Making your own spice blends isn't particularly challenging, but buying a single bottle of a blend is both more convenient and fiscally responsible than buying five bottles of five different spices. Plus, if you're just getting into the world of seasonings and spices, blends can be a bit less intimidating.

Today I want to talk about a very important part of cooking food for yourself that you'll actually want to eat: seasoning.

Throughout the culinary kingdom, there are many foods that pair famously well, salt and pepper being perhaps the most iconic. These two grace almost every dish, every recipe, every table, and every condiment bar that you've ever been to. But why?

Don't get me wrong, black pepper has its place - I love a fillet au poivre, black pepper vodka, and of course crunchy black pepper potato chips - but there are other, less frequently used peppercorns, and you should know about them. There's a whole world of chromatically diverse flavour out there, and you should be tasting that peppery rainbow.

Awards season is rapidly approaching, which means you should be watching lots of movies - so that you may express your smart and good movie opinions - and eating lots of snacks. A big bowl of fluffy, flavorful popped corn is the obvious, correct choice, but if you find yourself getting a little bored of the basic butter-and-salt situation, we have some ways to branch out.

Indian cooking can seem complicated and convoluted to people who aren't inherently familiar with it; all that grinding of various spice pastes -- a dash of this, a smidgen of that. But the truth is that once you get the hang of a few basic spices, Indian cooking is as straightforward as any other cuisine.

Stocking a spice cabinet can be a little overwhelming, simply for the reason that there are so many spices out there. It may be tempting to stock up on every exciting seasoning in sight, but these things do have an expiration date, and you can end up with a cabinet full of flavourless, expensive powders that need to be replaced.

Under-seasoned meat is a crime. That poor, simple-headed chicken gave its life for you and ¼ teaspoon of salt-free lemon pepper per drumstick is your whole plan? Jesus, Barbara, have some respect. Thank goodness for spice rubs, which prevent crimes of improper seasoning by quickly imparting complex flavours to everything they touch.

Food writer and Eater's editor-at-large Helen Rosner has the simplest secret-ingredient tip in all of cookendom.

There are a lot of fancy kitchen toys out there -- some of which are more useful than others -- but there are some things that can't be improved upon even with the latest technology. The mortar and pestle is one of those things, and your kitchen needs one.

Buying whole spices instead of pre-ground means they have longer shelf lives and stronger flavour. But, that also means you have to do the grinding yourself. These measurements make it easy to convert your whole spices into just how much you need when ground, and convert your ground spices to whole spice amounts.

Kitchen cabinets have a habit of accumulating a lot little jars, most of which contain spices and seasonings. If you're worrying about working your way through them before they lose their flavour, make like the folks at Extra Crispy and use them to make some "ad-libbed teas".

I first had za'atar, a Mediterranean spice blend featuring thyme, sumac and sesame seeds, in Israel, and it was a revelation. This savoury seasoning powder was good on almost everything -- from seared lamb to yogurt -- and I don't know why it never occurred to me to just make my own.

Ground cinnamon is an extremely common ingredient, but it can get super fancy, with some varieties being sourced from Vietnam. These varieties cost more than their generic counterparts, and it's hard to know if they're worth the money.

When you bake a pie crust, most people's concerns are related to texture, rather than flavour, but a few simple add-ins can bump your crust game to super tasty heights.

That Parmesan cheese is actually wood, that honey has corn syrup and the cake is a lie. There's no guarantee the food you're buying at the store is what it says it is, so keep an eye out for these usual suspects if you don't want to waste your money on fake, inferior products.

Have you ever noticed that spice grinders usually come with a bossy warning to "Avoid grinding over steaming pots?" I had always assumed it had something to do with not burning the spices (or yourself), but it's actually for the good of the spices, not your hands.

Nuts are pretty good on their own, but if handfuls of raw almonds make your mouth bored, consider making them taste like pizza.

At their chemical core, all salt is the same, but many of the fancy, special salts you can find differ in texture, flavour and price. Here's how to know when you should bust out the fancy Himalayan salt, or stick with table or kosher salt.

There's nothing wrong with traditional sugar cookies, but if you're looking for a way to set yourself apart at the cookie swap, consider incorporating some spice-infused browned butter.