If you’re looking for elusive spices, exotic bitters, and hard-to-find sauces, Stock and Spice may be where your culinary quest ends. The specialty store, owned by Evan and Denise Mallett of Black Trumpet Bistro, carries everything from spice blends and White Heron teas to oyster knives and locally-made pickles. It opened at 25 Ceres St. in Portsmouth in mid December.
“We’ve wanted to do something for many years with the ingredients we use” at the Black Trumpet, Denise Mallett says. The inspiration came from a restaurant in Mexico, where the couple lived several years ago. Evan ran the kitchen, Denise says, and “the owner had a store next door, and we really enjoyed that.”
The store’s primary goal is to be a place where Seacoast residents can get “flavors and ingredients you can’t get anywhere else,” according to Denise. That includes a variety of spice blends, from curries and Yucatan seasonings to a Chinese five-spice blend and vanilla-infused sugar, all made by Evan. The store also sells spices in bulk.
“He’s putting them together in a way that people can access them,” Denise says.
Also on sale: a range of books on food and farming hand selected by the Malletts. Among them is “Notes from a Kitchen,” by Jeff Scott, which features an interview with and photos of Jenna Darcy, who forages for the Black Trumpet and manages the restaurant’s heirloom garden. “Some of them are philosophical inspirations for us. It’s not just a selection of cookbooks,” she says. “They all have an intent behind them.”
Eventually, Denise says, she’d like to can and preserve some of the “thousands of pounds of farm produce” the Black Trumpet gets every year and sell them in the store. “We’re now just at a starting point. We have a lot of other ideas,” she says. — Larry Clow
