My First Food Blogging Event

When it comes to spices, I consider myself to be pretty knowledgable. Growing up, we had the common spices in our house--cinnamon, pepper, vanilla, paprika, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves. When I moved to Austin and discovered TexMex, I learned about cumin, serrano peppers and cayenne. Later on, when I started experimenting with Asian and Indian influences, I discovered curry powder (although I've never mixed up a batch of my own), turmeric, coriander, cardamom, and mustard seeds. I even found some asafetida for an eggplant stew recipe I found in Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian that has since become a standard of mine.

And then there's the romance of spice. Wars have been fought and lives have been lost to gain control of the ancient land routes and waterways that traders used to transport their spices. Empires were won and lost fighting over them. They're exotic and intriguing, and there is nothing like the way the smell of a freshly-ground spice travels through your nostrils straight into your brain. I love playing with them, and learning their properties.

Barbara Fisher over at Tigers and Strawberries has launched a monthly Spice Challenge and I'm pretty excited about it. I've been lurking at Is My Blog Burning for years, wishing I had the nerve to participate in one of the events. Barbara's spice challenge seems like the perfect place for me to jump in.

The event is open to anyone who wants to participate, whether or not you have a blog. You can find the rules on her site here. The theme for April is "Ancient Spices," to be determined by what your personal definition is of an ancient spice. I've already started looking through Herbs and Spices to try to decide what spice I'm going to use.