Just a pinch of murder – a double anniversary, a #giveaway, and a Top Ten list of herbs and spices

LESLIE BUDEWITZ:  In mid January 2015, I joined Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen, with a post about eating and cooking my way through Seattle’s Pike Place Market. 

Two month later, in mid March, my Spice Shop mysteries, set in the Market, joined my Food Lovers’ Village mysteries on the shelf with the publication of Assault & Pepper.

Two momentous tenth anniversaries! To celebrate, I’m sharing Pepper’s list of top ten essential herbs and spices, along with links to a few of my favorite recipes from the series. (Okay, her list is mine, but we’ll pretend she isn’t fictional for a few minutes.) 

And because Pepper is generous and I’m grateful for your support these past ten years, there’s a giveaway, too. 

Any cook knows how easy it is to overstock the spice cabinet! You try a new-to-you recipe and buy an ounce of this and a pinch of that, but what do you do with the rest of the jar? Well, search a good cookbook or online recipe source for more options.

But if you’re stocking a new kitchen, or you want to pare down to basics, I think this list is a good place to start.

Of course, your taste buds matter, too. If you enjoy Mexican dishes, add more peppers and some dried cilantro. If you eat a lot of Italian, add rosemary. If you love making soups and stews, you must have bay leaves. (Eaters sometimes say they don’t know what bay leaves do; skip adding them to your soup, and you’ll notice!)

Thanks to reader Tracy Condie for taking A&P to the Market -- shown here at Market Spice!

Me at World Spice in the Market, April 2024

In alphabetical order:

Basil -- Summer in a jar. 

Chili Powder -- Not just for chili!

Cinnamon (ground, but sticks are great, too) – It blends beautifully with cayenne and salt in this Spiced Glazed Nuts and Pretzels Mix from Assault and Pepper. We make and share it at the holidays, but it’s a favorite all year round. 

Cumin -- Some think of cumin as hot, maybe because it's so often used in Mexican and Indian cooking, but it's really all about flavor. And oh, that color!

Ginger -- Try Pepper's Gingersnaps, with their secret ingredient, from Killing Thyme, reposted on the blog on launch day. 

Nutmeg -- A must for custards, quiches, snickerdoodles, and so much more.

Oregano -- The definition of a classic.

Paprika (sweet or spicy; smoked is a fave in our house) – Two favorite ways to use it are Edgar’s Baked Paprika Cheese, in The Solace of Bay Leaves, and Lena’s Hungarian Mushroom Soup, from Between a Wok and a Dead Place.

Red Pepper Flakes -- I won't say we use them every day, but darned close!

Thyme  Pepper and I love nontraditional uses of herbs and spices, as in this Lemon Thyme Shortbread from Killing Thyme.

Plus you need a good sea salt—more on that in a minute; black peppercorns and a grinder; and a jar of dried minced garlic or garlic powder. 

And of course, blends are a great way to add a lot of flavor in a hurry. A few faves:

Italian Herb Blend – Mine appears in Killing Thyme, along with this delicious Herbed Black Bean Pasta Salad, which Pepper repurposes in a way I don’t necessarily recommend.  

Herbes de Provence – You’ll find the recipe in Assault and Pepper, along with Pepper’s Potato and Broccoli Frittata, the first recipe I shared as a member of the blog. 

Curry – A good curry is a burst of flavor, not heat, unless you want it to be, as I mentioned last month in my post on Shrimp with Tomato Curry.  Find my recipe in Guilty as Cinnamon, although if you find a good, fresh blend at an Indian market, go for it!

Lemon Pepper – Watch for a twist on the classic in this summer’s Lavender Lies Bleeding. 

Pumpkin Pie Spice Blend – My version, for pie, coffee, pound cake, and more, is in Peppermint Barked, shared on the Kitchen blog a while back.  

And of course, you’ve got to have Pepper’s Spice Shop Tea, in Between a Wok and a Dead Place, or her chai blend, for sipping or baking, in Chai Another Day.

A note about salt: Pepper and I are often asked with so many types of salt available, what’s the difference and what do you need? 

Sea salt is formed by evaporation of ocean or lake water, with minimal processing, while table salt comes from underground salt deposits. (“I’m going to the salt mine,” my father used to say before descending to his basement office.) Each has a different crystal structure. In addition, most commercial table salts also include iodine, which before the early 20th century, was often difficult to get in a diet, particularly for Midwesterners. That’s no longer the case, with changes in how we eat and where our food comes from. Table salt can oxidize to give food an acrid flavor. We use organic sea salt for every day use.

If you bake, you’ll want kosher salt, so named because it’s used to draw out water in the koshering process. It’s got a coarser structure than sea or table salt, and is particularly good for baking. Most professional bakers and cooks prefer Diamond Crystal over Morton’s; I’ve read that lab tests have shown it to be more consistent in structure and therefore salinity, and that most recipes are written expecting the cook to use Diamond Crystal. So that’s what Pepper and I do!

We also love flake salt, such as the French fleur de sel or Maldon salt flakes, which are readily available. Use flake salt to top a finished dish, sweet or savory, where a little salt will make the flavors pop. Classic uses include sprinkling a few flakes on top of ice cream served with a chocolate or caramel sauce, or even a classic chocolate chip cookie, sprinkling a bit on top the moment the tray comes out of the oven.

It has been my great delight to share recipes and spices with you these past ten years. Here’s to many more flavor-filled moments!

Pepper and I are offering Winner’s Choice of Spice Shop paperbacks to THREE lucky readers! Talk to us about the books, spices, and recipes for a chance to win. (Leave an email address. US and Canada mailing addresses only. Winners will be announced Friday, March 21.)

Watch for Lavender Lies Bleeding, coming July 15!

ALL GOD'S SPARROWS AND OTHER STORIES: A STAGECOACH MARY FIELDS COLLECTION, now available in in paperback and ebook 

Take a step back in time with All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection of historical short mysteries, featuring the Agatha-Award winning "All God's Sparrows" and other stories imagining the life of real-life historical figure Mary Fields, born into slavery in 1832, during the last thirty years of her life, in Montana. Out September 17, 2024 from Beyond the Page Publishing.  

“Finely researched and richly detailed, All God’s Sparrows and Other Stories is a wonderful collection. I loved learning about this fascinating woman . . . and what a character she is! Kudos to Leslie Budewitz for bringing her to life so vividly.” —Kathleen Grissom, New York Times bestselling author of Crow Mary

Available at Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Books-A-Million * Bookshop.org * and your local booksellers!

TO ERR IS CUMIN:A Spice Shop Mystery (Seventh St. Books, out now in paper, ebook, and audio)

From the cover: One person’s treasure is another’s trash. . .

Pepper Reece, owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, wants nothing more than to live a quiet life for a change, running her shop and working with customers eager to spice up their cooking. But when she finds an envelope stuffed with cash in a ratty old wingback left on the curb, she sets out to track down the owner.

Pepper soon concludes that the chair and its stash may belong to young Talia Cook, new in town and nowhere to be seen. Boz Bosworth, an unemployed chef Pepper’s tangled with in the past, shows up looking for the young woman, but Pepper refuses to help him search. When Boz is found floating in the Ship Canal, only a few blocks from Talia’s apartment, free furniture no longer seems like such a bargain.

On the hunt for Talia, Pepper discovers a web of connections threatening to ensnare her best customer. The more she probes, the harder it gets to tell who’s part of an unsavory scheme of corruption—and who might be the next victim.

Between her quest for an elusive herb, helping her parents remodel their new house, and setting up the Spice Shop’s first cooking class, Pepper’s got a full plate. Dogged by a sense of obligation to find the rightful owner of the hidden treasure, she keeps on showing up and asking questions.

One mistake, and she could find herself cashing out. . .

Available at Amazon  * Barnes & Noble  * Books-A-Million * Bookshop.org * And your local booksellers!

Leslie Budewitz is the author of the Spice Shop Mysteries set in Seattle's Pike Place Market, and the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries, set in NW Montana. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody, standalone suspense, most recently Blind Faith. She is the winner of Agatha Awards in three categories: Best Nonfiction (2011), Best First Novel (2013), and Best Short Story (2018). Her latest books are To Err is Cumin, the 8th Spice Shop Mystery and All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection, in September 2024. Watch for Lavender Lies Bleeding, the 9th Spice Shop Mystery, on July 15, 2025.

A past president of Sisters in Crime and former national board member of Mystery Writers of America, Leslie lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their cat, an avid bird-watcher.

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