The Spice House

So my lovely neighbor recommended a great place to buy spices. It's called The Spice House and is located in the historic neighborhood of Old Town in Chicago along with a few other locations just outside the city. Being that I am a connoisseur of all things wonderful I decided to take a trip after all the great things she had to say about it. This could quite possibly become one of my favorite stores. Note: I said "one" of my favorite stores. My current and eternal favorite store is Illuminations. When I say eternal I mean eternal. I love their candles. Love. If they ever go out of business I'm quite sure I will have some sort of severe melt-down that will cause me to go through candle withdrawal and then I won't know what to do with myself for extended periods of time. I'm getting upset just thinking about it...Okay, Back to spices. They have such a great selection. The great thing about this store is that they have testers for all the spices so you can taste them if you so desire. I love that. You can't go to the grocery store and taste spices. The BF and I got a small selection of things to try out:

Madagascar Vanilla Beans
Whole Nutmeg
Dried Lavender
Southwestern Seasoning
Little Italy NY Style Herbs
Taco Seasoning

So far we have only tried the Taco Seasoning. It was amazing! It has such a unique taste that cannot be compared to any other taco seasoning that I've had. It's a definite must-try! I'm super excited about the vanilla beans. I'm going to make homemade vanilla extract. I got the recipe from my favorite blog here. It takes a couple of months to infuse so if I start now it will have plenty for all of my fall baking. I'm also really excited about the lavender. I'm going to use it for lemon cupcakes with lavender icing. I'm so excited about this store! Be sure to check it out!