I’ve known Oaktown’s Erica Perez since I was just 17 years old — talk about old friends! When, 15 years later, she introduced me to her then-boyfriend John Beaver, I was instantly charmed by his passion for spices and his dream to open an Oakland-based spice shop. Over the years, I’ve been constantly impressed by their ability to educate, create community, and share their love of flavor with cooks in the Bay Area and beyond. So it only made sense for me to ask them to source a couple of the harder-to-find spices I call for in GOOD THINGS. Use whole Calabrian chiles for to get the perfect color and spice level in Calabrian Chile Crisp and grind mahlab into Sarit’s Ashura to add a hint of cherry-almond flavor. Or, grab the gift set, which is packed with some of my most-called for spices: ground cumin, ground coriander, ground cardamom and Aleppo chile flakes. — Samin

WHOLE CALABRIAN CHILES

To celebrate her new book, GOOD THINGS, we collaborated with chef Samin Nosrat to source a delicious, limited-edition collection of pantry essentials that will help you recreate some of her most beloved and useful recipes.

“If I could only keep one type of hot pepper on hand, it would be Calabrian chiles,” she writes in Good Things. “To borrow a phrase from the late poet Thomas Lux, these Southern Italian peppers are ‘a lit-from-within red.” Fruity and moderately spicy, their warmth comes on slowly and fills your mouth as you eat.”

Add whole Calabrian chiles to beans or braises, or crush or chop them to add flavor to pasta, pizza or sauces. In Good Things, Samin uses them in pickled onions, warm olives and a Calabrian chile crisp.

A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this product will be donated to Oakland International High School.