Toasty Spice Roaster

Look! It's a tiny popcorn popper for dwarves!

Because of the ridiculous, incredible heat in Los Angeles the last two weeks or so, I've been experimenting with salads and spices to whet the weary appetite. All good Indian, Israeli, and Asian dishes depend on quality spices, mostly whole and toasted over open flames by the cook. And after some poking around online (really, all I do all day long), I happened upon the ideal spice toaster.

This incredibly simple tool makes spice toasting, from coriander to cardamom to sesame seeds, very quick and easy. Yeah, sure, you could use a little skillet on the stovetop and monitor the spices like a hawk. Or, you could dump them into this little sieved device specifically designed for the task and have it done in about half the time. Because this spice toaster is a Japanese product, made in Japan, by people who have tiny kitchens and limited space for culinary nonsense. Anything they dream up to make the chef's life easier is worth buying.

So, buy one for the chef in your life. Hell, buy two. They're only $14. And maybe you should throw in a quality spice grinder while you're at it, so you can stop using your old cranky coffee grinder to make rice powder for your next batch of chicken larb. At Umami Mart.