So, I found myself this afternoon in Penzey’s Spices, driven there by the dreary fact that this being a long fasting season for us Orthodoxes, I’m going to be eating a lot of beans between now and Christmas. I love beans, in fact, and eat them highly spiced with great pleasure. But I’m kind of worn out on yellow lentils with onion, garlic, cloves, and cardamom, which is how I usually eat them. And believe me, it’s delicious, but … time for something different. Maybe Penzey’s would have something interesting.

I saw on the shelf something interesting: “Singapore” blend. I smelled the powder in the the sample jar. Terrific. Then I read the ingredient list: Tellicherry black pepper, lemon peel powder, citric acid, garlic, onion, tumeric, coriander, cumin, ginger, nutmeg, fennel, cinnamon, fenugreek, white pepper, cardamom, cloves and cayenne red pepper.

Basically it’s lemon pepper mixed with curry spices. I bought a small jar of it, and used it tonight on some leftover lentils I’d cooked with chopped turnips and kale. Life-changing stuff! Penzey’s recommends using it on chicken and fish, which I will after the fast, but I’ve got to tell you, I’ll be just fine with this stuff on beans from here on out. It’s that good. Is what I’m telling you.

I hope to have the opportunity to visit Singapore one day to eat. I hear such great things about its street food. Once in Palo Alto, some friends took me to a Singaporean restaurant, the Straits Cafe.  It was memorable. I bought their cookbook, and made some savory, curried beignets from it. I could have lain my head on those babies and slept the sleep of the just. They were that good. Is what I’m telling you. In fact, I would put the recipe right here for you if that cookbook wasn’t nestled at this very moment inside a taped-up box next to the kitchen.

Here’s a great piece from Saveur magazine a few years ago about Singapore street food. Singapore seems to be the fusion capital of Southeast Asia. If I could spend a month eating my way from Shanghai, to Saigon, to Bangkok, Singapore, and finally Jakarta, I would be one happy Working Boy. But I digress.

See what kind of flight of fancy that Penzey’s spice mix put me on? By the way, you want to really go to spice heaven, check out Kalustyan’s. I bought some charmoula spice mix, a North African thing, from there this past summer. What’s in it? Cumin, coriander, red pepper, turmeric, garlic, onion, fennel, allspice, black pepper, anise, cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. You mix this powder in your food processor with olive oil, fresh cilantro, fresh parsley, garlic, salt, and fresh-squeezed lemon juice. Dress cooked chicken (grilled or boiled) with this stuff. Bliss. Chicken charmoula was our favorite thing to eat all summer. It more than a little unnerves me that Kalustyan’s no longer has it listed on its exhaustive online store. So passes the glory of the world.