Monday, March 7, 2016

The spice of downtown


There is this dollar store downtown at the Main Place Mall. I think it is called just A Dollar.

It is indeed! This is funny, I just found this Buffalo Niagara site with a picture of the place. That is it up above. They also have a little write-up.

Everything from candles, body oils, greeting cards, bathroom, kitchen, home supplies and more for only a dollar.

Body oils, tee hee. But not all the description is as accurate. The deal is, everything unmarked in the store is a dollar. Most things have red tags on them with higher prices because the world being what it is, prices rise. The store has other strikes against it too. The aisles are painfully narrow and it is usually crowded so there is always a chorus of "Excuse me"s. On the bright side it is nice when people really do say Excuse Me.

So, not perfect, this dollar store. However.

There is hardly any other shopping in downtown Buffalo and so when I have the yen to shop on my lunch hour I have had no choice but to explore it.

And their spice aisle!

Today I bought Star Anise ($1.69) and ground ginger and powdered mustard, both for $1.49. I was out of ginger so that saved me an errand. The ginger is 1.5 ounces, same as you would find somewhere else, but the ground mustard is 4 ounces!

The spices are Mimi's Products and most are $1.49. That includes cumin seeds, mustard seeds, sesame seeds, caraway seeds, dill seeds etc., all in reasonable-sized bottles. Things you cannot find at Albrecht Discount or at CVS. It gets to be kind of torture because people are always trying to get past you as you are studying everything the spice aisle here has to offer. But it is worth the investment.

There is another treasure I found but I will have to get to that tomorrow because today I am not done with describing the spices. A Dollar also has whole nutmeg -- whole nutmeg! -- and peppercorns. Turmeric, flax seeds (ground and un-ground), whole and ground cloves, annatto seeds, pretty much everything you look for is there. Things for Indian and African and Latin and Middle Eastern cooking. Check it out.

A dollar store is a wonderful thing.

It spices up your work day!


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