Spice-maker Alyse Baca creates unique blends for Spicewalla

Before Alyse Baca landed a dream job as Spicewalla's spice-maker, she was at a crossroads in her career.

Baca followed the tradition of what someone with a dream of becoming a fine dining party chef was supposed to do. She attended culinary school and began building her resume by working in various restaurants and bakery kitchens. Yet, her career goal no longer gave her a sense of fulfillment.

“I was on this one track on my career on where I wanted to go," Baca said. "In culinary school, it was so ingrained in me that this is how it is: You graduate from culinary school, you work in a kitchen and that’s all you do. Really, there (are) so many things you can do with a culinary degree or with a passion for food. There (are) so many avenues you can take."

Baca heard about a warehouse assist position opening at Asheville-based spice company, Spicewalla. She was well-versed about the spice brand and its parent company, Chai Pani Restaurant Group. The reputation preceded founder and chef Meherwan Irani, a five-time James Beard Award nominee for Best Chef in the Southeast.

However, Irani had another idea that would put Baca's education and experience to better use.

Spicewalla was growing and Irani needed someone to develop spice blends. He knew of Baca’s extensive culinary background and reputation at area restaurants and brought her in for a meeting. In April 2019, Irani presented a new offer that would benefit them both, as the company’s culinary director.

“He saw that my skill set could be used better to help the company and to make myself happier and follow my passion,” Baca said.

It took off from there, she said.

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Nearly three years later, Baca is responsible for creating new ideas for spice blends, as well as the recipes, videos and photo content for the company’s blog at spicewallabrand.com.

As the culinary director, her days are anything but typical, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Baca works remotely, making her West Asheville home an administrative office and test kitchen for the spices that end up on spice racks of restaurants and homes across the Southeast and farther.

“What we didn’t realize was what a powerhouse she’d be in recipe creation for people at home on learning how to cook and using the blends,” Irani said. “She’s cranking out amazing content. I’d say a large part of Spicewalla’s growth and success and engagement with customers is because of the content she produces from her little kitchen which is amazing dishes and amazing recipes.”

Setting spices apart

In 2017, Spicewalla launched as a chef-driven company that supplied fresh, small-batch, packed and processed by hand spices to area chefs. It started out with recipes and techniques passed down from Irani's grandmother from India.

“We became a spice company by chefs for chefs and I was focused on providing chefs from around town — like Katie Button and Jacob Sessmons to now over 1,000 restaurants in the Southeast — really amazing, high-quality spices that they normally weren’t able to get before," Irani said.

Spicewalla is used in Irani's restaurants, including Buxton Hall and Chai Pani — which made the New York Times list of favorites in 2021.

Spicewalla expanded to include a retail line of spices, salts, herbs, signature spice blends and rubs, by demand. Baca, along with Spicewalla's marketing team, publishes recipes, "spice advice" and blogs to educate and demonstrate how to use the products.

“We want people to learn about new spices and learn how to use these in different dishes and learn about different cuisines through spices and even history," Baca said.

One of the first things the company teaches is how quality spices can enhance a dish.

“As for our company, we really make sure that what you’re getting is fresh. We make sure that it’s really flavorful," Baca said. "Meherwan and I are really picky about flavor. We’re kind of obsessed with flavor and freshness so any new spice that we bring on or any new blend that we create we want to make sure that it’s fresher and more aromatic and just really gives you an explosion of flavor — something you can use easily.”

In the test kitchen

Inspiration for new spice blends and rubs can come from anywhere and at any time, Baca said. She reads cookbooks, eats at restaurants and seeks any opportunity to learn about new cuisines that give her new ideas to try out at her spice station.

Her heritage and family are great sources of inspiration, too. Her father’s side of the family is from Mexico and settled in New Mexico, she said.

“I come from a family that cooks a lot and likes to try different kinds of food so I kind of have that ingrained into me to be curious and explore and try different things,” she said. “A lot of the food I grew up with is New Mexican style Mexican food so it’s a lot of chilis, a lot of spice, which is kind of what made me so attracted to working with spices. Even with a culinary background, it was something that I didn’t know too much about. You have your base spices that you use in a lot of different recipes, but digging more into my family history and recipes, it’s like, ‘Oh, these spices actually have a history that’s tied to my family.’ That was really special to me.”

Spicewalla's product development team consists of Baca, Irani and James Grogan, business development director at Spicewalla. Once Baca brings a recipe from idea to the implementation stage, she presents various styles of the blend to the team to taste then used to cook a dish. The deciding factor is if it’s something the chefs would want to use in their kitchens, Baca said, with a final stamp of approval by Irani.

“We understand flavor. We’re not just putting blends together and spices together because they sound good," Irani said. "We want people to use it and say, ‘This just transformed the way I cook.’ I think Alyse and the role she plays is a huge part of that.”

The public sees the final products from the successful runs. However, it’s not always instant success in the test kitchen, Baca said.

“There’s countless recipes that I’ve tried that just don’t work and I feel like sometimes those are even bigger lessons of ‘That didn’t work. Why didn’t it work?’ and really leads you to another thing that might be great," Baca said. “Any chef in the world has never made a perfect dish every time. It’s part of the whole process. You got to learn what not to do and that will lead you in the right direction.”

What's cooking

In a three-year span, Baca estimates she’s created a total of 50 spice blends and rubs with 20-30 made for the retail line and others as custom blends for other companies and chef collaborations. Spicewalla has nearly 200 salts, spices, herbs and more in its catalog, all hand-selected by Baca and the culinary team.

The company continues to gain popularity and increase its reach to professionals and home cooks.

In 2019, Spicewalla made the list of “Oprah’s Favorite Things.”

Currently, Irani is planning how to make Spicewalla accessible to more people and for there to be additional educational aspects.

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Spicewalla is available for retail sale on the company’s website and stores including Whole Foods and The Fresh Market. The next step is for Spicewalla to get on the shelves of national grocery store chains, he said.

“My mission is to make everybody at home feel like they can be an amazing cook,” Irani said. "Spices are a great way to make people feel like they can be amazing cooks and to expand their repertoire.”

Baca's favorite spice blend is the Taco Collection, a trio that provides diverse options for fish, beef and pork tacos.

“The three of those were really special to me because I really wanted to have taco blends that actually reflected Mexican tacos," Baca said. "If you go to Mexico and eat tacos, you’re not going to get ground beef with these heavy spices. Nothing wrong with that, I love a ground beef taco, but I wanted to combine the brightness and the citrus in all of these wonderful flavors that you actually get from Mexican cuisine.”

Baca is working on a Valentine’s Day product launch that features the Haute Chocolate Collection of hot chocolate blends and The Hot Stuff Collection of chili flakes and other spicy blends.

Recipes will be provided for the new releases. One pasta recipe she'll release is the Paccheri Pomodoro with Nora Chili Flakes from The Hot Stuff collection that feels like a “hug," she said.

“I kind of blended Spanish flavors with Italian flavors and made a Pomodoro type sauce with fresh crushed tomatoes, basil, some parmesan, garlic, olive oil, cooked that down and mixed it with some butter and pasta sauce and topped it with more cheese," Baca said. “For some reason when I think of Valentine’s Day I think of pasta. If you’re cooking pasta for someone else, it’s a way of showing affection in a bowl.”

Spice tips

What's the shelf life for spices?

“It’s definitely up to debate – an internal debate at Spicewalla, as well. We are always talking about that," Baca said. "I would say no longer than a year. We always have this comparison to coffee where it’s like fresh spices can be similar to coffee. You wouldn’t keep coffee beans in your house for longer than six months to a year so you shouldn’t keep spices for that long. They tend to start to degrade a bit and lose their flavor.”

What's the best way to determine what spice goes best with a dish?

“If I have a spice or a blend that I don’t know what I want to do with it, my biggest recommendation is 'just taste it.' It sounds weird to put dry spices in your mouth but it’s something I had to get accustomed to in this job," Baca said. “Cooking is so much about intuition. Once you taste something, I feel like that can kind of inspire — this would be really good on some chicken or on some fish or with vegetables. Also, almost every spice and almost every blend go great on chicken or roasted vegetables. Experiment, have fun with it and try something. It may not work out or it might be your new favorite thing,” she said.

Tiana Kennell is the food and dining reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Email her at tkennell@citizentimes.com or follow her on Twitter/Instagram @PrincessOfPage.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: The creative mind behind the Asheville-based spice company Spicewalla