Sunday Scribblings - Spicy

I went off to college with little culinary ability besides my famous hot pot version of Kraft Cheesy Macaroni. Two years later I quit college because I wanted to learn to cook.

Well, that wasn't the only reason I quit, but it was a major determining factor.

I've always craved big, bold flavors like fantastically spicy salsas, enchanting curries, and oatmeal cookies with three times more cinnamon than the recipe dictates. When I discovered fresh ground pepper I also discovered I liked, no loved, pepper. The paltry powder of my previous life was never worthy of consumption. But fresh ground pepper is the gateway to paradise.

After leaving school I also left home, got a crummy job in a large retail store for a barely livable wage, and a tiny ten-foot by ten-foot efficiency. Boy, it was efficient - less than ten steps from the far corner kitchen sink to the opposite corner toilet.

I had few friends and no social life. I remember those days, nights, in my brightly lit tin-box of a kitchen experimenting with spices. I wanted to unlock the secret of Indian curries, call forth the symphony of Thai coconut curries, steep myself in homemade cinnamon teas.

I remember the first time I cracked a pod of green cardamom with my new mortar and pestle. The sharp, stringent aroma a dazzling slap in the face. I remember carefully toasting cumin seeds and letting the scent coat my clothes and hair. I remember the first sharp bite of fennel seeds in one of my first wildly successful cooking experiments - dhal. I gleefully, albeit gluttonously, ate the whole pot. I remember slowly (as the strictly saved pennies allowed) stocking a spice pantry and noting with satisfaction that everything was whole. I would grind it all myself, as needed.

I remember creating recipes, slowly discovering how spices flirted, danced and warred with each other in dishes and drinks. I remember toasting (and burning) them and wallowing in their magnificence. I remember when I learned, with astonishment, that cinnamon wasn't inherently sweet. Neither was cardamom or nutmeg. They could all be used in savory dishes as well.

And it never gets old. How fresh toasted cumin or simmering cinnamon sticks make me salivate. How coriander seeds crack so satisfactorily in the marble morter. The subtle tones of saffron that leave a faint hint on the fingers. How dill marries a fried egg so well. The beautiful ridges and hollows of whole star anise. How fresh parsley and garlic top the dried a thousand times over anyday. Spices (and herbs), my dear, are the spice of life. We are, after-all, what we eat.

And I think I'm finally ready to go back to college. I submitted an application last week.