— Blanca Martinez

Um, the best thing to do is get a sharpie or a a marker magic marker or whatever. And when you buy it and bring it home, write down 1123. And when it rolls around to 1124, you look at the bottom of it and you go, oh my gosh, this pumpkin spice is a year old and it's going to lose some of its freshness. The other part of it, and Chef Barton, uh, spoke about this last week on his live event about, uh, buying good spices, for example. Um, I can go to a dollar 25 store and buy some spices there, but I don't feel as though they are pure. Whereas buying them from a reputable spice dealership, like I'll give, I'm gonna name one, uh, let's see, uh, pennies. I happen to like pennies. They do a nice job. But the other thing I do is save my old spice jars and I go to my local grocery store, I see Fran Costigan peeking in the window here. We both like a local grocery store that goes from Massachusetts to Maryland called Mom's Organic Market, and they have an organic spice section where you buy by the ounce. So I prefer to buy in smaller amounts so that I don't have, um, a 1.3 ounce bottle of turmeric hanging around for longer than it should be. Date them, buy them in bulk and get them from a reputable company. And I think you'll, you'll see a difference in the taste of your food as well.