Amber & Cardamom

I am currently obsessed with cardamom.  If you took my How Well Do You Know ALH?  Facequiz, you probably learned that I could eat Indian cuisine eternally without fatigue.  No doubt that's because of the breadth of the spices and offerings, but it's also because I love cardamom so much.

You can add it, along with some salt and cayenne pepper, to yogurt with cucumbers and tomatoes and get a really simple raita.  You can add it to black tea with some cinnamon, ginger and cloves and get chai.  And it's one of the most important ingredients in my favorite spice blend, garam masala.  That's not to be confused with the film, Garam Masala, which one would be a fool to watch on Hulu just because it was named after one's favorite spice blend since one would be very disappointed that there is actually nothing about spices in the entire movie.

Also, cardamom makes an earthy, first-chakra-grounding essential oil, which in turn makes a nice perfume (especially when mixed with a little vetiver in a base oil), that is said to have a warming effect and "reminds of life's true abundance when we feel deprived of opportunity or generosity."  I think that means its zesty and rich.

Cardamom should not be confused with coriander, another awesome plant to be recognized another week.  Coriander is what we here in the Americas called cilantro (often with loathing since there seems to be some kind of weird cilantro backlash), but it also comes as a nice dried spice which is just as versatile as coriander.

But not as zesty.

If one did happen to watch a film named after one's favorite spice blend, this would be the big dance number that references the spice blend.  If.