I just went to Surfas in Culver City, it’s a pretty awesome but overpriced baking and cooking supplies store. I was looking for a few things for my Christmas baking, but couldnt find anything. One of the things I was looking for was the bitter almonds for my marzipan. I went to the nut section, it wasnt there, I went to the extract section and I couldnt find it there either so I asked a guy who was working there. We went back to the nut section but again no luck. The guy went to ask someone else who was working there and was told they don’t carry it.
So I went to Smart & Final, which is another more reasonable priced, kind of more geared towards catering store. The one I went to in Culver City had turned itself from a regular Smart & Final to a Smart & Final Express, and off course I couldnt find any bitter almonds there either.
Once again I was reminded of how much I hate shopping, so I turned back home.
Made a quick google search and found out on about.com that “the sale of unrefined bitter almonds is prohibited in the United States”. Cool, I guess I can stop looking. I’m thinking I should still be able to find bitter almond extract somewhere though. Or should I just not care about it and put some rum in the marzipan instead?