Nord Spices

the basics chapter of the book starts with a little intro section called "Spices, Seasoning, & Condiments". its pretty neat, basically says "hey season your food lolol" but its here where the skyrim pandering shows the most i think. they mention that the three spice blends in the book (nord spices, stormcloak seasoning, imperial seasoning) are "the three most common mixes found in Tamriel". really? stormcloak seasoning? in places like elsweyr or valenwood? i find that hard to believe (҂◡_◡)ᕤ

anyway, the mix itself is pretty simple to make. its mainly cardamom and cinnamon, then very little mace, cloves and grains of paradise, all ground. just mix condiments together! how hard even is that to make

heh, well

normally you'd buy them all already ground, but i already had cloves and i figured it cant be hard to grind them up. turns out grinding cloves by yourself in a wood mortar and pestle isnt the most efficient method. cloves just wouldnt grind beyond some point. eventually i did manage to get enough by grinding way more cloves than i needed to and scooping up the little dust they left behind

one last thing, i couldnt find grains of paradise. ive never even heard of grains of paradise before. turns out theyre a derrivative of cardamom. i used instead equal parts black pepper and ginger, and it all turned out pretty good.

overall, a solid spice mix. smells good and is tasty, also fits the winter period (despite the lack of snow,,.., or even cold temperatures for that matter). what more can you ask for