My New Addiction: Spices

Several months ago, I had come across a recipe for Chocolate-Covered Salted Peanut Butter Cups. It looked fairly easy, so I bookmarked it as a recipe I wanted to try. In looking over the recipe a few months ago, I realized I needed salt. Not just any salt, but something called Fleur de Sel - sea salt from the coast of Brittany, France. To be fair, the recipe added "or another flaky sea salt," but I know nothing about sea salt, flaky or otherwise, so I hopped online and discovered the wonderful site that is My Spice Sage. I ordered the Fleur de Sel, and was happily noticed that as a special promotion, they threw in 10 free Madagascar vanilla beans. They're free samples are insane, in that they give you a lot of them; with each order one gets to choose a free ounce of nearly any spice, and often they throw in a large quantity of another spice.

In the four orders I've placed since February, this is what I've paid for:

• 4 oz. Fleur de Sel
• 4 oz. rosemary needles
• 1 cup (4.0 oz.) Saigon Vietnamese Ground Cinnamon (in bottle with sifter)
• 1 cup (4.1 oz.) Organic Cacao Nibs (in bottle with sifter)

And this is what I've gotten for free (none of these numbers are typos):

• 1 oz. Himalayan Coarse Pink Salt
• 1 oz. Cinnamon Korintje Powder Grade A
• 30 Madagascar vanilla beans
• 16 oz. Ground Turmeric
• 16 oz. Dutch Process Cocoa Powder

If this teaching thing doesn't work out, I really want a job working for this company, developing recipes and holding classes.