[SS01] Assault and Pepper (2 page)

An herb is a fresh or dried leaf. A spice is a dried plant part—a bud (cloves), bark (cinnamon), root (ginger), berry (peppercorns), seeds (fennel), or even stigma (saffron). The same plant may provide both—fresh or dried cilantro leaves are the herb cilantro, while the dried seeds are the spice coriander.

“What does autumn
taste
like? How does it
smell
?”

Even as I asked, the questions seemed utterly ridiculous. This was already shaping up to be one of those glorious September days in Seattle that make you think the weather will never change, that the sky will always be a pure cloudless blue, the leaves on the trees a painter’s box of green, the waters of Elliot Bay calm and sparkling.

I’ve lived here all my forty-two years, and I still get fooled.

But as the owner, for the last ten months and seventeen days, of the Seattle Spice Shop, it was my job to think ahead. Fall would be here in less than a week, by the calendar. And by my nose. I really could sense the difference right about this time of year. The annual run on pickling spices for the last cukes would soon give way to cider mulling mixes. And before long, our customers would be asking for poultry seasoning and scouting for Christmas gifts.

“The taste,” I repeated to my staff, gathered around the butcher block worktable in our mixing nook, “and smell of fall.”

Sandra fanned herself with a catalog from the kitchen shop up the hill and peered over the top of her reading glasses—today’s were leopard print. “Fall, shmall. It’s seventy-six degrees out.” Spot-on to most Seattleites, but my assistant manager is one of those native Northwesterners who thrive in a narrow temperature range. Anything above seventy-two and she sweats; below forty-five, she shivers. And complains, cheerfully. A short, well-rounded woman of sixty with smooth olive skin, pixie-cut dark hair, and lively chocolate brown eyes, she came with the place, and I say daily prayers of gratitude that she stayed.

“Apples,” Zak said. “Applesauce, apple butter, spiced apple cake. Plums in brandy. Plum pudding. Fruitcake.” Zak had been my first hire after I bought the shop. Six-two and almost thirty, with muscular shoulders, he’d seemed an unlikely candidate for employment in a retail spice shop in Seattle’s venerable Pike Place Market. But I’d been desperate and he’d been earnest. And he pleaded for a weekday job so he could rock the nights and weekends away with his band.

Plus he’s my ex-husband Tag’s best friend’s nephew, and I have to admit, Tag Buhner isn’t always wrong about people.

“You have fruit on the brain,” Sandra said. “Been flirting with the orchard girls again?”

Zak blushed, a sweet look at odds with his shaved head, fierce dark brows, and black goatee.

The orchard girls, two sisters with shiny black hair, full red lips, and curves in all the right places, had caught the eye of every straight man under thirty-five in the Market since they took over the family fruit stand this past summer. Their looks and the location of their stall—they usually draw a prime spot across from us on Pike Place, the Market’s long, cobbled main street—guarantee plenty of attention.

That their fruit is the freshest and their jams the tastiest doesn’t hurt.

“Our tea is the essential fragrance of the Market year-round,” I said, pointing my pen at the ornate brass electric teapot that resembles a Russian samovar. We’d just resumed serving the hot black Assam tea spiced with cardamom, allspice, and orange, although the iced tea dispenser would stay out a few more days.

“That, and fresh fish.” Zak had recovered from his embarrassment. The fish merchants near the Market’s main entrance put on a comedy routine to rival the Marx Brothers’, tossing whole coho salmon like softballs, teasing customers, and welcoming both locals and wide-eyed tourists to the heart and stomach of Seattle.

Zak filled his mug, emblazoned with a Z, and snatched a hazelnut cookie from the box. It wouldn’t be a staff meeting without treats from the French bakery.

“We need three or four new blends,” I said. “For our home cooks. Zak’s zeroed in on the harvest aspect of fall. But I’d like something to rub on those fish, or a slow-cooked chuck roast. To warm up the salty mist and stave off the chills, until we get into the familiar tastes of Christmas.”

My staff turned thoughtful, summoning their own ideas of fall. They say the sense of smell is the most intimately linked of all our senses to memory, and I believe it. One whiff of a familiar scent, even one we haven’t encountered in years, can transport us to a time and place long forgotten, even before we consciously recall the memory.

Our task was to find common elements and translate them into balanced blends of herbs and spices to evoke a positive sensory experience for our customers.

The Wednesday morning staff meeting is one of the few times we’re all in the shop together. Such a satisfying sight.

Actually, we were one person short. I checked the clock—a large, copper-rimmed metal ticker—next to the front door. As if on cue, the door opened and a blond cloud swept in.

“Right on time for the eight-seventeen meeting,” I said with a grin. Kristen Gardiner and I have been best friends since childhood, when our families shared a creaky, turn-of-the-century house on Capitol Hill. She still lives in the house, a classic Seattle Box built by an ancestor, although now it glows with an attic-to-cellar makeover that would color any decorator in the Emerald City green. She helps out in the shop a few mornings a week, and she is never, ever on time.

“I’m so sorry, Pepper. One of the girls forgot her lunch and I had to—”

I held up a hand. “You’re fine. We’re brainstorming fall blends.”

“Something pungent and flavorful.” Reed spoke without glancing up from his task of running a rubber stamp of the shop name over small white paper cups. Shoppers who drop in for a sample of tea often end up buying herbs, spices, or other goodies they’d forgotten they needed. Or that they didn’t need, but the fragrance and possibilities set their taste buds and imaginations awhirl.

“It’s so neat how you can trace geography and history through spices,” he continued. “When I open a jar of chili pepper cocoa, I’m in the world of the Aztecs. Ask me for a curry, and I’m halfway to India.” Maybe five-six, an inch shorter than me, slight, with shaggy black hair and hooded eyes, Reed Locke is a history major at Seattle University. Wednesdays, he comes in early before dashing off to classes. His father runs an acupuncture clinic nearby, so he practically grew up in the Market.

We all turned to the world map on the wall, where colored pins mark the origin of every spice we carry. Many spices have migrated and become integral to cuisines and economies far from their genesis. The map also hides an ugly water stain on the plaster that paint didn’t cover. Spice has added flavor to the Market since shortly after its founding in 1907, when our main competitor opened a shop, still prospering. In the fervor surrounding the campaign to save the Market from redevelopment in the early 1970s, hippie chick Jane Rasmussen threw her lot in with capitalist competition and started this shop. Why she thought the Market could support two separate spice merchants, I don’t know—but she’d been right, running this one for forty years until she sold it to me and retired to an island in Puget Sound. Our building once housed a nursery, and in spring, we honor that heritage by carrying seed packets and potted herbs.

I like to think of myself as the caretaker of one piece in the Market puzzle.

“A curry is a good idea,” I said. “Can we add a pinch of a chili or some other pepper, for our pungent mix? Put a chutney on the menu, and you’ve got Zak’s harvest touch, with an international accent.” Heads bobbed. “Okay, now we need a savory combo, and a comfort blend. Everyone’s sense of comfort varies, but we’re after something that evokes that feeling of coming home after a walk in the rain, or spending a Sunday afternoon reading by the fire.”

“If we’re spicing to feel warm, we’ll be using the same stuff until April,” Kristen said. She wrapped a black-and-white Indian madras scarf around her neck, tucking the ends into her apron, black with the shop name in white. “It’s freezing out there.”

Sandra rolled her eyes.

“We’ll trot out our pie spice mix, of course. It’s perfect for coffee, or oatmeal—”

“Or pie,” Zak said.

“For the comfort blend,” Tory said, “you want something earthy. Familiar, but not boring. A mix that makes you want to cook just so you can taste it.”

Tory Finch had also come with the shop. Twenty-eight, with a shapely figure, even in her black shop apron, and light brown hair in a chin-length blunt cut. She met my gaze, her golden brown eyes a touch less guarded than usual. Painter by night, spice girl by day, there was little question which she regarded as her real work. But when she spoke at our meetings—which wasn’t often—everyone listened.

Every business needs at least one employee like that.

I nodded, with a glance at Sandra, my master mixologist. “Something for dips and sauces or to give a little oomph to chicken. Add depth to sautéed spinach or roasted squash.” Labels inside the metal tins would include a recipe or two, with more on our website.

A tiny smile tugged at Tory’s mouth, shiny with her usual pale pink lip gloss, and she reached for the second stamp to help Reed with the cups.

“And for the savory,” I began, breaking off at the sound of angry voices outside. Zak strode to the door, and I dashed after him, confirming with a quick pat that my phone was in my apron pocket.

“I told you, again and again. This is
my
corner. When you gonna listen, old man?” Sam, a Market regular, jabbed his forefinger and pointed at the sidewalk where Pine Street meets Pike Place, the Market’s cobbled main thoroughfare. Though he stood on the street, Sam towered above the man pacing on the sidewalk. Sam’s wiry black hair, flecked with gray, peeked out from under a black wool beret that matched his long, flowing coat, and his beard stubble looked like coffee grounds against his dark skin. Beside him, Arf the dog, a tall gray-and-brown terrier mix, stood at heel, his emerald green nylon leash slack. Dogs aren’t officially allowed in the Market, but you’d never know it.

“Hey, guys.” Zak extended his hands like stop signs.

“Everybody cool it,” I said, stepping in front of him and sizing up the situation. No fists were being thrown; no one appeared injured. “What’s the problem?”

“He’s got my corner.” Sam stood as tall as Zak. The other man barely topped my five-seven.

“These are public streets,” I said. “Anyone can be anywhere.” Technically true, but that doesn’t keep the regulars from staking their claims. Aggressive begging is illegal, as is blocking foot or vehicle traffic. But I’d rarely seen a problem—and never from Sam. Trouble usually comes from outside.

Sam’s chin jutted out. He lowered his head apologetically, gnarled fingers tightening the dog’s leash. I glanced at the other man, who’d shown up a few weeks ago and often stood on this corner or across the street. Sam, who had to be sixty, called him “old man,” but it was hard to judge his age, with the khaki rain hat he wore every day tugged low over his forehead and his thin shoulders hunched inside his olive green raincoat. It hadn’t rained in weeks.

“You’re Doc, right?”

He punched his hands deeper into the coat’s big pockets and nodded. Though I don’t have children—by the time Tag felt “ready,” the batteries on my biological clock had run down—Doc’s response made me feel like I was separating squabbling toddlers.

“Sam, since Doc’s the newcomer, why don’t we show him a little Market hospitality and let him pick which corner he’d like today. You take that one.” I pointed across Pine. “Tomorrow, you switch.”

A long silence before Sam said, “Yes, Miz Pepper,” a touch of the South in his deep, shy voice.

“That okay with you, Doc?” He raised his head briefly, then lowered his golden brown eyes, terror-stricken. He didn’t speak.

“If either of you misses a day, just keep alternating. And if there’s a problem, talk to me.”

“I’ve called the police,” a woman’s breathless voice said.

Pooh
. Yvonne Winchell sold the freshest flowers in the daystalls—customers had come in all week carrying bouquets of her colorful dahlias, sunflowers, and others I couldn’t identify—but I’d never met such a worrywart. The Market is safe and clean; still, put thousands of diverse people in a small space seven days a week and things do happen. This was minor.

Behind her, one of the orchard girls watched us.

“No need,” I said. “Everything’s under control.” Yvonne stared intently, then ducked back under the shed roof that covered the long rows of daystalls, the long wooden tables with built-in benches rented by farmers and craftspeople.

“C’mon, Arf,” Sam said.

Both man and dog were clean, if a bit scruffy, so I suspected they had regular shelter somewhere. I fumbled in my pocket for a liver chew, keeping it hidden in my hand. Arf perked up, his long gray and caramel ears flopping back as his nose rose. “May I?”

“Yes’m. Whachew say, dog?” he said as Arf licked my hand. Man and dog headed for the opposite corner, and I turned back to Doc.