Quality Source: Buying spices in bulk

LJ and I first lived together in Ellensburg, which is a nice little college town in the middle of the state.  Ellensburg has a wonderful natural foods store that we use to frequent because it had cheap bulk ingredients and was a short walk from our first apartment.  This was my first experience with buying spices in bulk and I haven't gone back to the supermarket's overpriced aisle of spices since.

It is nearly impossible to over emphasize the price savings when buying spices in bulk.  Since you are buying in bulk you are paying for the spices buy the pound or ounce instead of by the container.  Most spices are incredibly light so you can really stock up without too much of a cost.  I'll never forget the first time we bought bay leaves in bulk.  The ten or so bay leaves were so light that they didn't even register on the scale when we were checking out.  The cashier looked at us and asked, "How does 20 cents sound?"

In the Olympia area we buy most of our spices in the bulk section at Winco Foods.  The selection and prices at Winco are excellent but when I'm in need of a more unique spice I go to Buck's on Fifth Avenue.  We found Buck's recently when we were wandering around downtown on a Saturday morning.  I saw a bunch of random jars in the window of a small shop and started to read the labels when I realized we'd stumbled upon a pretty awesome store.  This place has almost anything you'd want and if they don't have something they will do their best to find it and order it for you.  They also have no minimum amount so if you need just a small amount of something for a new recipe you are trying you don't have to buy a whole bottle.

Shopping for spices in bulk can be a bit intimidating the first time.  Each store has it's own procedures with how you scoop and measure the spices so it is a good idea to ask the staff the first time you visit.  Once you try it though it is hard to go back to buying spices in such an expensive way at the supermarket.

On our first trip to Buck's I picked up Bengal curry powder (which was amazing in dal) and black mustard seeds (which will be featured in an upcoming post where I made my own brown beer mustard for brats).