Grinding spices by hand is hard work, and sometimes they don’t come out as finely ground as I’d like. While a spice grinder might be the answer, I worry that I’d spend too much time cleaning it between different spices. Cosima, Berlin, Germany I do use a spice grinder, which I originally bought to grind coffee beans, so my advice is just to go for it. A pestle and mortar is a great tool, true (particularly if you have a granite one, with some texture, rather than a smooth one in which you end up chasing the spices around the bowl), but the spices don’t always come out finely ground, however much elbow grease you put in. After all, ready-ground spices come nowhere near toasted and ground whole spices such as cumin seeds, cinnamon sticks, star anise and so on, and the value they bring to a dish is enormous. As for maintenance, I have to confess that, so long as the rub or blend is a dry one (made from dry spices such as cumin or cloves, say, rather than raw chilli, garlic and ginger with fish sauce), my cleaning process at home is fairly superficial (at the restaurants, though, it’s another matter entirely). I usually just wipe the grinder with a clean towel or sheet of kitchen paper, and that’s pretty much it. I might put the lid through the dishwasher, but the main section holding the blade (and with the electrics in the base) I usually just give a dry wipe-down. You have to use discretion but, very often, any trace of, say, cumin will if anything add a bit of interest to the next batch of spices you blitz, anyway. So put a spice grinder on your Christmas list and don’t overthink the cleaning. Where possible, keep dry and wet mixes separate, and just pay a bit more attention to the cleaning with the latter, especially if that includes pungent garlic, chilli or ginger, for example.