Hey, That's A Nice (Spice) Rack

Naupaka B. Zimmerman ’05 wishes he could say he built the wooden shelf, laden with 20 small containers. “I got it from Habitat,” he says, “but it would be much cooler if I built it myself.” Zimmerman keeps a variety of spices, herbs and tea in his suite for good food after hours.

The spices that Zimmerman stores in a corner of Mather 418, a collection he’s maintained since freshman year, range from the mundane to the obscure. He keeps a large container of Li Hing powder handy. “It’s made from dried prunes, salt, and sugar. It’s great on popcorn,” he says. Next, Zimmerman shows off a small cloth bag filled with Hawaiian rock salt. He picks up a small container and fondly says, “Hungarian paprika. This is pretty standard.”

Aside from the “standard” paprika, Zimmerman keeps nutmeg, fennel seed, caraway seed, oregano, allspice, mint leaves, curry powder, all purpose Greek seasoning, basil, dill weed, sage and ground ginger, to name a few. He also keeps sesame seed oil, barbecue sauce, honey, chopped green chilis, ground bittersweet chocolate and 25 different kinds of tea.

“There’s definitely some random shit back here,” Zimmerman says. He pulls out four containers he didn’t know he had. “Sweet and sour button mushrooms?” he asks, laughing. “I don’t know why.”

He always eats at the dining hall, but keeps the spices as a quick-fix alternative. “It’s good to build up a library of spices,” he says. “It’s expensive to get spices one by one when you need them. I really like cooking, but it’s hard if you don’t have a kitchen.”

Having such a wide array of spices is worth the space the rack takes up, he claims. “At the dining hall, you just scoop and put it on your plate, but when we order in food, I can doctor it up. I can add crushed red pepper to Tommy’s pizza or spice up some Dinty Moore stew. It feels better when you have the option of doing a lot of things with your food. You can open a can of something and make it better.”

Jesse M. Burros ’05, one of Zimmerman’s roommates, recalls one such doctored up meal. “I regretted it” he says, though he doesn’t remember the culprit by name. “It had like nine vowels in it and a couple of ‘k’s.”

Burros’ aversion to Zimmerman’s creativity seems pretty much universal.

“Nobody ever asks to borrow spices,” says Zimmerman. “Drunk people staggering and knocking it over is a problem, though.”