The Perfect Pantry®

Arborio, carnaroli, vialone nano (Recipe: mushroom risotto)

Before two Persian restaurateurs opened an Italian trattoria in my Boston neighborhood sixteen years ago, I'd never tasted risotto.

I'd never heard of arborio rice.

I'd definitely never heard of carnaroli.

And I'd most definitely never heard of vialone nano.

All I knew was that I was in love with the rich, full taste of Azita Bina-Siebel's risotto ai funghi, flavored with dried porcini and fresh wild mushrooms, a touch of tomato paste, beef stock, sweet butter, and cream. Even when she took it off the menu, I ordered it. It was worth every one of the hundred million carbs and calories.

Dill weed (Recipe: leek and red potato soup)

I have laryngitis.

Total, whispering, can't-even-croak-like-a-frog laryngitis.

It's all that's left of a brutal head cold. My nose has stopped running, my appetite has returned, and now I want soup — something rich and hearty, but not dairy (it might curdle from all of the citrus I'm pouring down my sore throat).

I also have potatoes. I have leeks. I have chicken stock. And, though the dill in my herb garden has gone to seed, I have some lovely green dried dill weed on my spice rack.

Coconut milk (Recipe: Thai tofu and winter squash stew)

A few years ago, Ted and I visited Trinidad, where we stayed with a family in the town of Arima, a lively Afro-Caribbean community in the center of the country.

Each day we'd set off on explorations, to the Asa Wright Bird Sanctuary, a steel pan competition, the tar pits in the south, or the capital city, Port-of-Spain. And everywhere we went, we passed open-back trucks parked along the side of the road, with hand-lettered signs:

ICE COLD NUTS

Sometimes,

COLD NUTS

and, occasionally,

$1 NUTS.

The nuts were ripe green giant coconuts, and when you purchased one, the seller would hack off the top with a machete. He'd stick a straw in it and hand it to you, like an oversized tropical drink at a tiki bar, and you could sip the very cold liquid inside — entirely refreshing in the hot Caribbean climate.

I was expecting coconut milk, the stuff that comes in a can. Instead, out came coconut water, also referred to as coconut juice or milk, though it's not milk at all.

Mexican chocolate (Recipe: mole colorado)

You've got to hand it to Moctezuma II.

He may have lost the entire Aztec empire to Spain, but the guy did introduce his conqueror, Hernando Cortés, to the earliest version of hot chocolate (cacahuatl, the Nahuatl word for "cacao water"). And when the victorious Cortés returned to Spain, he brought chocolate to the king, who loved it, and declared it the King's Official Drink. Spanish royals who married into French nobility brought chocolate to France, and so on and so on as the upper class of Europe intermarried. Isn't that sweet?

Actually, it is sweet. The Mexican chocolate we buy today — most often under the brand names Ibarra, made in Guadalajara, and Abuelita, made by Nestlé and more common in Mexico — is chocolate ground with sugar and cinnamon. And from what I've read, the addition of sugar, cinnamon, almonds or vanilla can be attributed either to chefs in Spain, or to Spanish nuns in the state of Puebla.

What goes around, comes around.