Specialty shopping

Looking for something unusual? I asked local food aficionado Peg Tomlinson-Poswall where she shops for specialty ingredients:

“Corti’s, Corti’s, Corti’s—if I can’t find something, I usually end up calling Darrell [Corti] and he tells me where to go get it. I love the Japanese ceremonial roasting salt, Oshima Blue Label. He has these really delicious salted caramels, like heaven and empanada dough from South America—you can’t make it any better than that. I could go on for three days.

“But I go to different stores for different things—that’s how I shop. Walking into one store and buying everything there would be far too easy! If I’m doing Mexican, I’ll get masa for tamales at Roseville Tortilla Factory [313 Riverside Avenue], which also has very good corn tortillas fresh on Saturdays. For Indian, I go to Elegance of India [6115 Mack Road] or Kaveri Indian Groceries [1148 Fulton Avenue].”