Autumn Starfish

I scrambled onto the smooth butcher-block counter and stopped dead in my tracks—someone had left a little white ramekin filled with wooden stars! At least, that's what they looked like until I lifted one up and held it right to my buddy's yarn face. It smelled like warm, sweet bakery spices, not wood at all. I cradled the bumpy, eight-pointed star anise across my palms like a sun-dried starfish from some secret autumn ocean. My buddy seemed totally transfixed by the glossy little seeds tucked inside each pod arm, so I officially declared us captains of a deep-sea kitchen expedition.