The Perfect Pantry

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?

Tonka beans, a Pantry Special (Recipe: spice snap cookies)

Pantry Specials are great ingredients that find their way into my pantry from time to time, but not all the time. In this occasional series of short posts, you'll find information and recipes for foods that might not be on your local supermarket's shelves, but are available online.

Did you know that can you toss seven tonka beans into a river to make your wish come true? You can, but it's so much more fun to bake with them. Tonka beans are the seeds of Dipteryx odorata, a tree native to northern South America. The inch-long, black, wrinkly seed has a hard shell, but when grated on a Microplane, it smells sweetly like vanilla, for which it's sometimes used as a substitute, and almonds. (Tonkas also lend that sweet smell to perfume and pipe tobacco.) Though popular in other countries, in the United States tonka beans cannot be used in food, because they contain coumarin, an anticoagulant that can be toxic in large doses. If you have health challenges, please use caution; for most people, however, tonka beans used a pinch at a time present no danger, and enhance the flavor of baked goods with a slightly exotic flavor. Some cooks suggest substituting mahlab, or a mix of vanilla and almond extracts, if you find yourself tonka-free.

How my father learned to cook (Recipe: traditional spaghetti gravy)

Guest post and photos by Sarah in Boston.

When my mother passed away, two days before their anniversary, she and my dad had been married almost 15 years.

While I doubt he ever got over the shock, my dad stepped into the role of single parent and, all things considered, he did a pretty good job. As we moved through those first weeks, one thing that became apparent was that he didn’t really know how to feed two growing daughters. His ideal pantry consisted of dried Great Northern beans, rosemary, sage, bay leaf, table salt, rock salt, pepper, onions, chicken broth and elbow macaroni.

After the funeral my maternal grandmother offered to stay on for a couple of weeks to help him design a week’s worth of recipes. They’d work with what he knew and incorporate some of what she called her "tricks". I can still see them sitting across the table from each other, supposedly talking about food, eating hot pickled peppers, the tears running down their cheeks, laughing and goading each other like kids trying to see who could eat the most.

Other People's Pantries #94

From Kirsten (From Kirsten's Kitchen to Yours), in Ojai, California:

I moved into a very small apartment, 400 square feet, and with only two cupboards (above the stove no less!) I turned to freestanding items for my pantry.

Harissa (Recipe: Moroccan carrot salad)

An updated post from 2006, with a new recipe, photos and links.

The chile peppers on the can gave it away.

Before I even knew what harissa was, I knew it was hot.

Head-sweating, hair-tingling, tongue-numbing, nose-dripping hot.

And I love hot.