried chicken.  Well, he just turned 50 last Tuesday, and his wife Laurie came in to ask me what I thought a man like him might like in the way of spices.  From waiting on him when he buys his spices, I see that he has a bit of an artistic bent.
I would have suggested the Tabil Spices, but for some reason Laurie herself was drawn to it. There were a couple of other spice items that Laurie wanted included, and which we did ... especially the pepper students pepper mill with different peppercorns .......  but this is the story of the Tabil Spices
and how we ended up getting them into a nice spice gift box, and taken over to his kitchen just down
the road a little here on Kavanaugh Hill.
.
I said to Telemachos, " You know Laurie Jolly is expecting you this afternoon with those Tabil Spices
she ordered for Allan's; Mr. Jolly's, birthday.  so we are going to be busy today,yes, & Ruth is off cuz
she has full day duty with the grandchildren as they are out of school for the Summer ... but you & I have to get this done.  Laurie even wrote your name down ... asked me how to spell it ... so she is
going to be looking for you ".  " No problem. " he replies.
" But, wouldn't you know it; I've misplaced the formula.  The blend is pretty much sweet coriander
seed as the base of it, I know that for sure ... but we'll have to do  some study work here to figure
out the other part of the spice mixture besides the sweet coriander seed.
Yes, we have a little in the jar, and she  wanted to take that with her, but I was able to talk her out of
it, beause I want for him to have really fresh stuff; and there are a couple of spice wrinkles; spice
options, in this  spice mixture that I would like to present to him for his consideration. "
We walk over to where the two giant deep blue volumes of our Oxford English Dictionary sit in their
case.  On top of the case is a small four inch metal casting of a goat; painted in bright colors; it is
actually from a revolutionary period early American mould ... from rural Pennsylvania; Ruth & I
bought it in some antique shop.  It has sat there for years now.  It reminds us of Paul Beidler, the
man who accepted Ruth & I as his students for his special school.  He was like a vigilant mountain
goat; seriously watching his students; not too much fooling around allowed ... I ask Telemachos to
pull out one of the volumes, it is very heavy & he does; he is surprised at their weight ... then even more surprised when he opens the book and sees such tiny printing that even he, at his young age,
cannot read it ... too tiny.  " Yes, Telemachos.  these two volume cost $ 400. just this way ...if you
bought them in regular print, there would be some 8 or 10 volumes, and they would cost $ 2,500.
Years ago we bought four sets like this from Verbatim quarterly, a word magazine.  the editor, Lawrence Urdang, also sold all kinds of dictionaries, so we bought one set for each of our kids @ $ 400. each ... our kids were excellent students at Wauwatosa East; in fact all graduated early, and they required a good dictionary for their studies;  and if you might please look inside the little
drawer at the top; just over where the books fit in. "  Telemachos is surprised as he didn't even see
the little drawer there a minute ago.  He slides the drawer open; it sticks a bit; but he does get it open.
As he pulls it out; he is more surprised; inside is a very nifty, obviously expensive, magnifying glass!
" Yes, Telemachos, this is what you use to read the fine print with.  But for our purposes today, we are going to borrow this magnifying glass to help us study the little bit of Tabil Spices that is left here
from my last batch of Tabil Spices, so that we can
calculate what other spices are required in addition to the sweet coriander seed.  Please ... take this
large sheet of white paper, go by the table there, and put a cupful ofthe Tabil Mixture on it; spread it out; then
start to study it with the magnifying glass ... we should be able to come up with the spice formula.
This is what is called the " working backwards style of spice compounding ". He is smiling not
knowing if I am serious or if I am making humor.  He goes to do this; the store gets very busy today,
and later we take stock of where we are with this spice project ... it is getting late in the day.
.
Finally we get a little break; I take out the large caste iron frying pan ..." you know Telemachos, you
ask alot of questions about roasting spices; how to do it; why to do it; when to do it; but you should
really ask, as the first question ... what type of a frying pan to do it in!"  Here ... we'll use this black
cast iron large skillet ... we should consider  doing the Tabil Spices two ways ... one in roasted style;
the other in not roasted style; with just nice clean sweet coriander seeds as they come from a reputable
source in Morocco.  But they should be properly dried.  If they are dried right; then the  flavor will be
good.  If they are not dried right; then we will have to roast them; not to develop richer flavor; but just
to make them have the proper amount of moisture in the first place.  And also to maybe kill the germs.
Maybe too much water in seeds is not so healthy ... so always buy good aromatic seeds; not cheap ones. "  He starts to roast the seeds; first we put into the black iron pan the little tiny round Morocco
coriander seeds; he starts the process of roasting them ... he is looking, looking, stirring, tasting ...chewing a sample up as he goes along ... this is good.  A customer comes in the store & I go to wait
on him ... a quick spice sale .... a small jar of Brady Street Cheese Sprinkle ...  I come back into the
little kitchen ... Telemachos says he thinks it is done now .... the smoke is coming off of the sweet
coriander seeds ... I pull them off the fire ... " No, no Telemachos, they are burned ... never never should there be smoke when you roast spices. " they aren't that bad ... but they do have that popcorn taste ... when roasted spices start to taste like popcorn; have that little burnt edge, then you've gone
too far, they should just taste very delicious as, say, coriander seeds.  But we settle for these, they're
O.K., passable ... then we half full the black caste iron frying pan with the other style of coriander
seeds; the sweet lemony tasting coriander seeds from India.  Ruth jokes, sez, the Morroco seeds are
little baseballs; but the India seeds are little footballs, and yes, if you look closely, the India seeds are
little oblong seeds, yes, they do look like little footballs.  There is a diffeent color too; the India are
lighter, more golden looking.  I sez to Telemachos, please, sit down & copy this little note that I've
written to Mr. Jolly about the Tabil Spices on the backof this letter, please do this while I roast the
India style coriander seeds.  The letter was one from about 1994 or 1995 that we received from
 Catherine Brandel ... she was helping Paula Wolfert cook Tunisian foods at the Chez Panesse in
Berkely, Catherine lived in Berkely, was a chef-instructor at the Culinary Institute of America in
Greystone, California at the time.  She was writing to get some of the same style Tabil Spices we had
mixed especially for Paula Wolfert according to her specific spice formula ....
( to be continued )
.
For Andrew's Mom ... Nepaul prayer flags .... he is going to climb mountains there ... she comes in for
her husbands 4 full cup supply of our Sicilian Steak Spice.  Patty.
.
Maria from Copy Boy print shop across the street  comes in for some turmeric on her lunch hour; has time to read aloud the nice chapter from The Book of Tea ... art appreciation ... with Telemachos in
back while I wait on spice trade in front.  He had to work all day yesterday at Eddie Martini's so
he missed Sarah's reading of it then.  I quickly click on the India flute music as a backround that
Mani ( our Brahmin spice helper ) had graciously brought in ... he & his wife.  Mani's wife is a medical
doctor in our area, but can she cook the most delicious Indian food!  Their son Mahesh helped Ruth
& I one Christmas time.  Once he sang a Hindu prayer over our India food his Mom had brought in .
.
Bob & his wife Pat, both from Texas, are in buying spices, & inquire about a " Chipoltle Pepper Salt ".
O.K., the store is empty, I call Telemachos out from his roasting of the coriander seeds for the Tabil
Spices for Allen Jolly's 50th birthday present from his wife ... we let the lady do the leading here ...
she directs us as we add the lush smoky deep red Chipolltle powder to the large flake salt crystals ...
how much pepper?  ... hmmm ... maybe a little bit more yet she sez a number of times ... at the end
it is a beautiful rose color, and very attractive texture ... we all close our eyes to taste " the smokey
part of the Chipoltle is what I taste first " I say ... " yes, me too, says Pat, and then I taste the salt and
last I taste the heat " .... yes, sez Telemachos.  " Telemachos I say, please .. tell us about the heat ..."
He reflects for a minute .... " It starts at the tip of my tongue, then works its way    down the middle
of my tongue; then seems to come to rest on the back of my tongue.  It isn't like other peppers that
sort of make the whole mouth hot. "  Very nice observations.
" Tortilla soup; scrambled eggs; & especially beef barbecue "  sez Bob as looks at Pat.
She sez raw fries ( with skins left on ) chunky style.
.
Chipoltle smoky red pepper powder: 1/2 cup amt, net wt. 2 oz.    $ 3.95
Chipolte smoky red pepper powder & pure flake salt: 1/2 cup amt, net wt 3 oz.  $ 2.98
.
.
Later when the spice customers have left, we talk for a few minutes about trying to get the spice
customers to like you.  One thing is to always let the spice customer get the last sentence in ... let
them get the last word in.  This is alot more difficult than you might think.  We seem to be on
automatic that it is always " can you top this" as the old radio program used to be called.
Telemachos smiles.  Especially with recipes; we always want to add one after we've heard one.
.
.
.
 Thursday, June 15, 2000.
.
A number of good spice entries today , but first I should go back to what I left out from yesterday.
.
A lady had phoned in requesting the labels to be posted from our Wedding Spice Gift Box.  I am a
day late but here they are; plus I'll have a little backround on this material later.
Also from yesterday
I don't want to  forget about Corrina taking the book with the cracked cassia cinnamon chunks in it
across to Suzette, our new actress neighbor lady . This is the book with the mateiral on the study of
negative emotions, and we consider it to be one of the most important aspects of what Ruth & I do;
attempt to do ...we want keep alive our Spice House, yes, but also this study of how can we say it?
The study of how we can make it possible to get along with one another  ...
 ... so we like this kind of book.  It is an important book because first we have to get along .... second
comes what we might be able to do in life; with our life; but first we have to get along.  The book
 is connected to cinnamon in a sort of interesting way.
.
   Also Ruth sees another rainbow; stops the car just off the highway & phones me to share it with me.
 She sez it seems to come to the Earth; it's east side .... about on Kavanaugh Hill.
What do you make of this, I ask her?  " Well, I think ........... "   ( to be continued )
.
.
.
Whole Nutmegs
Old European tradition is so
long as there is a whole,
sound nutmeg in the kitchen
the marriage will be sound
and happy!
.
Candied Ginger Pieces
" Please to remember .... a pinch of ginger
every day to keep the heart warm "
   .....from the Arabian Nights.
.
Whole Rosemary leaves
The herb of lovers since at
least the time of Shakespeare.
Signifies love, trust, and
remembrance.
" I pray thee love, remember. "
.
Cassia Buds ... Twins
An old Oriental custom is to give
 cassia bud twins to a couple to be
married.  Signifies two coming
together as one in loving
spiritual harmony.
.
Pure genuine Saffron
The highest spice & always
given to brides in Kashmir in northern India
 as saffron is the ancient symbol of
renunciation.
Defined as the beautiful altho very
 difficult trait of renouncing those
 automatic responses in all of us that
seem to stop us from doing higher things
 & seem to deteriorate our relationships
with one another.  To accept
the unpleasant manifestations
of others would be a good example
of the old India
spirit of renunciation.
.
.
About dancing on fresh
green rosemary leaves
in the provence of
Salentine in Italy.
As told to me when I was young
by the fine man who adopted me
and in a sense turned me into
the man I was to become.
David Salentine.
Poignant tradition in the
province of Salentine on the
south coast of Italy is
where the  dance floor is
strewn with fresh rosemary;
the bridge & groom then
remove their slippers &
dance the first  dance;
just the two of them alone;
looking into each others
eyes with the rosemary
acting out its effect of
earnestness. just the
two of them
dancing barefoot.
the others join in the dancing
then too.  Later the
rosemary
is collected & saved in a
special vessel; for use in
special meals; only very
special meals ......
and also for
dancing on again;
as required by circumstances;
where & when regeneration
is required.
...
This tale is also mentioned in the
excellent book by Patience Gray;
Honey from a Weed.
A classic book about the
old Mediterannean cooking.
If you can find it, get
the copy with the
introduction by
John Thorne.
.
Put in here the dialog on MSG and memory; also the ancient Greek mystery schools & rosemary &
memory.
.
More from Thursday, June 15.
.
the Cooking School Lady, Karen Maihofer, comes in and gets all the Spice House helpers to sign up for her classes because they are so interesting ( she also buys $ 50 of our best cinnamon & vanilla )..  She gets 900 cooking students each year to come into
her small personal cooking school ... Ruth tells her about Billy buying Gov. Heil's lovely rambling
home here in Wauwatosa ... she sez " gosh, you know I've been in that house!  My Father was a
vice-president for the Heil Co. and I  remember going there to parties when I was young. "  Ruth has
a warm spot for Karen cuz she has a nice single daughter & we have a nice single son.
She leaves some of her pretty yellow brochures sitting there on top of the shiny blue hundred pound
Morocco coriander seed sack.  Creative Cuisine.  Karen Maihofer.  P. O. Box 17064, Millwaukee,
WI.  53217.  (414) 352-0975.  Ask for her 2000 Spring & Summer classes yellow brochure.
.
More about Greek Festival .... a lady comes in & buys two spice bottles filled with it ... one for the meal, & the other to give to their guests .... and they ask every time!.
.
Two old couples .... one from Wauwatosa, the other from Seattle ... taking our Ethnic Milwaukee
Seasonings back to Seattle.
.
10,000 flint glass sparkling clear spice bottles arrive for us in a big  truck.  But we're ready; Ruth has
got Corrina, Sarah, Patrick, & young Ben all on hand ready to go.  Yes, it happens; it gets done ...
and then the reward... the lunch over at the warm, elegant, Jolly's Restaurant.
.
Sarah is going to Japan to teach English ... we bring out the book that David Kherdian helped us get
for our spice House library some nearly twenty years ago now ... the Book of Tea ... the book that
Frank Lloyd Wright liked so much ... we ask Sarah if she might do the reading for us all to listen to
about Japanese art; about maybe what art really is & what must be  done in the way of payment to
be visited by this rare guest ... Sarah reads the story; tells the story; into a tape machine ... so that
when she is in Japan, we will still be able to listen to her telling the story of Piwoh & the magic
harp & the trees of lungmen .... from the chapter " Art Appreciation ".  Dale Hitte of 'Tosa
East first read this story aloud in the Spice House years ago when the first batch of the then new
Wasshington Highlands Seasoning was mixed ... we all reach over & take a tiny pinch from the
Washington Highlands jar .... because of our " continuity spice mixing " he is still here with
us; listening as Sarah reads it this time.
.
Billy calls from Hong Kong.  Christine finishes sifting the ginger.
.
For tomorrow:  blending hot curry powder, Wauwatosa Village Seasoning, Herbes du Provence.
 .
.
Wednesday, June 14, 2000.
.
Lots of spice stuff today.  Ruth had the grand-kids all day so I took the store by myself ... Corrina came in to help for the afternoon.
.
Nancy Cavanaugh from next door comes in to tell me she has our candied ginger shipment from Australia.  Our Buderim ginger was delivered to her by mistake.
.
Connie Hawkins comes in for a big bottle of pure vanilla.  She was our kids art teacher at Wilson
30 years ago.  I forget to ask her about the barter:  a drawing of our beautiful Campersdown elm
for some Spice House spices?  some Spice House vanilla?
.
A lady comes in and says she is looking for 3 threads of saffron;  all she wants is 3 strands.. her
recipe just  calls for 3 threads .... we have a good dialog aobut saffron ....
put this complete dialog down here as I get time .....
.
Two ladies come in for spices; one is from Mexico, she asks for that special style of stick cinnamon
her Mother would use ... the one  with the thin parchment like tightly rolled bark quills.
.
The next lady comes in with her three little girls ... could they please have a stick of cinnamon?
The Mother buys some Historic Third Ward Italian Pepper-Garlic Spices .... I offer the little
girls their stick of cinnamon, but then it becomes obvious that the littlest one is left handed.
About the chulias of south India.  I ask the older of the three to please take a paper & pencil
( both nearby ) and write down this name ... chulias ... they were the caste of south India that
were the cinnamon harvesters; the cinnamon workers; and they were all left handed.
I quickly take the jar of the thin parchment like tightly rolled bark quills ... the Ceylon soft
stick cinnamon, Colombo Fines OOOOO grade ( meaning 5 layers inserted one inside of
another like little pipes ... this is the thinest, finest flavored of the grades; there is also
4/0, 3/0 ... there are two basic styles too ... H2 and M5?  something like this ) ..
We talk about the meaning of the word " caste ", the Mother & her little girls & myself.
Corrina comes out of the back at this moment ... she asks about who the chulias were?
I ask the little girl to explain it all to Corrina, which she does very nicely .. then we get a
5 inch length of the Ceylon stick cinnamon out of the jar for the smallest little girl ..
or rather she takes it out for herself.
.
Two ladies come in for a bunch of spices ... they talk about making notes at the start of the day
to organize their day ... the one sez if she makes notes like this she gets twice as much done ...
the other is impressed & sez she is  going to start making notes too. ... they both buy a half cup
bottle of our Chicago Oldtown Spiced Sugar ... I look at their demeanors ... can I ask them to read
the poem Desiderata, which we do sometimes when we mix up the Chicago Oldtown Spiced Sugar?
Yes, I think it will fly.  The note taker is a little surprised ... but goes along with it just to be
courteous ... then as her lady friend continues to read it starts to affect her ... " Always there will
be greater & lesser than yourself ... if you compare yurself with others you will become vain "
... " the world is full of trickery, but let this not blind you to what virtue there is ... many
persons strive for high ideals "  ... " treat yourself   gently; you are a child of the Universe no less
than the sun and the stars  ".  We first read this poem; saw it actually, in Chicago's Old Town
back in the late 1960's when we would take our kids doown there cuz it was all a marvelously
electric; even florescent day glow electric ... hippie street.  Patty was only 12 at the time, she
was making quarters working at the Spice House then, a little here or there ... but she did  save
her quarters.  She saw the poem on the wall there in a hippie shop ... she bought a parchment
copy of it with her quarters one day there in Chicago's Old Town.
.
A younger lady; bright & witty; tells me how much she is enjoying the pure beef extract she bought
with the free tomato powder that is thrown in ( buy a $ 14.95 pure beef extract; receive a free
$ 395 tomato powder ).  she is adding them together for a delicious beef and tomato soup.  She
adds maccaroni & peas ... it surprised her because it brought back memories of the exact same
delicious smell she loved as a girl when her grade school teacher in Calgary, Alberta   would make
the kids her home made beef & tomato soup.  She sez funny thing about memories; mostly she gets
memories from tastes; but this time it is with smells ... she  tells me & two other ladies how
she has this hallucination experience of smelling chicken soup every once in awhile ... she sez
she knows that the use of that word is funny like this ... but what other word is there to describe
the phenomena?  We discuss " taste visualization " ... yes, she sez, but's that is when you bring
it on yourself.  " True, I say.  Now you've got me thinking.  Was your Mother Jewish, I say? "" Ha!, she sez,that's it! I tell everyone I was switched in the nursery; and also my daughter is a real goy! ".
.
Roxanne comes in for a fresh supply of Historic Third Ward Italian Pepper-Garlic.  I ask if
Nick is back from Holland where he was helping to cook in an Indian Restaurant?  Yes, he's back.
Nick helped us out for a few Chirstmas seasons .. he loves to cook ... is Italian, but unfortunately
he is  taken with these new fangled ideas about low fat cooking, etc.  He could really grind
black pepper; was the fastest spice worker we every had. I tell Roxanne to tell Nick that
Dominic Frinzi's grand son is helping us out a little part time.  Mr. Frinzi ran for governor once
here in Wisconsin & made quite a showing, got 1/3 of the vote as a third party candidate.  A
friend of mine, Sam Cianciolo, helped in his campaign ... Sam's brother was the pretty good
Milwaukee boxer who fought under the name Tony Martin ... he fought in the largest ever
attendance boxing fight ... held here in Milaukee at the Lake front, when he boxed
either Jake LaMotta or Tony Zale ( or was it Rocky Graziano? ) in front of 200,000 people.
It was free & it was an exhibition. In 1943 I think.
.
An older couple come in for a half pound of our Chip Dip Seasoning.  This blend goes back more
than 30 years.  They say, you know, we tried to get this mixture at your kids store in Brookfield,
but they say they don't carry it.  The man is 80; his wife is about 70 or 75, and they look pretty
good.  " Yes, I say, this is a  blend from the old  days; it does have a little MSG in it; l0% or so ...
the kids, Billy & Pam, or Pam. & Billy, decided to not handle any blends with MSG in it.  Ruth
& I decided to keep the blends we had from the old  days just the way they were; but not to use
it in new blends.  "
.Chip Dip Seasoning is really delicious in   yogurt; low fat sour cream; even in real sour cream.
Use l or 2 teaspoons per l cup container; very tasty on celery stalks, carrots.  half cup jar $ 2.98
.
Laurie Jolly comes in for a spice birthday present for her  husband ... Allan turned 50 just yesterday.
I tell her about the Peppercorn Study kit with the beautiful heavy lucite peppermill that goes with
it .. and all the samples of  different style of black & white peppercorns ... and the backround
printouts about black pepper from about 12 sources ... she likes the idea alot as Allan is still a
student; a learner; even tho his is one of the best chefs around the Milwaukee area;  they opened
their " Jolly's Restaurant" here in theVillage area of Wauwatosa a couple of years ago.  This is
a $ 100. spice gift, but Ruth & I hare honored to let you have it for $ 50.  ... that is the same price
we charged to the late Catherine Brandel, a former chef instructor at the Culinary Institute of
America in Greystone, California, when we made the very first, orignal, Pepper study kit gift
box for her b ack in 1994. Laurie insists that she should pay full price ... no way, I say.
Incidentally, this is the same pepper gift that Anita Fial ordered from Ruth as a hostess gift
when she went to visit her old college room mate buddy, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg near
Washington D.C. also back in 1994 ... Mr. Ginsburg loves his black pepper ;loves to grind it.
Anita Fial is President of the very well known & respected Lewis & Neale Public Relations firm
in New York City; they do the P.R. work for the American Spice Trade Association.
.
Laurie also is interested in our TABIL, Tunisian spice mixture.  I  tell her that O.K. we are in the
midst of doing a really nice fresh batch ... young Telemachos is going to  roast some up on Friday
when he comes in ... he can maybe bring you & Allan some then?  That way Telemachos can get
to meet your husband, because he really should meet him; get to know him.  O.K. she says.
.
We get a letter from  David Kherdian  the poet.  I share it with Corrina.  He has a book of his poems
in it; Dividing River, poens about his childhood in Racine, Wis. along with copies of two of his poems.  His Dad & Hotel Thomas.
  I'll try to write a little more about him & what he is doing now.
His wife is the talented Nonny Hograrian; a very talented artist; winner of the Caldecott award;
we have her Armenian cook book in our Spice House library ... the one she wrote with her
Mother.  Ruth is checking it out to see if she has a recipe for " date cakes " in it.  Also I want
to ask David if we can print his poem about looking up; the one that I read to Paul Beidler back
in 1986.
  In order to see the stuff up there
first we have to do that simple thing of just moving that highest part of ourselves  to look up.
His Dad & my Dad both died in Milwaukee in 1958.  They had both made the journey here from
within 300 miles of each other some 5,000 miles away.  My Dad from Kiev in south Russia; David's
Dad from Armenia.  My Mother & his Mother both were orphaned; each at the age of eight.
David & his wife Nonny are the reason we have many beautiful books in our Spice House here.
.
It is 5 pm and Corrina's young friend comes in.  Corrina is a music student at the Eastman School
of Music; her young friend is a piano music student at Northwestern University... they know
each other from when they both played in the Milwaukee Symphony Junior Orchestra. Charlie W.
He also plays classical guitar.  Corrina sez he would like to meet me & he is a little interested in the things that we do here at our Spice House that Corrina tells him about.  Ruth & I are always looking for bright young people to work with us in the Summer time when we go into our " Spice House College Kids Routine " ...  maybe we can get him to work a day or two before school starts. He is
asking Corrina to put up a spice bottle of our sweet curry powder for his Father.  This is good,
because we have taken out the book " The Life of Music in Northern India " once again this
summer, as long as Corrina is with us for awhile, and also Jennie R., another talented musician ..
we are once again opening the study; the dialog; to look at the relationship of curry compounding
& how the music of India is structured ... we are looking to understand how these two things
are similiar ... what they have in common ... we'd like to understand a little more of just what
things like this are based on; where do they get their power from?  Their sublime nature, if we
can put it that way.  I should put this conversation  down in it's
entirety ... Corrina's sister was there too, Kate.  I brought out the large work of art from the back room.  It was covered with spice dust.  It was an Icon of the Eastern Orthodox Church ... something that Dale Kamainsky had brought back from the School of Sacred Arts in Greenwich Village when he
visited there.... I shared with them the story from the Philokalia writings of the tenth century from the
Hesychasts ... about when you've cleansed & cleansed & re cleansed your mind; your thoughts; over a
period of years & years ... and finally you have come to the point where now you know you are
talking to God,yes, finally you have the real thing here; the real connection ... that then you  can be
sure that it is the devil speaking to you pretending to be God!
We were going to read a small couple of paragraphs from a book about music in India that was, in a
way, connected to what the Hesychasts were getting at ... that there is simply nothing that can take the
place of constantly falling back on yourself with your struggles ... with your life ... and that is the preferable way to maintain your search.  The book on India music talks about " masters " but yet it
gets at this very thing ... that you can't learn from masters ... but maybe if you hang around with them,
something good might come of it.
It is the same part that Jean Barr, one of Corrina's professors, also
read aloud here when she had her guests in from the Netherlands ....
.
page 28 ...  The Life of Music in North India, the Organization of an Artistic Tradition, by Daniel M. Neuman, Dartmouth College.  Wayne State University Press, 1980.
.
" These three interpretations concerning the relationship be-
tween music culture and society are examples of theoretical em-
phases; they are not mutually exclusive.  In one context, I specu-
late on Indian music as a model of Indian civilizaiton; in another, I
provide examples of how it is interpreted as a commentary on
Indian society.  But the primary focus in this inquiry is on the way
Indian music articulates with the broader stucture of civilization.
.

 .
Another way of putting this is to say that the music culture
of North India is presented to the reader as a Wilson cloud
chamber, in which the actual phenomena --- the music sounds ---
are only perceived in the wakes and trails they leave behind.  This
is as it must be since music exists essentially in the moment of its
own making and any knd of recording of it --- on tape, in trans-
scription, or in memory --- is a phenomenon not to be  confused
with it.  And since music, as Claude Levi-Straus avers,
" is the only language with the contradictory attributes of being at once
intelligible and untranslatable, the musical creator is a being com-
parable to the gods, and music itself the supreme mystery of the
 science of man " ( 1970:18 )
.
The ambitions of the present work are not to investigate
the mystery so much as to illiminate the creators if it; the wakes
and trails which are their thoughts, values, organization, and ac-
tions, and only through these perhaps to be guided toward a
glimpse of the mystery itself. "
.
Continue on with this ... show here the drawing of the sacred symbol of the Hindus with the idea
of Christine doing her sweet curry powder spice formula merged into the design.
.
about the two parts of our sweet curry powder: the viable powerful aromatic spice seeds, and
these are what the curry of the poor in India is taken from ...
and also the beautiful rich sweet spices; the expensive part, the part that only the wealthy in India
can afford.  How to incorporate these two components into a design that explains them.
Can they be explained?
.
Another design is to take the crescent of Islam and incorporate our sweet curry powder formula into that.  We see that all India makes their curries; yet the curries of the world of Islam is different
from the curries of the world of the Hindu.  Can we examine the ridge that separates their ideas here?
.
If we look at the formula written out as we do in the West, we will see a curry powder formula ...
but if we turn that formula into a design ???? then will it begin to become musical?
.
At this point; this break-through, will we be able to start to look at music & spices side by side?
.
.
It is here at this juncture, that we should read; study; the chapter The Eternal Fugitive, from the book
the Arch Lectures, by Claude Bragdon.
.
Mr. Bragdon is speaking about the elusive nature of this rare quality we term beauty.  And he is
attempting to show some patterns; some inner designs; that different things thought to be beautiful
seem to possess.  Rhythms; a certain intelligence that expresses itself in patterns; even repeated
patterns.  I think he is saying that beauty contains within it information of a very high order.
.
And it is here that we must consider that what the writer of this book on the Music of India quotes ...
" that music is the only language with the contradictory attributes of being at  once intelligible and yet also untranslatable " is not quite correct, as a curry powder, such as our sweet curry powder ...
also seems to be identical with music in this respect.
.
Does a truly fine, lovely, fresh, curry powder have beauty?  Yes, I think we can say that.  But now
we do have to address the idea of function.  What is the functuion of beauty?  In music or in spices?
..
.
.

also maybe do the page on the Maurice Nicoll book?
also add more on the Hung paprika backround
also add the 5 minutes with Julia Child on " Are you writting William Penzey? "
.
.
.
 

.
 

Tuesday, June 13, 2000.
.
" My husband is so fond of Greek Festival - lemon marinade grilled chicken that we have it at least once a week.  Lately we've been getting lots of chicken packages with 3 breasts.  That's 2 for dinner and a cold one left over for lunch the next day.  The surprise was its almost beter chilled than warm!
Thank you for our many good meals.  You are thought of fondly almost every day at our home "
.
A nice note to Ruth & I from Barbara Martin in Middleton, Wisconsin. Note:  our Greek Festival Chicken Spice with oregano & lemon has a good following.  It is hand mixed here from premium
flake salt, good Tellicherry black pepper, Greek hand rubed oregano leaves; real lemon peel,
& onion & garlic powders.  One of the famous Greek Orthodox Churches in all of America is located
right here in Wauwatosa.  It is the one that was designed with the help of Frank Lloyd Wright.
In fact is it the last work of Frank Lloyd Wright.  He passed on in 1958 when Ruth & I were starting.
Our young Spice House helper, Telemachos was just there last Saturday to stand up for the wedding
of his  cousin, also named Telemachos.  Every June this church has an outdoor festival; they cook &
serve food there.  Some of the Greek people who cook for this event are regular Spice House customers who use our Greek Festival Chicken Spice in their home kitchens.  We don't supply the
spices for their festival cooking; but our Greek Festival Chicken Spice is very close to what they
use on their grilled chickens there ... and they serve 10,000 chicken   dinners there outdoors each
June.  Yes, 10,000.  Except they sprinkle on quite a bit of crumbled or what is called " cracked "
rosemary leaves, which we do not add to our blend.  It is easy to add this yourself if you like; &
our cracked rosemary is only $ 1.49 for a quarter cup, or $ 2.98 for a half cup. the reason we don't
use it in this spice blend is that often children do not care for the hard rosemary bits.  Our Greek
Festival Chicken Spice is $ 2.98 for a half cup jar, or $ 5.33 for a full one cup shaker jar.
.
A little more about Frank Lloyd Wright & this church ... in another section of our web pages we
talk about a man who was sort of a spiritual advisor to Ruth & I & our Spice House here in
Wauwatosa.  This was starting in about 1983; the kids weren't involved with him ... Ruth & I
decided to do this; search out this man ... for help in our next stage, which was for after the kids
were gone out on their own.  We figured we couldn't tell the kids much an more ... that our role
would become maybe more, in a sense, only if we became more ... if Ruth & I grew more.  The
talking was over with our kids pretty much, but maybe we could be more.  That is the course we
took at any rate and I hope it is working.  I think maybe it is.
Paul Henry Beidler.  Mr. Beidler was with Frank
Lloyd Wright in 1932 & 1933 when Frank Lloyd Wright & his wife, Olgivanna Wright
started up their organic school of architecture near Madison ... Taliesin ... and Paul was able to
talk his way into becoming Frank LloydWright's teacher's assistant.  He was 28 at the time,
and the students, about 25 of them, all pretty much were maybe about 18.  So it was a good
arrangement.  The reason I am bringing this up here, is that Mr. Beidler, and what a fine, decent
man ... but he was a formidable man; nobodys fool; he had spent 25 years in Asia; he was an
engineer on the Aswan dam ... he was what you would call " a shrewd man ".  And also
Frank Lloyd Wright was shrewd man.  I remember how Paul told Ruth & I one time that
Frank Lloyd Wright asked Paul for a little loan ... it was the worst year in the depression .. and
Paul did loan him $ 300. which he never got back.  Frank Lloyd Wright was shrewd ... but he was
after bigger things ...higher things.  The interesting part  about this shrewdness thing is that when
the starting talks for the Greek Church began, Frank Lloyd Wright was pitted up against some of
the shrewdest men that you'd ever run across ... shrewd men who also happen to be Greek ...
three of them I remember, I didn't know them, but I knew who they were ... and man, they were
shrewd;  Mr. Cavalla from Cavalla Tobacco Co. here in Milwaukee; Mr. Stacy from Stacy
Vending here in Milwaukee; and Judge Christ Seraphim ... boy o boy, they were tough guys as far
as bargaining  went.  The original price of the church was one million dollars ... but the price as it
ended up was eight million dollars ... and Frank Lloyd Wright, in his way, took these men on ...
nibbled it up there, little by little ... I think there was a lot of consternation through this whole
process which took a few years time ... Mr. Wright was a man who had b---s, if one might use the
term that is employed by todays young people ... but maybe they would better be called
spiritual b---s, cuz here we have this marvelous spiritual structure for all of us here in this
area to draw from; draw on;  and because, to a certain extent anyway, of the flint hard resolve
of a man who knew where to put what in the scheme of things.  ( p.s. .. our son Billy has a little
of this quality too ).
.
.
Finishing grinding the Saigon cassia cinnamon.
Starting to do the China # l grade ginger roots; first the cracking of the roots; inspecting how much
fibre to ginger flavor laden starch there is; the comparison between the unpeeled India Cochin
ginger roots & the ones we are grinding; the peeled China roots; they the finer & finer settings on
our spice mill to turn the cracked pieces into a fine 30 mesh powder.
.
Corrina waits on a lady with 5 small children for a $ 52. spice gift box ... lots of gift boxes today.
Ruth tends to the children while Corrina handles the sale ... she gives them each a little piece of
our just arrived from Australia Buderim candied ginger ... the kids are 9, 8, 7 , 6, & 4.  Quite a
little group for our little store.  One little girl asks Ruth if she, please, might have a second piece
of the ginger candy.
.

.
Monday, June 12, 2000.
.
Ruth had made a very large bowl of diced fruit; strawberries, canteloupe, pineapple, watermelon.
She had sprinkled it with our Chicago Oldtown Spiced Sugar.  When I had some of it, late in the
day, I added a little more.  Then I spooned some out from the opposite side of the bowl, but first
I sprinkled on some spearmint sugar to see how that tasted too.  The store is closed on Mondays,
and I had alot of ordinary small shop duties to attend to ... writing out checks, organizing things,
looking at the schedule for the week coming up; who was coming in on what days, etc.  We are
figuring out what spice specials we want to run for the Summer season; one will involve our
N. Lake Drive Spices ... this is very nice on salmon, so today I am going through a salmon recipe
in order to be able to write out the recipe for it ... lime juice, maybe a little olive oil, & the
seasoning.  It is blended with a goodly amount of shallots, and they make the fish very tasty.
I have a small odd book on India cooking... it talks about how to get more juice out of a lime;
and also it talks about how to fry salt in your empty frying pan so that the fish doesn't stick when
you fry it ... I told Ruth about that & she was intrigued.  The salt is discarded before cooking the fish;
but then it is supposed to fry without sticking. Delights from Maharashtra by Aroona Reejhsinghani.
.I have the salmon marinating while I write this.  Page 5: helpful hints.  5.  A teaspoon of salt added
to chili powder preserves it longer.  6.  Before putting fish to fry, always heat some salt in the pan.
Wipe off the salt with a piece of paper and then fry the fish.  In this way it will not stick to the pan..
.
We also will be having a garlic special.  Buy one cup of our pure garlic powder; and get a half cup
of our new " toasted garlic powder " which has developed a bit of a following.
.
We should be blending Herbes du Provence tomorrow .... I recall when the food writer John Thorne
ordered a spice gift assortment for the very highly regarded M.F.K. Fisher from us ... one of the
items that was required was our Herbes du Provence blend ... she loved Provence in the south of
France I was told; had a residence there.  Also Provence lavender was called for in the gift box.
.
I should be working with Telemachos also to de stem the lovely tasting lot of Spearmint we've just got in from the Mediterranean.
.
.Sunday, June 11, 2000.
.
Suzette brings in  her Mother, Barbara. They  buy two fresh vanilla beans; & also the Chicago Oldtown Spiced Sugar.  Ruth & I do have to make a better effort to contact the owner of literary rights to Desiderata, a publisher who now is retired in Florida ... to see if we might get his permission re:
putting this beautiful prose/poem on our site here.  It should be shared; how to share things, yes, how to make the call on when to share, what to share.  It is  something to think about. When it is  proper. But sometimes it isn't. But Chicago Oldtown Spiced Sugar is connected to Desiderata in such a good
  way.  Barbara raised her family on Milwaukee's East side, just off Brady Street; and they also bought
   a jar of Brady Street.  Suzette is the actress that just bought the lovely
old Victorian house across the street here from the Spice House.  Suzette calls it " the Christmas House " because of the colorful red & green trim.  But the people that painted the house, the former residents, owned perhaps the most famous Italian Pizza Cafe in Wauwatosa; they had the Italian flag
on display in front of the house, and I wonder if those red & green colors maybe were matched to the colors of the Italian flag? Ruth loves Christmas; she was   conceived during the Christmas holidays,
so thinking of this house with Christmas colors will make Ruth feel warmly towards it now.  I am        " working " on Suzette to perhaps help us out during our Christmas spice rush, if she doens't have an engagement during the Holidays, so I certainly want to be accomodating to her & to her Mom.  Ruth works with them pretty much, and it turns out that Ruth & her Mom have alot in common, having raised a family with children exactly the same age ... also we spent alot of time on the East side during the days when Barbara was raising her family there.  We had our small children enrolled in the prestigious Campus Elementary School at the  University of Wisconsin  there on Downer Ave. ...we just happened to be lucky to get them in ... ... we were members of the Unitarian Church on E. Ogden Ave. when the Rev. John Cyrus was leading it... also I had some nostalgia to share with Barbara from the East side man that adopted me when I was 12. Ben F. pops out from the back of the store, so we
introduce him to Suzette & her Mother.  Ben is a new spice helper.  Smith's Pharacy on Brady Street.
.
 Dave Salentine & George Kennan.
 Paula Uihlein; Aunt Paula, & N. Lake Drive Seasoning.
Alice " Bogy " Wandt & Downer Avenue Seasoning.
.
My days as a substitute Post Office mail carrier for " Cookie " on Brady Street when it was
really rockin'; in 1958 when it was the Hippie street & what a amazing, unique, bizarre, & even
beautiful place it was.  Delivering cinnamaon sticks to " The Purple I " with Bix Beiderbeck's
sister sitting at the table. The drug experiments with higher mathematics above the corner store
opposite the Oriental threatre while I delivered spices pretending not to notice.
.
Negative emotions; the open page & Suzette & her Mom looking it over.  " It is not the struggle
for power; or the  attempted manifestation of the  energy called sex; but negative emotions
which rule this world. "  Ouspensky, the Russian philosopher.  Yes, alot to what he says. Is he right?.
We have a book for sale in the clove corner here at the Spice House.  By an English MD pyschoanalyst named Maurice Nicoll who studied with Carl Jung.  The book was opened to the two
pages on negative emotions, and maybe we should let these two pages speak their words here?
.
The phone rings & it is Midi.  Let's put that good recipe for " date cake " from our treasured
cook book by Ardashes Kirolean here.  Even more ... let's make it up!  Midi sez she is going to
stop in &  ... maybe ... work the floor for an hour or so before she goes back to Lawrence College ..
the Harvard of the midwest ... if she comes in can we maybe ask her to help Ruth bake that
delicious " date cake " with our vanilla sugar??? ala the incomparable rascal Mulla Nessir Edin?  I ask Midi if she is writing?  Does she keep a diary?  " Funny you should ask, cuz my Mom just bought me a beautful golden covered diary to write in, but I've been so busy with school I haven't had a chance.
But I figure I'm going to start it when I get back to my home in Mexico."  I say I hope she can
 get in to work a little with Corrina & Jennie R., it was the three of them that started the Vanilla Bean
Gatherings in our white Civil War house just up the hill ... post the picture of them chopping beans!
We discuss reading into the tape recorder that excellent chapter Alleppo from the book by
Raphael LeFort that the Racine poet David Kheridan sent us, so others might listen to it.
.
Date Cakes with real vanilla bean sugar.
.
It is a good story on how we came about to mix our very first batch of real vanilla bean sugar.
We had taken our three grandchildren to the Pabst Theatre downtown near Patty & Tom's
Old World Third Street Spice House. There was a fierce storm going on as we all raced from the car to the threatre.  The twins were 6, Lucas was just 4.   Because of the intense pounding rain the river was
swollen; the lightning was going on all around; everyone in the threatre was wet, and there was a rare
 unusual charge in the air that evening.  The event was a  performance of the famed
Whirling Dervishes from Konia, Turkey.  One or two of the people around us were surprised to see
three little chillden ... so young here .  We had been working with the Fine Arts Department at the
University of Wisconsin here to  have the dervishes come into the Spice House & grind a fresh
supply of cumin seed for themselves; for their style of cooking, which is heavy with cumin.  the director there had arranged for the apearance here in Milwaukee of this world famous group;  he & his wife were good Spice House customers ( still are ) ... and in fact his wife graduated with daughter
Patty at Wauwatosa East.  But before the dancers came out first a seventy year old blind man sang special sacred songs from his Spiritual path, and it was a extraordinary .... he had true pitch but it was more than that, because his rare sounds meet this electricity that was in the air that evening.  A true
rendering of something or other that everyone there felt; knew they were hearing something
extra ordinary.  The twins were just 6 then; little Lucas only 4 ......
   .
 ... but the next morning we said we should do something with this gift that this blind singer had
given us ... so we turned our end of the singing into a simply delicious batch of real vanilla bean sugar.
Kania Konic, his name was something like that.  He's gone now I hear.
..
Ingredients:    Toast .... 3 slices, well browned.

Saturday, June 10, 2000.
.
Angela from Jolly's Restaurant at the foot of Kavanaugh Hill, across from St. John's Church,
comes in for a cup of juniper berries which they use in their thick pork chop marinade.
She sez Allen & Laura are at the Cajun Fest Cook Off at State Fair Park, which they do
annually with the chefs from Heaven City in Mukwonago.  Angela sez she is interested in a
peppermill.  I told her that Amellia's Mom came in & bought one for her ( the lucite clear
pyramid style; the one that goes with the peppercorn study kit ) to send to her down at the
Baltimore Culinary School.  Amellia used to help cook at Jolly's too.  I think this is the style
that Allen bought for his use too ... the clear lucite heavy pyramid pepper mill.
.
An old spice customer comes in for a wedding spice gift box ... she wants four good items for
steak and a peppermill for the newlyweds.  We talk about good steak seasonings, and she
decides on Cudahy Chop Spices, Porto Rico Adobo Spices, Fox Point Seasoning, & the
Historic Third Ward Italian Pepper Garlic Seasoning.  She picks out the top of the line for the
mill ... the $ 49.95 hand painted large ceramic mill.  She sez she bought one l0 years ago & has
liked it very much; it is a good mill & she can vouch for it.  I fill it with Tellicherry peppercorns
at no charge ( as we always do with all of our pepper mill sales ) ... and then she even gets a
free amount of the colorlful " Peppercorns Royale "  She tells me that it was her Grandmother &
her Grandfather who first brought her into the Spice House maybe 30 years ago?
Paul & Helen Ambro.  Paul lived to be 94, Helen lived to be 90.
.
Sure, you wanted them to bite.  We talk about the old days, and she sez Ruth & I must be very
proud of our children.  Yes, we are very proud of our children.  They really learned how to work;
and each of them grew up to be very decent people; good people.  But I say that frankly Ruth & I
are not able to comprehend the whole thing ... that they've been so successful, it just sort of took
us by surprise & we still can't figure it out.  I told her how Billy sort of arranged a spice catalog
purchase from a lady spice customer for some $ 10,000 worth of catalogs ( she owned a printing
company ) .. when he first started out ... that sort of got him going.  I was the last to know about
it, of course, naturally, cuz I am the father, and I said to him " Gosh, you know that Mom & I
will have to pay for this order if something should go wrong ".  but nothing did go wrong ...
& Billy was off to the races.  In fact nothing every went wrong with him; what a touch he had.; has.
In late 1979 Ruth & I decided to move into the glitz & glamour of downtown Milwaaukee; to
Old World Third Street, where Usinger's Sausage Co. and Mader's German Restaurant are ... we
had been in a neighborhood just on the edge of the inner city ...but it was O. K. .. the kids went to
a pretty nice suburban high school, but then they worked week ends at a shop with a lot of
different people coming in.  It was a good way to bring kids up; they became pretty savy kids but
never lost their stardust naivety ... they kept their sense of wonderment, still have it, all three of
them ... and have passed it on to their children too.  I told the lady Linda Saje ( a teacher in the
Milwaukee public school system ) that one of the reasons we went downtown was to help keep
the kids in the Spice House  with Ruth & I .... " Sure, Linda said, you wanted them to bite. "
gosh, I've never heard it expressed that way before, but that was it exactly. We wanted them to
bite, yes, Ruth & I wanted them to bite.  " And did they bite! " I told Linda.  Boy did they bite.
.
We had the Hungarian goulash dish that Ruth prepared Friday night, and it was delicious.
But, it is a delicate thing I should talk about here ... I did get alot of gas from the meal.  This
morning I said to Ruth that I wonder was happened; where did this come from.  And she
daintilly admitted that it had happened to her too.  Was it the pork lard?  Maybe was the lard
bad?  I dunno.  But there was some  left over, a pretty good amount as a matter of fact.
And it was so good that I couldn't resist preparing it once again, heating it up; good red colored
paprika sauce with potatoes & small chunks of good tasting but economical beef cubes.  But here
is how I handled it.  First, I went to the cupboard & got out my St. Vincent arrowroot.  this is the
arrowroot made from the roots of the marantha plant, named after an Italian pysician from the
17th century; it has a good reputation for helping in the food preapred for people with digestive
problems ... so I measured maybe 2 TB. arrowroot powder with half a cup of water ... mixed it up
good ... then added it to the left-over 4 cups of potatoes with the Hungarian Goulash.  Then, next,
I took out the pretty royal blue ceramic mortar & pestle the Caity & I bought at the Milwaukee
Symphony Tour house in the Washington Highlands three years ago for just $ 5., and what a good
buy it was .... I added maybe a full tablespoon of cumin seeds, ground them sort of rough; then
added this to the simmering left over Hungarian goulash ... and then I ate it all ... !  No problems.
I can tell you that chewing on cumin seeds has saved me more than once from very bad; even
dangerous reactions to bad food taken by accident .   at the first sign of nausea chew that little
bit of cumin seeds .. maybe just a teaspoon ... it doesn't work all the time ... but half the time .
.
The book Hungarian Paprika through the Ages, by Zoltan Halasz, Corvina Press 1963 is a good
book.  Very good writing by an excellent word craftsman.  Yes, the writer wrote it to put a good
face on Hungarian Paprika, to put this unique    condiment in a good light.  But what is wrong
with that, eh?  Lots of good tight writing and lots of details, everythng nailed down tight &
accurately.  We're putting parts of it on tape so that our young spice helpers can listen to this
good educational narrative while they mix our Hungarian paprika rich blends in the back of the
Spice House.  And Ruth & I thought maybe we'd put a little of it down here too.  I see the little
blue sticker in the back of the book, the source that got it for us " Cooks Books, Tessa McKirdy,
London ".
.
page 127 .... " Hungarian cooks apply paprika in two basic ways:
in one they add the paprika to a roux, made of heated
lard and flour; not only does the roux thicken various
dishes but by different grades of " roasting " and by
the addition of various seasonings, it lends a special
taste, characteristic of Hungarian food, to them.  With
the other group of dishes, the so-called paprikas,
onions are cooked in hot lard; the paprika is added
to the onions in the fat, and then the meat or other
ingredients are introduced.
.
The food bubbling on the fire emmanates an exquisite
and appetizing fragrance.  the taste and aroma of the
dish is redoubled by the paprika added to it.  It would
be well worth while trying out the following recipes,
which give a short survey of the rich range of dishes
in which paprika may be used.  This short guide will
help housewives in the right use of paprika.
.
To give paprika an ample scope for demonstrating
its excellent properties, it must be used in the correct
way.  The most important point to be borne in mind
in this connection is that paprika can be best dissolved
in hot, but not burning fat.
.
If put into overheated fat, the paprika can get
scorched, its colour burning brown; the taste of
burned paprika gets bitterish and little is left of its
aromatic flavour.
.
As it will be evident from the following recipes of
Hungarian specialties, the peculiar Hungarian aroma
of the characteristic dishes of Hungarian cuisine,
goulash, of Porkolt, of meat in paprika sauce, of
various meat-dishes with cabbage, rice, etc. is lent by
Hungarian noble-sweet paprika added to onions
cooked golden yellow in fat.
.
......to be continued in Sundays entry.

.
.What did I taste today?  Well, we've been taking a look ( looking with our  taste buds that is )
at the two types of nutmeg that we sell; the East Indies nutmeg; and the West Indies Nutmeg;
and today I tasted mace.  I remember when Julia Child first came to Milwaukee, she sent over to
 the Spice House for a full pound of the blend she likes to use alot; her French Charcuterie Spices.
If I'm not mistaken, in her mixture she calls for equal amounts of nutmeg and of mace.  This is
not unusual for spice blends of this nature; rich heavy spice blends used for pork & game &
greasy foods especially, to have this style of spice mixture called for.  In fact the famous spice
mixture of the great Escoffier of France was this type of spice mixture.  We actually sell this
mixture in the Spice House.  I have had just a little spice interaction with Julia Child.  One
time I did ask her why she uses nutmeg and mace in her mixture, as they are both so much alike.
But I do a very poor job of explaining myself usually ... my questions maybe got her to think I was
trying to take her spice mixture as our own for some commercial gain. And Ruth & I are proud that
she did use our hand mixed spices; blended exactly as she lists them on p. 203 of her The Way to Cook.   Along these lines there really isn't much that one does that is original.  I have a good
reputation for what I do in the way of spice work ... nationally ... and some big big spice companies
have watched what Ruth & I do closely for years.  But when I look honestly at my spice work, most of it comes from good things that I see done in the spice past by others who came before me.
There is alot to be said for being a good technician.  But it isn't originality.  But originality in spice
work is something that should be studied; because " original " people seem to sense something higher.
.
Insert here three classic spice mixtures:
.
Escoffier's all purpose spice mixture;
Charles Francatelli's all purpose spice mixture ( 1864 )
Shinkel's Pa. Dutch spice mixture
Julia Child's spice mixture from p. 203 of her TheWay to Cook.
.
Insert here the photo of me with her book, with Lucas looking at me.?
.
Maybe the pictures of the kids with Julia Child here?
.
also work in here the spice mixture from the recipe book of Martha Jefferson,
Thomas Jefferson's daughter, 1826, which Ruth & I held in our hands in the
rare book room ... it was just taken from the vault ... at the University Of Virginia.
This spice mixture is very close to all the other ones listed above.
.

trying to copy hers.  Of course I was talking from an historical perspective as I was interested
in who gave her the ideas for a seasoning of this particular construction; style.  Especially in
regards to the half & half nutmeg and mace part of it.  Another spice mixture like this is the
famous Shinkel's Pepper Dust Spice Mixture, as sold by the Shinkel Co. out of Philadelphia
back in about 1830 or so.  I think I have the spelling wrong here ... but that too was one of
those spice compounds rich in the heavy rich strong spices like nutmeg & mace & cloves.
Many old food stores on 3rd Street in Milwaukee sold Shinkel's Pepper Dust in the 1800's.
... to be continurd ....
 

.
Friday, June 9, 2000.
A lady phones in a spice order for an 8 jar spice gift box for an Italian cook; and also for an 8 jar gift
box for a Greek cook ( a man who owns a Greek restaurant in Kalamazoo, Michigan ).  Her husband
stops in to pick them up later in the day.  Corrina has them done & waiting for his inspection.
.
It's maybe the last time the three of them will be together with Ruth & I ... Sarah, Corrina, &
Telemachos as Sarah is leaving for Japan for her position to teach young stuudents English ... so we
make sure to get the saffron sampling finished.  New ISO spice standards from the European Common
Market.  There are four sealed unopened saffron tins; each the one ounce tin size; beautiful golden
tins with the stylized Spanish art work; quite artistic.  Grade 4; grade 3; grade 2; grade l.  We open
them & looks for color tints: is deep cherry red preferrable to scarlet orange red?  We look for bold
stigma; large pressed attractive examples of the strands.  We look for the least amount of the yellow
style filament material in each sample.  We smell each sample.  We press each sample to see how
supple it is ... not brittle.  We look closely to see for a proper curing; drying.  Good saffron is dried
down from 4 pounds of fresh stigmas to just one pound of properly, honestly, dried saffron as is
understood by the saffron men in Spain to be adherence to centuries old quality standards.
.
We talk about the late Catherine Brandel from the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone, California, and her work with Spanish food traditions there at the C.I.A. and muse on if she
was involved with the Spice House now being shown these beautiful saffron samples from one
of the sponsers of her work with Spanish extra fancy foods.  We thank Antonio Sosa.
.
The peppercorn spice study kit complete with special magnifying lucite peppermill that we worked
out for Catherine Brandel to use with her culinary students there at the C.I.A.
.
Where are we on our study of Hungarian paprika?  The Porkolot base preparation of pork fat ( lard ),
with sauteed onions and a liberal measure of good Hungarian paprika.  We take two small frying pans
for this paprika quality test; Telemachos & Ruth do the cooking while Sarah & corrina & I watch.
Our idea is to be able to compare the two samples of Hungarian paprika, but we stumble across a
variation that we hadn't anticipated, and Telemachos points it out to us ... one frying pan, he says,
is exceptional ( the one Brian Moog gave us ... he graduated from the C.I.A. in Hyde Park ) ... but
the other one is not so good.  Telemachos points sout the nice deep wine like lustre of the
simmering sauce in the good frying pan ... but the cloudy muddled look in the other frying pan.
so we'll have to start again with our experiment.
.
John Ernst the artist comes in with a surprise .... a painting he's done just for the space we've made for
him on the west wall of the Spice House here.  We have a little ceremony; there were six  of us;
Patrick H. had just come in a few minutes before; so it was John Ernst with Corrina, Sarah, Patrick,
Telemachos, and Ruth & I.  Patrick is tall; 6' 4", and is able to mount it there on the higher place;
Corrina has taped it all together; the small painting & the matting, so it won't come apart.  John Ernst
is even taller than Patrick but Patrick does the hanging.  Ruth talks for a little bit; about Eva's
comments on how the new puppies; one black & one white, were curled up together into a sort
of yin & yan symbol ... and this became part of John Ernst's inclusions of various major & minor
themes in his rendering for our  walls ... also the high mountains...the sunlight ... the sprinkling here
& there of the individual separated coclor sof the rainbow.   John Ernst is also a Ph. D. ... a
Doctor of Theology, and a practicing psychologist in our area.
Ruth ends the little picture hanging ceremony with the good paragraph hanging on the wall next to
where John Ernst art work now rests ( you know the Spice House for some years has sold
Hungarian paprika in 110 pound sacks to one of the finest German restaurants in America ...
the John Ernst Restaurant here in Milwaukee on N. Ogden Ave near downtown. )
.
" The way to acheive happiness in this life is to
externally consider always;
and internally consider never. "    this is what Ruth read.
.
Later Kyle comes in; finishes sawing down the old old tree in the back section of our
yard near the top of Kavanaugh Hill ... behind the White House.  I guess this tree had to go.
but it went hard.  We thought it was really dead, but found it had quite a bit of life left yet, as the
inside of the trunk was still fresh; had life; energy; and beautiful different colors from luminescent
straw color to reddish tones.  Kyle & I touched the tree; it maybe was as old as the house ... from
1864 ... yes, it was getting very old & kept battling with the power lines.  Kyle is a sort of an
artist with his power saw, and he quickly etched the names of our grandchildren into the stump
with its good colors ... " Eva, Lukas, Caity " 2000.  It is our intention to make a circle around this
stump to start the little seedlings going; planting them; from our very rare, but very old
Campersdown Elm tree in the front.  Kyle & I made a bit of a pact that it only made sense to take
this trees life if we could replace it with other trees.  the circle will be about 12 feet in diiameter;
and we're hoping to entice the small grandchildren to be part of this " growing of new trees ".
Kyle & I touched the tree with our hands & talked to it a little & told it our plans & our promise.
.
When Kyle went down to the Spice House where Ruth was, he had the look of a starved nearly
crazed forest animal.  He was hungry.  He spotted the start of the Hungarian goulash that Ruth was
tending to as part of our Hungarian parpika study for the day .... Ruth said that the dish is usually
served with rice or potatoes ... we had rice right near by ... but Kyle said he sure woldnd't mind some
of this with cooked potatoes.  So O.K.  Kyle, I sez, you work on getting  that air conditioner in, & I'll
go up to the house, cuz I know we have some potatoes there, and we can have the Hungarian goulash
with potatoes instead of rice.  So I went up & got the potatoes; came back down & peeled them &
got them cooking while Ruth finished waiting on spice customers.  Kim walked in with a large pan
of newly baked sweet rolls, which are Kyle's favorites, and it ended up that the four of us had a very
nice meal of Hungarian goulash, and it was delicious, Ruth did a good good job; she really likes to cook; really enjoys cooking....finishing off with Kim's freshly made sweet rolls ( Kyle took 3 home ).
.
Kim hasn't been in for awhile ... she was going to help Ruth sift Hungarian Paprika tonight and do a
little recording of our tapes on cooking with Hungarian paprika from the book Paprika through the Ages. .... but the last lady spice customer that Ruth waited on completelyt emptied our Chinese 5 Spice jar ... so ... change of plans ... we decided to mix up a fresh batch of Chinese 5 spice.  I figured
with the four of us doing it, we could get it done fast.  so we all speeded around to put it together:
8 cups finest China Tung Hing cassia cinnamon
3 cups finest no. 1 grade China peeled powdered ginger root
2 cups 40 mesh ground fennel seeds
1 cup powdered chinese star anise
1/2 cup 40 mesh ground Zanzibar standard cloves
= 14 and 1/2 cups total batch
.
What did I taste today?
I think I surprised my invisible " stop William Penzey from tasting his spices at all costs " adversary
today with a really slick move.  It was such a last minute thing about mixing up the Chinese 5 Spice,
and when we got into to it, I also surprised Kim by asking her ... you know this word luminosity as
used by the painter William Segal in the Ken Burns video Vezelay ... Kim, can I ask to you look at
these 5 spices we have in the spice blend here ... think of the term luminosity ... not necessarily
strength or power ... but life; aliveness ... and what we see here looking down at the 5 spices
we've just added; and sifted as we've added ... we'll never understand what we're looking at ... there
is so much here once we start looking at it; really looking at it for what it is; what it really is ...
Kim,  can I ask you to sort of make a determination as   to the luminosity of each of these 5 spices ..
so start with the lower and work to the higher?  And remember in this type of thing there is no
right way, no wrong way ... you can't make a mistake because this type of thing doesn't work that way.
O.K. She'd play this game ... so she said first, least, was fennel; then star anise; then ginger; then
cinnamon; then cloves.  And we all tasted them as we went along.  so I actually got 5 different tastes
in today, and all because I was involved in a last minute change of plans.  About the numbing cooling
effect of the cloves on our tongues as we tasted them, Kyle said that when you smoke a clove          cigarette then also there is that cooling, numbing effect.  Is it something like 700,000 Indonesian
people are involved in the making of their clove flavored cigarettes?  Am I right about this?
.
Ruth sez for tomorrow we'd better get going cracking then grinding our China l ginger roots as  the
making of the Chinese 5 spice nearly emptied out our Ginger jar.  But first we have to finish the
Korintje cinnamon, then grind Saigon cinnamon, then do the ginger cracking & grinding.
Billy:  how are things in Beijing?  When we grind China No. 1 ginger tomorrow we'll be thinking of you.  Mom mentioned today how you & her fouond our house in 1963 just the two of you driving
around in that old 1940 Oldsmobile.  Strong like a tank.  You always rode with Mom in the front seat
in your small blue car seat; she says you always were very good company.
..
.
.
Thursday, June 8, 2000.
.
Sarah tapes that excellent article on Hungarian paprika so the others can listen to it from time to
time as they sift the paprika; break up the clumps; make it ready for sale.  Telemachos sifts &
breaks up clumps while Sara reads.  Kathryn Livingston, September 1980 Gourmet.  What's next
for Sara on the Hungarian paprika project ( and she is leaving for Japan very soon to teach English
there, I must remember to show her that good book on salt Lot's Wife, which talks a little about
the Japanese word Umani; which is one of the 7 tastes of the Spice House way of taking things ).
What's next for Sara on this  study?  l.  Plant our paprika pods seeds up at the white house spice &
herb garden. 2.  Do the " judge of a paprikas quality " test; just as the Hungarian do daily in their
cooking; it is the first step in their many paprika dishes: fry lard, onions, & paprika together; this
is the start, the base; of many goulash dishes.  This lets one observe how a particular paprika holds
its color; gives its color; determines if it flavors well.  3.  Begin to study Karoly Gundel; he is
called Hungary's Escoffier; get his books; he believed that Hungarian paprika did not come from
America originally, but from the East instead; from India or Persia.
.
Home Bakery in West Allis phones in to ask if we can get 5 lbs. of whole anise seed; 5 lbs. of
ground cardamom; and 5 lbs. of ground cinnamon ready within the next 2 hours for pick up.
This man has such a good reputation in our area for his fine baked goods.  but we are unable to
get this order together; we do have the 5 lbs. of cinnamon; but are low on anise seeds; & are
just getting ready to grind cardamom after we finish our run of Korirntje cinnamon, and then
after that we need to run Saigon cinnamon, before being able to grind the cardamom.  So we
struck out with Home Bakery ... but we should send him a little jar of cardamom sugar ...
or something ... to keep us in good graces with him.
.
A woman comes in with a $ 50. spice gift certificate from Christmastime & Sara waits on her.
Her name is Marks to, altho spelled differently. I look at the two of them ... Sara could be
her daughter, as they look so much alike.  I remark that when the pyschologists use those three
classifications of " types " endomorph; esomorph, mesomorph ( is that it? am I close? ) ... you
two are definitley the intellectual one, with the long thin heads & high foreheads.  The lady is
a Bible lover and talks about the impermanence of our life in such a personal way that it makes me
a little nervous.  Incidentally, the one big spice item with her was the Historic Third Ward
Italian Spices; she took a 2 cup spice shaker full of it.
.
The next spice customer in had phoned earlier; he needed some sharp paprika for his sausage
making, and a few other spice items too ... since we were sifting paprika in back I asked if he'd
like to see how we do the sifting, with small basket sifters, by hand, so he comes to the back
and sifts a little himself to get the feel of good papika, and we talk for a bit about heat with
Hungarian paprika & I show him how to make some individual adjustments so he can get
the level of heat; the type of heat; he desires.  I show him our real hot cayenne red pepper powder;
also our hot Chipoltle smoked red pepper powder; also our green Jalapeno pepper powder.
But the main thing he wanted too was a larger amount of theHistoric Third Ward Italian Spices.
And then he asked me; he said " You know I go to your kids spice stores   alot too, but it seems I
think you've got the best of the lot as far as the way you mix up your Historic Third Ward ... I don't
mean to get personal, but I am concerned, what is going to happen, if you arn't around anymore?
Do you have the   formula written down somewhere?  Will it be carried on?  I mean the way you do it?
He asked me this after we were back out in f ront &, along with the other lady who just left, I said
" Boy, do you guys know something I don't know? "  Everyone in the store laughed.  Well we all do
have to come to grips with life I guess ... but I explained to the man, that yes, I do have the
formula written down, and I drew a diagram for him that spice compounders use; where I showed him
just why that particular spice blend is so good.  I'll have to draw this diagram & post it here, once
Ruth & I master the grapahics part of this computer     stuff just a little better.  But basically it is a
circle with the amount of the black pepper as the core of the circle; and that it should be usually
Tellicherry; then around the core is the salt amount; and that this should be usually the premium
large flake salt.  The I drew a third circle; a thin circle, like the atmosphere arund the Earth; this
would be the individual personality sspices that make up the special character of the spice mixture.
So, for instance, I said to him, your favorite, Historic Third Ward Italian, has this " core " of good
black pepper & expensive salt in those proportions; but also here are some other blends that have
that core too ... the outer personality spices are a little different, but each of these spice blends is
really a winner ....
.
Bicentennial Rub Seasoning
Quebec Beef Spice
French Chicken Marengo Spices
Walker's Point Adobo; a Hispanic Seasoning
N. Lake Drive Spices
Olde Cedarburg Farm style Spices
.
What did I taste today?  Yes, as Jean Vaysee writes in his book, we get into a pattern & it gets
difficult for us to extract ourselves from this pattern.  In fact, impossible.  Why is this?  And I
should put the writers exact words down here one of these days.  They are impoortant words.
Towards Awakening is the name of the book.  Jean Vaysee was a French surgeon.  So yes, I
am struggling to not let this happen to me.  We do this with spice       smells too.  We try to not get
used to the spice smells.  It is one of the really good exercises of the Spice House here ... to keep
one's sense of smell, as it automatically leaves; it is aken somewhere by some automatic mechanism
it seems, and we are not part of the decision making here, it just goes. One of the most beautiful of
all our Spice House pictures is a shot of Ruth, standing at the doorway, attempting to smell the
Spice House.  She is standing there, serious, earnest, trying to not let this automatic thing take away her freedom to smell, if she desires to exercise it.  But today I am still working on the
difference between West Indies Nutmegs & East Indies nutmegs.  I am seeing that I should look
for sweetness; also for cooling, numbing effect on the tongue; which style does this more; also
I am thinking that whenever I make my famous baby back ribs using the nutmeg rich Galena St.
BBQ Rib Rub; the very first of the 22 series Ethnic Milwaukee Seasonings that I did back in 1980;
well it seems that I always feel good after eating those particularly seasoned ribs ... feel a sense of
as they say, can I say it " well being ".  A little anyway, or am I imagining?  But today I also taste
one more spice; I decide to think which other spices also is a " cooling spice " i.e. a slightly
numbing feel to the mouth effect spice?  I think & think; I know a couple; but I settle for cardamom; so I also taste cardamom today.  I am thinking about the custom of the English Pubs
where it is not unusual for an Englishman to grate a little nutmeg into his ale ... they say it gives
the drink just a alittle more punch, or what do they say anyway a bout this custom?  But the
English nutmeg grater is a part of their folklore; old collecltors ones are in museums.  I am thinking
what was the feeling about nutemgs;  East Indies or West Indies; in regards to this nutmeg grating
on top of the ale custom.  Ask Ruth; she is Irish, do the Irish do this too?
.
Sara Asks about the Spearmint Sugar; she notices the jar there on the shelf; she didn't see it the last
time she was with us.  " I see this Spearmint Sugar here.  what's this about? "  "  Yes, Sara, take
some home with you; try it "  " Gosh I have so many things packed for Japan, I really don't have
room " Sarah replies.  " Well, at least taste it Sarah. " I say.  See, this is an intellectual talking.
She wants the Spearmint Sugar to be explained to her in words & doesn't think to taste it.  It is my
weakness too.  Son-in-law Tom is probably the best in the Penzey clan to " go right to it " Not let
words get in the way.
.
 .
Wednesday, June 7, 2000.
.
Fennel seed in rice; with mushrooms.  Billy & I unload sacks of spices; the fennel seed sack splits open; a thousand  vibrant, viable fennel seeds spill out onto; into, Old World Third Street ( 1985 ).  Billy calls his Mom from Beijing, China today.  Pat Powers orders apple pie spice for her Colgate
Pub for her apple pie toddy.  Ruth & Corrina read the chapter from The Arch Lectures, by Claude Bragdon: the  Eternal Fugitive, about beauty, as they mix the N. Lake Drive Spices.  Baked salmon
with N. Lake Drive. Singing Blue Moon, just like Billy Eckstein did back in 1950.
.
What did I taste today?  A good day unfolded for me in my battle to keep awake; not to allow that very clever adversary " Mr. get used to it all; it's so much more pleasing & comfortable . " to do me in
regards to my daily tasting of different things we have here.  West Indies & East Indies nutmegs; how
did it happen that I accidentally got the help of Ruth in my tasting?  So, together, we both taste first
the West Indies, then the East Indies nutmeg.  " How do you keep them separate in your mouth? "
I ask Ruth.  She shares her secret with me.  Later as I clear the counter off for Corrina to start filling
the N. Lake Drive spice bottles where she adds the 7 pretty pink peppercorns, that number to the top
of each spice jar ... I see one single juniper berry on the  counter as I clean it off ...ha! ... rather than
sweep it off ... I TASTE IT!    .... and as Cory places the pink peppercorn jar there, I notice how
much the juniper berry tastes like a pink peppercorn ... why does this surprise me?  And it causes me to think about that wonderful chapter by Carl Jung on Chinese ideas of synchronicity; how things
come together .... I make a mental note to get that book out to share that writing with everyone here.
( The Golden Flower by Richard Wilhelm, with inntroduction by Carl Jung ).
 .
Tuesday, June 6, 2000.
.
A lady comes in special for our French Marengo Napolean Era Chicken Spices for her daughter-in-law
Beth in Green Bay.  The lady cooked a pork roast; the tenderloin, sprinkled it with a little water,
added the French Marengo, marinated it in the fridge for a few hours first.  It turned out delicious.
When daughter Patty had the honor of being allowed on stage to ... for a few glorious minutes ... share
the limelight with that unique  Boston lady, Julia child in the opening of a sealed one pound tin of
the rarest of the rare ... the highest coupe grade of saffron from Valencia in Spain ... Julia Child
cooked that evening the famous classic French dish " Chicken Marengo ala Napolean ".
.White pepper & black pepper, with shallots, garlic, & saffron theme on a flake salt base.  con't ...
.
We open the large parcel of fresh new saffron just arrived from Spain ... five of us ... it  contains
four golden glistening coloroful tins, each holding about an ounce of precious saffron threads;
new crop saffron from La Mancha ... each is of a slightly different quality than the others,
according to the new ISO European Common Market grading standards:  grade I; grade II;
grade III; and grade IV.  Ruth says the lyrics & nearly starts to sing ... yes, to dream the impossible
dream, to fight the unfightable foe .... I ask them, Corrina, Telemachos, & Sarah, to please bear
with me ... as we asked our kids for years ... to play our spice fun games ... and to write on their
golden individual saffron tins .... " where there is no wo-man, you be the wo-man " We talk         about
how we came to have the very finest highest grade of Spanish saffron due to the efforts of a ninety
year old Spaniard some twenty five years ago, Mr. Martini with the old Sokol & Co. in Chicago ...
I explain how & why we were asking Mr. Martini for his help in securing a pound of the very
highest grade for a medical doctor from Manitowoc, Dr. Shah, a member of the Jain religion of India
who desired to take this pound back to India with him for the annual Jain High Holy festival,
to be continued .....
.
Sarah asks about the Hungarian paprika writing spice project ... just why are we attempting to do this?
About the shift from Communism to the new Hungarian entrprenuer arrangement in the paprika
world .... and also about the shift from the centuries old ways of defining the seven basic grades of
Hungarian paprika to the new ISO European Common Market scientific grading system.  What we
are doing is trying to learn as much as we can so that we can continue to buy  the very finest grades of
rich, high pigment, exquisitely taste tempered sweet paprika for our spices sales, & even more, for
all the spice blends we make where Hungarian sweet paprika is an important part.  Yes, the thrust for
this looking at the way it is now in Hungary comes from our honest legitimate struggle for quality; but another thing is that the Penzey family, due to the remarkable efforts & success of our grown
children, had become one of the well known spice families in the spice trade.  We'd like to see how
some famous Hungarian Paprika growing  families have steered their way from the old Hungarian
Republic days ... through the Hungarian communist days ... now into the new upside down every day
it seems days .... yes, not only that, but we'd like to get a glimpse of the inner circle dialogue;
exchange, between the older paprika growers with their traditions; over & into the new ways of
attempting to define quality.  That special word in Hungarian " Kulonleges " ... which translates
into the world of nearly magic richc paprika quality " extraordinary " ... can we attempt to get a
feel for what the old guard Hungarian paprika growers were attempting to defend. stand guard for ..
when they made a stand  for higher qualities on the beauty of flavor ... here I'd better use the more
elevated spelling ... flavour.
...
What did I taste today?  Yes, why do I have to fight myself to do my taste testing every day?
I must admit I slid backwards on Monday, didnd't get it done, as with all the other important things
we should be doing in a day but never get around to them ... just doing what comes to us up front
with its seeming immediate demands for attention.  So I lay in bed thinking, not so good, can't
even get that simple one taste in ... but on arising Tuesday, man, I am out in front ... decide to do it
absolute very first thing early in the morning ... and I do.
.
West Indies milled nutmeg.  that was the taste I did at 8 a. m.    ... and why West Indies nutmeg?
Well, I am glad you asked that question.  Cuz we stock West Indies nutmeg, and we stock
East Indies nutmeg ... and there is a difference that hardly anybody knows about ... I am after
myself to be able to tell the two apart " blindfolded " ... and can I share with you the
different aspects of nutmeg that I am attempting to separate in my mind's eye as I taste?
to be continued ...
 .
 .
Monday, June 5, 2000.
Recruiting Spice House Christmas time spice helpers at the Wauwatosa Pulic Library.
.
The start of a dialog on a $ 25,000. China Tung Hing cassia cinnamon purchase.
Make sure to ask Patrick to get the scanner working so we can post the wonderful pages
on cassia cinnamon & the more delicate Ceylon cinnamon from the Joseph Jank Spice Book
writings from 1915 ... post these onto our web site by scanning... if they come through.
.
Ruth makes a batch of Peace Climb chili for us .. for pint freezer meals for the young spice workers.
.
For Sarah tomorrow: sift Hungarian paprika, photo copy that excellent article on paprika for every
one to read; tape record it so that others can listen to it when they do paprika spice blends, etc.
For Corrina: sift the rich but clumped up high oil nutmeg; prepare to do the five batches of
Galena Street BBQ Rib Rub; get lyrics to " Black & Blue " to sing with me with Galena Street.
For Telemachos: keep going on pure beef extract; pack off White Malabar Peppercorns.
For all three: open saffron samples from Spain; plant Caucasus type paprika pods up at Kavanaugh
Hill spice & herb garden.  Corrina too? Herbes du Provence?  Kyle: grind Korintje cinnamon.
Just a thought or two here.  Telemachos told me when I asked which were the top culinary
training schools in America that the one he is attending: MATC here in Milwaukee, actually is
one of the very best now in the country.  That surprised me just a little.  After a few more minutes
of us working together, packing off pure beef extract, I said " Well Telemachos, such a thing ...
to develop    something like that, a program like that just doesn't happen ... who are the men or
women responsible for this? "  He thought for a few minutes while we continued packing the beef
extract ... " Two men I think probably .... Mr. Grimm, he one of them, and then also John Rhys.
It didn't quite come to me until after Telemachos left, but then my memory started working ...
Mr. Grimm, is that Rudy Grimm?  Yes, not I recall it, .... it was about 15 years ago ... when Ruth
& I were running the Old World third Street Spice House, just a block or two from the MATC campus.
We had a young man working with us, yes, he also graduated from Wauwatosa East ... a very good
friend of Dave Johnston, and he came to work with us, mostly cuz of Dave I think, yes, & Pam too,
but for some reason or other when this Mr. Grimm would come into the Spice House to buy spices,
he started to take a liking to John ... John Tillison ... he evidently thought very highly of John and
esspepcially along the lines that hee'd like to have John working with him ... helping him build this
program that was to become such a quality effort ... and he began to quite agressively recruit John.
I recall I was surprised at  this, later on I understood that is the way things seem to be in the real
world, if we can call it the real world ... that Mr. Grimm was not at all delicate about his wanting
John to work for him in his program.  I think he offered John more money etc. and just kept working
on him.  But it didn't happen.  John did leave us but after a few years of successful upwards
responsibility food possitions, John did accept a role with son Billy's spice efforts, and the
success of Billy's spice enterprise has been due in large part to having John Tillison working with
him side by side these last few years.  So I guess Mr. Grimm was right on the money ... John was
a keeper as the say ... & it is both a compliment to Mr. Grimm that he saw this in John so early.
The reason I bring this up ... just after setting down that Kyle would be grinding Korintje cinnamon
tomorrow, is that at the very moment that Kyle & I will be  grinding & sifting, by hand pretty much,
just the way Billy & John did some years ago with me ... just at that very moment, Billy & John are
in Indonesia, Billy flew there from Europe, John flew there from Wauwatosa through San Francisco,
and they will be going up the legendary Mount Korinjte together.  the slopes of this famous
mountain produce some of the finest cassia cinnamons in the world ... the mountain reches to about
10,000 to 11,000 feet, and the thin air makes for development of extremely fine, pleasing cinnamon
flavor.  The other man responsible for the MATC success ... I think he is the man who was head chef
at the highly ranked American Club in Kohler?  Yes, I think so.  And it is odd here too, as I recall
Patty telling me, one daya she & Tom were doing some very special spice work, it was one of those
little events tht had a certain spice ceremony aspect to it ... just a couple of special spice helpers
were with Patty & Tom for this ... making a special spice blend, or putting up a shipment to go to
some famous place, something special, very special ... and who walks in at that very moment but
this John Rhys, with his young son in his arms.  So the two of them stayed like they were meant
to be part of it.  Patty was really taken by the timing, she had told me how much she respected
this man for some months before this in our talks; our visists, when she & I eat together.
.
Laella and Mary Queen of Scots; two ladies Ruth & I bump into at the Wauwatosa Library.  And
as they say, there are no coincidences, it is meant for me to attempt to bring these two talented
ladies just a little closer to helping Ruth out with the Christmas rush.  Besides, then young
Patrick can get a step closer to easing in with us too, when the time comes for him to maybe
help us too at Christmas?
.
.
.
Sunday June 4, 2000.
I've set out the three parts required to mix a batch of our Chicago Oldtown Spiced Sugar for
Ruth to do early Sunday morning before I come in, maybe the new young lad, Ben F. ,will help her.
He's starting Marquette High in the Fall; shares with Ruth his dream to be a M.D. psychiatrist.
Rich sweet real vanilla bean sugar, China Tung Hing cinnamon, & elegant exotic cardamom.
.
Ruth reads the first paragraph of the writing on the side of our N. Lake Drive Spices jar to Kyle & me
as Kyle starts to mix the cracked black & cracked green peppercorns; the shallots; the flake salt.
Kyle looks up the word evanescence in our Oxford English Disctionary & writes it out.
.
Judith Hauser comes in for spices with her Mom; they decide to buy some Sardinia Rosemary Spices
& ask Ruth how best to use it for their baked chicken breast.  About Tom Stobart & page 16.
.
I am busy with a customer so Kyle makes us some raisin bread toast with our new Thomas Jefferson
Sweet Coriander Sugar; a customer shares it with us; Kyle tries the melted in butter method.
.
About " Old Virginia style Peppercorns with roasted coriander seeds ".
.
What did I taste today?  the last thing, just a little while ago, was the walnuts shelled that Ruth bought
 for our chicken salad tomorrow heavily sprinkled with the vaniilla bean sugar that I am drying.
.

Saturday, June 3, 2000.
.
" Can I have a quarter cup of each? " says the lady with the saffron orange cloth handbag.
Dr. Keyes meets Patty in the just opened Oldtown Chicago Spice House.
" Nutmeg in mashed potatoes; just a tiny bit " says an old timer.
Why we also stock Moroccan thyme leaves besides Spanish thyme & French thyme.
Where can I learn more about that aspect of cooking?   Green Pharmacy maybe you'd like to read?
John Ernst brings in his paintings.  Remember:  you saw his name here first!
What did I taste today?  White peppercorns ... the hot, nutty, &  lemony Malabar variety from India.
Holding off the inevitable with a little spearmint on a sore tooth. Buying some time.
...
I show the young lady with the nearly glowing saffron orange thick muslin handbag our Italian Herb
Mixture ... yes, she'd like some please ( she tells me she graduated from Pius High School ), then I
show her another Italian Herb Mixture, the one we call & J & G Italian Herbs.  It has really good
oregano as the major herb, and then it also has some garlic in it, but, surprise, a nice amount of
sweet happy spearmint leaves mixed in.  An Italian man was in to pick up five pounds of
garlic for his restaurant; he had his two little kids with him; Joey & Gina, and he got to telling
me about how good this style of Italian herb mixture is ... so I said, gosh, what do ya think?
Lets mix some up right here right now & I'll give you a nice big sample to take with you?  So
we got Joey & Gina to do the mixing, and now after a few years it has a solid following.  I
crinkle some up in the palm of my hand to let the young lady smell the pleasing aroma.
Hmmm she is thinking ... " Can I have a quarter cup of each? "  No problem, say I.
Italian Herb Mix: $ 2.98 half cup shaker glass bottle; J & G Italian Herbs: same way, $ 2.98
...
Excuse me for just a minute or two ... I am going downstairs to put some dried crushed spearmint
leaves in water to soak for an hour ... a little later I'll make them into a small quarter size wad &
insert this on my gums where I have a bit of a problem; a minor enlarged absess that acts up
every now or then.   ......................  I'm back now.  Every once in awhile, when I've chewed too
many peppercorns up in sampling with spice customers, my gums need just a little soothing I
prepare this home made poultice of sorts.  It does work.  Or if I have a good quality armagnac
or two, and I like to sip it, this potent liquor also tends to inflame ones gums.  Ruth had just
changed table cloths on our kitchen table.  A bright color, and as I quickly laid out the
spearmint leaves to inspect & remove the stems from, I noticed their really good green color;
nearly like tarragon.  This is an exceptionable lot of spearmint.  We always buy the whole
dried spearmint leaves; not the crushed.  That way one can remove the stems & look at the
quality.  Crushed spearmint leaves are good too, but not nearly so good as whole dried leaves.
Crushed run only 1/3 as much as whole; lots cheaper, but sometimes the stems & everything are
ground up with the leaves.  Which is O. K. for what they call " tea bag cut ", but for nicest,
cleanest, get yourself the whole dried leaves.  Buy a little, but when you find a  really good
batch, like this one, then go right back in and buy a whole bunch from that same batch.  Good
spearmint is a truly wonderful herb for cooking, does wonders in tomato sauce, lamb.  Please
remind me, I've got a recipe set aside from Milo Miloradovich really good spice book for making
spearmint sauce for lamb ... Ruth & I want to make some up with our young Greek cooks helper
spice helper Telemachos next week or the week after.  I think I saw this book back in print in
the Jessica's Biscuit cookbook catalog for only $ 7. paperback. The ones I have downstairs Ruth &
Kyle hand cleaned; yes, it takes a little patience, but the larger pieces from the whole fancy grades
give much crisper fresher more potent burtsing spearmint effect when compared to the crushed
leaves which usually are, or seem to be, a little old when imported.  Or maybe it's just me.
...
Patty tells Mom in a phone call from Wells Street in Chicago that Dr. Keyes was in her Oldtown
Spice House and was happy, surprised to meet the daughter.  Then this morning Ruth was
going into the Old World Third Street Sspice House downtown when who was coming out but
Dr. Keyes.  He sez that Ruth & Kim & Patty look enuf alike & sound enuf alike to all be sisters.
( he has become a valued customer out here during his stay in this area )  Ruth laughed when he
said that & said " you sure know how to say gentlemanly things " Ruth is Patty's Mom as we all know.
..
Nancy  asked for a little thyme, and as she appeared to have been used to the usual style of thyme
as sold in the many food stores in the United States ... i.e. the Spanish thyme, that is the jar I took
from the shelf.  But I showed her that we also stock the green, softer  flavored Frenc thyme, and
also the Moroccan thyme, which is a little like the Spanish thyme with some more robust piney
herbs like rosemary or savory mixed in.  I  explained about that group OLDWAYS Preservation
Trust ...Richard Sax told me about it some years ago. He was one of the American writers that
made the flight to Morocco to see first hand the style of food they ate there ... the story was that
the people lived longer there, and healthier to ... not only living to a long old age; but even working
daily at an advanced age.  What was the secret?  And also that the way they grew their food was
what might be called least invasive to the well being of the Earth in that area.  So Oldways started
arranging to send American food writers there to see first hand.  As they came back, they had been
made aware of that little different style of thyme leaves used in the cooking there; a bolder style leaf;
with a taste like thyme but mixed with savory or rosemary.  Some cooks started to like it very much,
altho most still preferred the Spanish thyme as sold in American supermarkets.  That is about the
time we started selling the Moroccan thyme.  Nancy asks " Is the cooking there simply vegetarian? "
" No " I replied, " It's in the combination of a little meat or fish to the grains or couscous or bulgar
they eat  with the meat ".  " And also it is the other things too, things that maybe help them to
digest their food a little better ... so they get good food, and then they digest it well ".  " I'd like to
learn more about that part of it ... you say they use some spices for this; this better digestion? "
Nancy asked to learn more.  " Well, we're a pretty young culture, some of those others older
cultures seem to have a handle on this all, especially the use of spices in this direction.  But
Nancy, look on our web site, maybe I can point you somewhere? "  I have been looking at a
well written book,  Green Pharmacy, a history of herbal medicine, by Barbara Griggs. This
book has a lot of material in that direction. A professor of pharmacy who comes in the store who
went to 'Tosa East in High School, told me this is the book that got him going in the direction his
life would take.  It is ... appears to be ... a very sound modern scientific book, but it has  a lot of
seemingly well researched material on how the ancient cultures kept healthy, some of them very
healthy.
.
more to come yet on this day.
 .
 .
.
 Friday, June 2, 2000.
...
Making up two separate batches of our good selling N. Lake Drive Spices; one with shallots in
freeze dried form, the other with shallots in air dried form.          The three large apothecary jars are
rearranged on our spice shelves to now be next to the continually glowing miniature
Chicago Theatre Building; the Chicago Steak Seasoning jar; the English Princess Salad Sprinkle
jar; and the Chicago Oldtown Spiced Sugar Jar.
.
   The lady phones Ruth from Tarpon Springs, Florida asking her to send her a full cup of our North Face Sunset Salad Sprinkle.  Her friend brought some down as a gift ... it is all gone ... they love it on chicken, on pasta, on salads, on eggs.  Daughter Pam
kept looking at this beautiful shot of Mount Everest at sunset which hangs on our Spice House wall.
The mountain is coated with a  glowing deep red  sheen.  One day her skilled hands magically put
together an unusual combination that was to become a Spice House classic:  rich Romano &
Parmesan grated cheeses mixed with freshly powdered sweet red bell pepper flakes; lots of little
lucious chunks of shallots; premium large crystal pure flake salt; & a just right little handful of
perfectly matched herbs for the mixture.... sweet Genovese basil, Greek fancy mountain grown oregano, & Spanish fancy thyme leaves.   It was the same beautiful color of the mountain " hence the name ".  Her first batch was in 1990.  She is now with Billy as the natural spices buyer.
.
Ruth greets a new couple to come into the store.  A man & his wife from Mississippi.  Yes, he
loves Milwaukee ... he loves the people here ... but they don't season things nearly enough & he is
very happy to find us.  & he likes specials!  Spice Specials!  Corrina sold him three of our
current spice specials; the free 3.95 tomato powder with the l4.95 pure beef extract; the free $ 1.49
Goat Stew Spices with the $ 2.98 Peace Climb Mount Everest Chili Powder; and the free small
1/4 cup pouches, $ 1.25 value each, of lemon thyme & French basil with the $ 3.95
English Princess Salad Sprinkle.
..
What did I taste today?  Sometimes it is written to scrap out the dark sticky seed mass from the
inside of the vanilla bean & use that for dessert recipes; other times the chopped up vanilla
beans are cooked in milk, the entire vanilla bean ... such as in the manner that the French
master Escoffier had done in his kitchen ... then this vanilla rich milk is used in baking recipes
instead of just regular milk ... what is the difference in the tastes of these two approaches?
I am preparing our sweet  delicious real vanilla bean sugar right at this very moment; it is only
a few paces away from me as I sit writing this ... and I have some of the seeds mixed with sugar;
and also the whole vanilla bean ground up with sugar waiting for me now  ... I'll be back soon,
please wait here for me ... while I go over to taste each now .....
 .
 .
 .
Thursday, June 1, 2000.
...
1000 fresh saffron flower bulbs to be shipped from La Mancha in Spain to the Spice House here on Kavanaugh Hill in June for July planting.       A good " Salt Free Seasonings ' spice gift box.
Paula Wolfert & Paula Langley & Vezalay.        Ruth sees a rainbow.       What did I taste today?
...
" It is certainly the case that a soil which has a taste of perfume will be the best soil.
If we need an explanation as to what is the nature of this odour from such soil,
it is that which often occurs even when the ground is not being turned up, just towards
sunset, at the place where the ends of rainbows have come down to earth,
and when the soil has been drenched with rain following a long period of drought.
The earth then sends out that divine breath of hers, of quite incomparable
sweetness, which she has conceived from the sun. "
...
  Pliny,   ( 23-79 AD )
Natural History, Book XVII
to be continued ........
notes.  Vezelay.  A film by Ken Burns.  Mystic Fire Video, Inc. 800 292-9001.
About a French Gothic Cathedral.  Narrated by artist William Segal.  His use of the term luminosity.
Our saffron special; a free saffron bulb with each $ 4.95 or $ 5.95 saffron sale.