The Perfect Pantry

Nishiki rice (Recipe: chicken or turkey fried rice)

Not Quite Turkey Week, Day Three: An updated post from the archives, with new photos, links, and printer-friendly recipe.

My local Asian supermarket is the second-most-dangerous place on Earth.

Whole aisles are devoted to dried noodles, dishes and chopsticks, spicy condiments, fresh greens like choi sum and long beans and chive blossoms, tofu, soy sauce, curry pastes, frozen potstickers -- and cookware.

Danger! Danger!

I cannot resist the piles of woks, spatulas, skimmers and spiders (not the creepy-crawly kind, but the ones you use to remove food from a fryer), spice toasters, clay pots, dumpling rollers, bamboo steamers, cleavers, chopping blocks, sushi mats and ladles. I have had all of these in my pantry at one time or another, along with three -- yes, three -- rice cookers, each slightly different, that begged to come home with me.

And because I love my rice cookers, I always have Nishiki rice on hand to feed them.

Spike seasoning (Recipe: Spiked Cornish game hens)

Not Quite Turkey Week, Day Two: An updated post from the archives, with new photos, links, and printer-friendly recipe.

Helmut Eugen Benjamin Gellert Hauser must have had the world's most perfect pantry.

How else could he have concocted his famous Spike seasoning, which combines 39 ingredients (Really. 39. Can you count them in the photograph?):

Greek yogurt (Recipe: turkey, cranberry and basil meatballs)

If you're not planning to roast "the big bird" for Thanksgiving, you'll love this week's recipes. Welcome to Not Quite Turkey Week, Day One.

Americans learned to love yogurt in the 1970s, when a major yogurt company ran a series of television ads featuring 100-year-olds from the Republic of Georgia, and claimed that yogurt contributed to long life.

I've never really liked yogurt, but oh-boy do I love cooking with Greek yogurt.

Other People's Pantries #95

From Mary (Owlhaven), in Nampa, Idaho:

My kitchen is not especially huge, but I’m lucky to have a really nice-sized pantry. The space is triangle-shaped, with two sides of the triangle taken up with deep shelving and the third side of the triangle being double doors for easy access.

Cumin (Recipe: mushroom bhaji/mushrooms in tomato-onion sauce)

Never let it be said that The Perfect Pantry avoids the big issues.

After all, we've taken a stand on Miracle Whip versus mayonnaise, chocolate versus vanilla, chili with beans versus chili without beans, and Fresca versus... well, versus everything.

Today we're tackling another of life's big questions: how to pronounce cumin.

COO-min? COO-men? KEW-min?

Is there one correct way that makes all of the others incorrect?