SPICE UP YOUR LIFE

I had some birthday money to burn through and I've been wanting to freshen up my spice rack.  We've been remodeling our kitchen a bit and part of the remodel included a spice cabinet.  In the process of moving my spices to the new cabinet I realized that some (ok most) of my spices were probably, shutter, OLD, like 5 to 10 years old!  So I edited what spices I want and need, made a list and took it over to Penzey's spices in Maplewood.  They are located at 7338 Manchester just east of Big Bend by about 3 blocks.

If you're not familiar with them you can check them out online at http://www.penzeys.com.  Their prices are really competitive to what you find in the grocery store but I believe their spices are a bit better.  The staff there is knowledgeable and helpful and you can pick up recipes and ideas while you are there.  They also come in a variety of sizes and because I don't seem to use them up very fast, most of mine are the smaller size, about half the size of a regular spice jar.  They also have come up with an interesting selection of blends so you can "shake" one jar instead of having to mix a bunch of them yourself.  If you sign up for their email list you'll occasionally get coupons, I got a free jar of cloves and we purchased a copy of the current issue of their magazine and it had a coupon for a free jar of basil so we got that too.

Bonus!  So I got them home and filled my spice cabinet and I have the added benefit that they look very nice in my open shelved spice, cabinet in my remodeled (well not quite done yet but getting there) kitchen.