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 MAHLAB

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.

Mahlab is the seed kernel of St. Lucie cherries. With notes of cherry, almond, and rose, it's used in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean baking to add a warm, slightly tangy flavor to pastries, breads, and desserts. In Good Things, Samin uses mahlab to flavor Sarit’s Ashura Cereal, a sweet, crunchy snack.

Also known as mahalab, mahleb or mahalepi.

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