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the right answer. I work at NPR, where, if we don’t know the right answer, we Google. And then we confirm with librarian Mary Glendenning, because the LAST thing we want to get is a picky ol’ listener letter telling us how very WRONG we were and how the listener expected OH SO MUCH BETTER FROM US. Truly, some of them try to guilt-trip us over innocent boo-boos, like the time I mistook Zsa Zsa Gabor for her sister Eva. It’s not just the high exalted mission of journalists to get every miniscule detail absolutely correct; it’s a point of pride and self-preservation. And so when someone gets it wrong at NPR, there’s a twenty-four-hour group shunning, and our editors make the offending party wear a sign with “slattern” scrawled across it. Those of us who read Jane Eyre know what that means.

I want to spare you such indignity. Hopefully, your workplace isn’t so creatively Victorian. But if it is, here are the basics about the origins of spices. If you need more details, do like the NPR staff do—GOOGLE!

Ginger is ground from a plant that’s grown in China and India. It’s pungent and aromatic and when ground is generally light bone to orangey-tan colored. More details about ginger back on page 68.

Nutmeg is ground from the seed of a tree native to Southeast Asia. It’s strongly aromatic, with a little hint of citrus and pine. It’s generally light brown.

Mace is kind of cool. It is ground from the lacey little red covering that grows OVER the seed from which nutmeg is ground. It tastes like nutmeg, but it’s more delicate. Its color is generally deep brick orange.

Cloves come either whole or ground. They’re the nail-shaped, unopened bud of a tree that grows in Indonesia, Zanzibar, and Madagascar. Ground cloves are an orangey brown, and taste strong, sweet, and almost hot.

As for cinnamon, well, this is a shocker: A lot of what we call cinnamon is actually from the cassia tree, and that cinnamon is often referred to as bastard cinnamon. True cinnamon is the thin, inner bark of the Cinnamomum verum tree, which grows in Sri Lanka. The bark is stripped off and dried in the sun, where it curls into those little scrolls, cinnamon sticks, that are sometimes served with hot chocolate or coffee around the holidays. Bastard cinnamon is harvested the same way, but cinnamon scrolls from the cassia tree are harder to grind by hand. True cinnamon has a sweeter and more refined taste than bastard cinnamon, but essentially it is the same flavor. Cassia may be a bastard, but it is related to Cinnamomum verum. Kind of like Patty Duke and her identical cousin (oh, Google that if you don’t know the reference). You can get cinnamon in scrolls or ground; either way, it’s reddish brown in color.

Spanish Meringue Cake

NEW TECHNIQUE ALERT!

BEATING EGG WHITES

All the cakes in this book are great cakes (why would I write a book about cakes and give you bad recipes?), but THIS cake is one of my top ten. It’s from Carole Walter’s award-winning book Great Cakes, but it’s not her cake. It’s her version of a cake by one Robert McNamara of Atlantic City, New Jersey, baked for a contest in 1975. But it wasn’t his recipe, either. It was his mother’s.

According to Carole, the original cake had “a lightly spiced brown sugar base that was topped with chopped walnuts, then covered with a brown sugar meringue. When baked, the meringue turned into a delicate, chewy caramel-flavored topping.” Her recipe has a light, moist crumb, and with all the spices and the meringue, it goes really well with coffee.

A note about the directions: comedian Phil Hartman used to do a skit on Saturday Night Live called “The Anal-Retentive Fisherman.” The character seemed like he’d never get around to actually fishing because he was futzing around so much with his individual zipper-top baggies and color-coded organizational system. Sometimes, when I’m using recipes from Carole Walter’s Great Cakes, I think her subtitle should be The Anal-Retentive Baker. However, she didn’t win a James Beard award for nothing. I’ve learned a lot from her directions, such as how to cream