The Perfect Pantry®

Cinnamon (Recipe: cranberry rice pudding)

Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus — he who reportedly fiddled while Rome burned — clearly had issues.

Who could blame him?

His mother, the ambitious and manipulative Agrippina, married the emperor Claudius and, to ensure the continuation of her own position of power, she schemed to have her son become the next emperor. To that end, Agrippina managed to get Nero betrothed to Claudius' daughter, Octavia. Whom he divorced soon after, at mom's urging. And then had killed.

And then, to demonstrate the depth of his supposed grief, he burned a year's supply of very expensive cinnamon on her funeral pyre.

Maybe that's why cinnamon is called a warm spice. (Groan.....)

Homemade chicken stock (Recipe: chicken soup)

Some people get hit with seasonal affective disorder, suffering in winter when the days are short and light is fleeting.

I get hit with seasonal annoying head colds. One each season, predictable as clockwork, when the weather goes from hot to cold, or from cold to hot. Or, seemingly, for no reason at all.

There is no cure, but there is amelioration: orange juice, hot tea with lemon, and soup made from homemade chicken stock. Trust me. If the stock isn't homemade, the soup doesn't work. I can't say why, exactly, but I know this to be true.

Cooking spray (Recipe: frittata ring)

One mississippi, two mississippi, three mississippi....that's the sound of 21 calories of canola cooking spray.

Three long spritzes, three seconds, 7 calories per second.

Compare that to a tablespoon of butter (104 calories) or olive oil (122).

No contest.

Powdered ginger (Recipe: spicy peanut noodles)

Updated January 2012.

Ginger Rogers (remember Top Hat?).

Ginger Baker (remember Cream?).

Ginger Grant (remember her???).

Trader Joe's triple-ginger cookies.

What do they all have to do with powdered ginger?

Well, in their own way each is or was a little bit over-the-top, like the zing my cooking gets from good quality powdered ginger, a staple ingredient in the cuisines of Asia, North Africa, Europe, the West Indies and Caribbean — and a staple in The Perfect Pantry.