I love cooking and trying new foods and ingredients. I’ve spent most of quarantine in Boston cooking + fermenting. One of the great things about actually working is money and being able to spend it however you want. I’ve bought a few things during quarantine and a lot of it has been food-related. I’ve also been exploring a few shops in and around Boston/Cambridge that I didn’t have time to check out pre-quarantine. I just want to highlight a few of the places I spend my time and money.
Curio Spice Co.
I really love Curio, I started shopping there once I moved into Boston. The quality is phenomenal and they support farmers, which is incredibly important. They also have some pretty cool and tasty spice blends (my favorites are Rose Harissa and Edo). Plus, they’re women owned and they have classes. While Curio’s Cambridge shop isn’t open during quarantine, you can order online (even though the best part of Curio is visiting their Cambridge shop to smell and hold everything). I sadly don’t have any photos from my previous trips but I will update when I can go visit again.
Savenors Market
I eat a lot of veggies and pretty plant-base overall, but I love meat. It’s so delicious and tasty, but now that I’m buying my own food and able to pick where I get my food, I’m putting money towards quality of meat. I try not to eat beef (really any thing that comes from cows) so I mostly eat pork, chicken, fish/seafood (which I buy from Wulf’s another Boston based place), and bison and other game. Savenor’s has fantastic quality meat and given that I only eat meat about once a day it’s pretty affordable (and not every day). Since, Savenor’s is a whole animal butcher (that does demos!!! Super cool imo) you can get less popular cuts that wouldn’t be sold in grocery stores. I do this somewhat often to push myself to experiment. Not to mention I’ve always loved the idea of shopping at a butcher and all specialized food stores. One final note, Savenor’s does a fried chicken Tuesday which I was skeptical that a place up north could have good fried chicken but honestly, this chicken hit home for me. I was pleasantly surprised and now I’m a huge fan.
Elmendorf Bakery Supply and Café
I discovered this place on accident a few weeks ago, while walking about Cambridge. I don’t bake a lot or ever really. I leave that to the pros at Clear Flour Bakery. However, I occasionally give it a go. I like Elmendorf because they carry a bunch of cool products like heritage masa and other heritage wheat flours. They also sell mills and honestly, even though I don’t bake a lot, I really want a mill to mill my own flour to make random flour-based products. I actually didn’t buy anything when I went in the first time because I’m on a no spend September but might trek out and break to buy some popcorn or masa to make some tamales.
Haymarket
Food is expensive, like unbelievably so in Boston compared to my hometown. I honestly would not be able to maintain my diet and budget in Boston if Haymarket did not exist. It pretty great, because it’s super affordable and sometimes you can find organic stuff there. I love Haymarket and go just about every week. It’s super cheap, for example, I spend $20ish/week on veggies and fresh fruit and that buys a number of pounds of food, enough to last me a week of eating purely in the apartment. There is definitely a trick to shopping at Haymarket as not all the vendors are great but some of them are fantastic. If you follow me on Instagram, you can see my weekly haul in my stories. It also allows me to try and test different out different recipes and ferment all the things. I know a number of people have gotten into sourdough and focaccia during quarantine (both of which I’ve baked during quarantine) but I also finally have time to start fermenting foods using Noma’s fermentation guide.
