Penzey's Spices
Since Heathrita asked, here's the dirt on Penzey's:
There are two store in Jacksonville; we went to the one further east. Its hours are ludicrously short (they're never open past 5:30), but we had over an hour to browse, and used almost all of it.
The store is difficult to find; it's in a strip mall. But it's worth the hassle. It's not the smallest store in the strip, and it's not an anchor either. The interior is structured like a small but airy bookstore, with small "rooms" pocketed off by shelving. The shelving looks like crates and old furniture; the spices are organized by themes (there's a curry section, a pepper section, an upended-rowboat shelf stocked with everything from coarse fleur de sel to ordinary fine sea salt). There's also a section that's strictly alphabetical and has no other unifying theme.
Spices are priced just as on the website and in the catalog, but there are three major reasons why going to the store is functionally better.
Most importantly, there are square jars with silicone gaskets on the lid (apothecary jars) with a sample of pretty much every spice, so you can smell everything in the store. We even got to taste a sample of the grey sea salt to help convince Jodi that it's worth having around, but this may have been unusual; they replace the open samples every six months to keep them fresh, and we visited at the beginning of the cycle, so there was no reason for them not to open a fresh bag. Still, I suspect they'd be willing to do that for others if you asked nicely. I was also fangirling the place pretty hard, and they knew it was a special treat for me to be there.
Another important advantage of the store is that their employees truly love the place and know the spices fairly well. We're not talking about master-sommelier expertise, but they're enthusiastic and informed, and will offer photocopied recipes using the spices you like, even though they're not generally on display. They can tell you what ingredient makes "Sunny Paris" so expensive (purple shallots) or whether Dutch-process or natural cocoa is better for baking (Dutch-process).
And finally, there's the advantage of not having to pay shipping costs, which can be a nice advantage when you get about $50 worth of spices (about half of which were a wedding gift). And you can buy little empty jars at very reasonable prices, too.
There are two store in Jacksonville; we went to the one further east. Its hours are ludicrously short (they're never open past 5:30), but we had over an hour to browse, and used almost all of it.
The store is difficult to find; it's in a strip mall. But it's worth the hassle. It's not the smallest store in the strip, and it's not an anchor either. The interior is structured like a small but airy bookstore, with small "rooms" pocketed off by shelving. The shelving looks like crates and old furniture; the spices are organized by themes (there's a curry section, a pepper section, an upended-rowboat shelf stocked with everything from coarse fleur de sel to ordinary fine sea salt). There's also a section that's strictly alphabetical and has no other unifying theme.
Spices are priced just as on the website and in the catalog, but there are three major reasons why going to the store is functionally better.
Most importantly, there are square jars with silicone gaskets on the lid (apothecary jars) with a sample of pretty much every spice, so you can smell everything in the store. We even got to taste a sample of the grey sea salt to help convince Jodi that it's worth having around, but this may have been unusual; they replace the open samples every six months to keep them fresh, and we visited at the beginning of the cycle, so there was no reason for them not to open a fresh bag. Still, I suspect they'd be willing to do that for others if you asked nicely. I was also fangirling the place pretty hard, and they knew it was a special treat for me to be there.
Another important advantage of the store is that their employees truly love the place and know the spices fairly well. We're not talking about master-sommelier expertise, but they're enthusiastic and informed, and will offer photocopied recipes using the spices you like, even though they're not generally on display. They can tell you what ingredient makes "Sunny Paris" so expensive (purple shallots) or whether Dutch-process or natural cocoa is better for baking (Dutch-process).
And finally, there's the advantage of not having to pay shipping costs, which can be a nice advantage when you get about $50 worth of spices (about half of which were a wedding gift). And you can buy little empty jars at very reasonable prices, too.