The Perfect Pantry®

Instant couscous (Recipe: sweet couscous for a crowd)

Last winter, I treated the Ninecooks kitchen to a couscoussier, a double-decker pot used to create traditional Moroccan stews and couscous. The stew goes in the bottom, and rising steam infuses and plumps the couscous resting in the perforated top compartment.

It's a beautiful thing, but I have yet to use it.

I tried. I really did. The #1 Cooking Group made a menu called Preserving the Lemon, which included three dishes inspired by Moroccan cuisine. We used our tagines, but when it came time to set up the couscoussier — and start the slow process of rinsing, drying, steaming and steaming again — we looked at each other and, in unison, said, "Instant couscous!"

Black vinegar (Recipe: cold aubergine salad)

Updated August 2010.

For some reason — I'm not questioning — I've received many wonderful cookbooks as gifts this summer.

(PS: I love gifts of cookbooks much more than gifts of food, and just as much as gifts of wooden spoons and cooking utensils from faraway places...in case you were wondering, or making a list and checking it twice....)

Barbara brought an encyclopedic cookbook from Argentina, and Bev returned from Peru with a charming locally-published volume filled with recipes we can't quite understand (though both books have been translated into English, which might be part of the problem). Kate's son Max brought two local cookbooks from his travels in Turkey and Greece; I discovered them in my mailbox one Saturday morning — a delightful surprise.

Ted hit the bookstores in Toronto on a recent business trip, and came home with three treasures, including Flavours of Vancouver, a fundraiser for Save The Children Canada, and the original British edition of Ken Hom's Quick Wok: The Fastest Food in the East.

I always open books in the middle or at the end, never at the beginning. I don't know why. I read newspapers and magazines back-to-front, too. So, I stuck my thumb in the middle, opened Quick Wok, and landed on Cold Aubergine Salad, a recipe that calls for black vinegar.

It was a sign.

Chili powder (Recipe: turkey tacos)

Some like it hot.

I like it really hot.

I like it hot enough to make my scalp tingle, my sinuses drip, and my eyes water. (Do I need to mention that I'm talking about food now, not the weather?) I wasn't always like this, but a trip to New Orleans years ago started me down the pepper path, and there is no turning back.

Sometimes, though, unadulterated heat isn't the goal. When I want a more complex depth of flavor in Mexican and Southwestern dishes, I often reach for chili powder.

Are you confused by the whole chili/chile thing? Many people are, and product packaging doesn't really help, with the willy-nilly and often interchangeable use of chile, chili, chillie and chilli.

Almonds (Recipe: cod with raisins, nuts and apples)

I'm a sucker for princess tales, especially when food is involved.

According to Greek mythology, the lovely princess Phyllis was dumped at the altar on her wedding day by Demophon, her fiance. She waited for years for him to return to her (why, we wonder?), but eventually she died of a broken heart.

The gods took pity and transformed her into an almond tree. When Demophon wised up and returned to find Phyllis turned into a flowerless tree, he embraced her, and the tree burst into bloom, proving that his love was greater than death — or that he loved almonds.