Kalustyan’s

Yesterday I stopped by Kalustyans. I found out about this wonderful store while taking a course at the Ice Culinary School, formerly Peter Kumps. BTW, they offer recreational courses from Cooking 101 to Baking Cakes to Wine Tasting. The classes are fun and you definitely get something out of them.

Kalustyan’s is certainly worth the visit (28th and Lexington) but their online store does the trick. It is an oasis of specialty foods from the middle east to asia. The herbs are packaged in small to large plastic zip locks. There are a variety of olive oils from Italy, Spain, and Israel. The dried fruit is abundant. Every rice imaginable. Also, incredible nuts. Yesterday, I filled up on all kinds of goodies. I bought wasabi peas, roasted almonds, mixed nuts, pine nuts for making pesto (great buy), huge can of olive oil from Seville, dried black missions figs, sweet paprika, sesame seeds, vanilla beans, cinnamon sticks, jasmine rice, white rice, moroccan eastern couscous (similar to israeli but bigger) and of course a treat to go – Mixed Vegetable Paratha. Paratha is like a flat indian bread with vegetables already in the mixture. The paratha is spicy and delicious!

I have ordered online before. The order came quickly and I found their site pretty easy to navigate. The prices are good and the spices are fresh.

This might be an only in New York store. As I was leaving, a middle eastern gentleman came in and purchased his Israeli Yogurt, dried fruit and cauliflower paratha. Obviously his lunch. He was able to get the same meal here as he was in his homeland. Gotta love it!