Today's SideDealPick-Your-16-Pack: Eat.Art Spice Tubes
- 16 dollars for 16 spices and spice blends
- Choose two 8-packs
- A very wide variety of stuff here
- Yep, these are gift sets (happy birthday to you)
- Best by November 2025 (this is not an expiration)
- Can they make a margarita: No, but there’s probably something in here that would be interesting on the rim of a margarita glass? Maybe?
Well Seasoned
Everyone following the big tournament?
There was a pretty huge upset early on: someone who got in via qualifiers knocking out a lauded two-seed who’s made multiple deep runs in the last few years.
Thrilling stuff, huh?
Of course, I’m talking about Jonathon Sawyer taking down Karen Akunowicz in Guy Fieri’s Tournament of Champions.
Now, I’m a fiction writer, so I have to tip my hat to Food Network here. I’m not saying the contest is a fiction, as in rigged. But they always, in this and all of their programming, do a good job of showing their work. There’s the narrative concept of Chekov’s gun, which basically says if there’s a gun early in a story, it must go off by the end. As a writer, the concept is reversed; often, you only realize what figurative gun you want to go off at the end later in the writing process, requiring you to go back to the beginning to plant it, so to speak.
Food Network always does this. They ensure that the edit at least hints towards the trouble that might arise later, so that viewers aren’t left saying, “Wait, what? He won?” (cough, finale of Top Chef: Wisconsin, cough).
In this case, Justin Warner, culinary correspondent and all-around delight, provided the evidence that would later be used against the losing chef. The two competitors were tasked to make a dish that met a number of requirements, including that it must be considered “spiced.” Naturally, having only had a half-hour, the chefs used spice blends. At one point, Warner, assigned to be covering Akunowicz, turned to the camera and said something along the lines of, “One must be careful and taste often, as these blends can contain salt that the chefs didn’t realize.” Sure enough, Akunowicz ultimately went home for her dish being too salty.
Now, here’s the thing: you are likely not a professional chef cooking under ridiculous time constraints on television. So there’s nothing stopping you from googling a recipe for a spice blend, acquiring the individual spices, and mixing them all together yourself.
The only issue: that shit takes time. And while you might not have to turn out four composed plates in 30 minutes, you likely don’t have all day to be measuring a million different spices.
Also, these are good. For 16 bucks, you get 16 different fantastic spices and spice blends.
In fact, we don’t mean to brag, but they’re actually the go-to spices of famed spiced musicians like:
- Tumeric Clapton
- Cardi-b-mom
- Beyonsage
- Curry Underwood
- Elvis Parsley
- Cayannie Lennox
- Nutmegan Thee Stallion
- Garam Parsons
- Justin Berbere
- Chili Joel
Wow, terrible puns. But again, these spice blends are not terrible. They’ll provide great flavor and might save you some time as they do so.
So get them!
