La Boîte à Epice

Nearly all of the spices we use at Zahav are sourced and blended for us by Lior Lev Sercarz, an Israeli-born, French-trained chef who has a shop called La Boite a Epice in New York City. I can call him and say, "We need that Yemenite spice blend called hawaij"—a mix of turmeric, black pepper, cumin, sometimes cardamom, sometimes saffron, which I use with everything from short ribs to chicken soup—and he knows exactly what the end result needs to be. He sells blends made with spices from all over the world (a few of them are shown at right), and he also makes these delicate, beautiful little cookies that showcase them. —Michael Solomonov, Zahav, Philadelphia