Like many people (ok, some people), I love to page through cookbooks and food magazines, looking for meal inspirations or clues to how to recreate an amazing flavor I experienced while traveling. Too many great recipes never saw my kitchen, though, because they called for a key ingredient that I couldn’t find, or didn’t have the time to hunt for. Aleppo pepper. Culinary lavender buds. Jaggery. Chestnut honey. Sumac. Zaa’Tar. Well, I found them all today, all in one place.
Kalustyan’s, in New York City’s “Curry Hill” neighborhood (the few blocks around 28th and Lexington) is more than a spice shop. It’s a treasury of exotic ingredients, its extraordinarily narrow isles packed, wall to wall, floor to ceiling (like the commissary on some foodie submarine), with an encyclopedic assortment of spices, herbs, oils, nuts, sugars, condiments, sweets, grains — everything, it seemed, that I’ve ever looked for, or thought of looking for, but have been unable to find. I’ve never seen anything like it. The aroma alone is worth a visit.
Kalustyan’s specialty is Indian and Middle Eastern spices, but it has much more, including an impressive selection of European and Latin American delicacies, all at reasonable prices. And, best of all, it has an extensive assortment available online at www.kalustyans.com. So, the next time I run across an interesting recipe that calls for, say, Ras el Hanout, Mahlab (ground black cherry pits) or French Chestnut cream, I’ll dog-ear the page, log on and place my order.
