Food

Am I the only person who’s never seen or thought about using freshly ground cinnamon? I mean, I know about sea salt and freshly ground pepper and grating your own nutmeg but I’d never realized you could grind up cinnamon instead of buying it already ground up for you. Younger Daughter and I were restocking in Publix and came across this cinnamon grinder. And since we are wild and crazy adventurous-type of cooks, we said, “Sure. Why not?” and tossed it in our cart. Am I glad we did. I can’t tell you how much I love the flavor of fresh cinnamon on my morning cappuccino — it’s an entirely different taste and smell than the usual how-long-has-this-jar-been-in-the-pantry you get from regular (is that the right word?) cinnamon. To be honest, I’ve never really connected the cinnamon sticks I buy in bulk in December for Christmas decorations with the actual spice I use in the kitchen — sort of the way I never truly understood that french fries come from potatoes when I was growing up and I was shocked out of my ignorance when a college roommate first made real-from-scratch fries. Anyway, as I trolled around on the Interwebs looking for feedback on my discovery, I found that most people already are aware of cinnamon mills so maybe I’m not telling you anything new here. There’s also discussion about the fineness of the various grinders and which one is good for oatmeal and which one is good for coffee. I’m still enthralled with the whole concept so I’m neutral on that, except to say that I was skeptical at first since the cinnamon in the grinder we bought looks more like miniature landscaping mulch than anything else, so what do I know? Apparently not enough about cinnamon, that’s for sure.