The Perfect Pantry

Dumpling wrappers (Recipe: vegetable dumplings)

'Tis the season of gift-giving, and for a few days last week my huge dining table vanished under sheets of tissue and ribbons and rolls of wrapping paper, waiting to turn books and toys into adventures and surprises.

In the kitchen, too, even the humblest ingredients take on elegance and mystery when they're wrapped.

Store-bought fresh dumpling wrappers, a staple in my pantry, make it easy to add drama to everyday cooking.

Fenugreek (Recipe: saag paneer)

I love spring cleaning.

In my house, spring cleaning gets underway not in April or May, but when there's a snowstorm, the kind that strands me at the end of our uphill driveway while I wait for extrication by the plow guy. This winter, we've seen only a few random snowflakes, but a recent heavy rain triggered the urge to get the cleanout started.

My favorite thing about spring cleaning is that I find stuff. Hidden stuff. Long-lost stuff. Forgotten stuff. Last week, I found:

• The Food of India, a lovely cookbook that still bears its Costco sale sticker (I lose all self-control in the under-$10 cookbook aisle). It was on the bottom of a pile of books on the floor next to my bed, along with Bill Buford's Heat, some books about art, and a trashy legal thriller or two.

• A jar of fenugreek seeds, misplaced three layers deep in the back of the spice rack behind the cinnamon and nutmeg.

Though fenugreek is popular in the cuisines of Ethiopia and Egypt, Turkey, Armenia and Yemen, it's curry — and curiosity — that brought fenugreek to my pantry. Indian cooking is not my forte; I'm much more comfortable poking around in the cuisines of other parts of Asia. So I'm learning, and starting to stock my Indian pantry.

Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (Recipe: risotto with grapefruit)

Just when we've all gotten our heads around the notion of eating locally, I'm here to tell you not to do it.

Not when it comes to cheese.

Not unless you live in Italy, in the small towns around Modena, Parma, Reggio-Emilia, and parts of Bologna and Mantova — the only part of the world where authentic Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese is produced by the 482 members of the Consorzio del Formaggio Parmigiano Reggiano.

Bittersweet chocolate (Recipe: truffles)

Remember the old days, when take-out coffee came in small, medium and large ... and chocolate came in Hershey bars, Toll House chips, and unsweetened Baker's that you were never, ever supposed to eat but was only for baking?

Bye bye, old days.

High-quality chocolate is everywhere. The small market in my rural Rhode Island village — not exactly a hotbed of nouveau anything — now displays bars of organic bittersweet chocolate next to the cash register, right there with the tabloids, horoscope booklets, beef jerky and breath mints.

Hello, infinite possibilities.

Marmalade (Recipe: beer marinade)

I didn't grow up in a marmalade house.

In fact, apart from JIF peanut butter and Smuckers grape jelly, I don't remember seeing any jams, jellies, preserves or marmalades in my mother's kitchen. Oh, I know that she had the occasional souvenir jar stashed in the back of the cupboard — a homemade treasure brought by a houseguest or friend who'd returned from a road trip to a part of the country where every family "puts things up", and recipes are prized. But I don't think we ever opened them.

My friends grew up in marmalade houses.

Barbara does a great lime preserve, and fig jam, and all sorts of things made from the dozens of varieties of berries she grows on her organic farm in southeastern Massachusetts. Mary makes quince jam from the fruits in her garden. Pauline creates amazing things with rhubarb, as does Lucia with blueberries picked on local Rhode Island farms. Wonderful and delicious, each and every one of these culinary treats.

And yet, surrounded by so much availability and generous friends, my own house still is not a marmalade house.

I always stock orange marmalade in my pantry, but I know so little about preserving fruit that I had to look up the definitions of jam, jelly, preserve, and marmalade. What's the difference? Aren't they all just sticky concoctions, made with fruit and some sort of goo to hold the fruit in suspension?

Bay leaves (Recipe: bay leaf crusted pork roast)

If it weren't for Apollo, and his frustrated libido, there would be no bay leaves in The Perfect Pantry.

According to mythology, Cupid, taunted by Apollo for childish behavior, exacted revenge by drawing from his quiver two arrows — a golden one for love, and a leaden one to repel love. He aimed the golden arrow at Apollo, and the other at the nymph Daphne, beautiful daughter of the river god Peneus.

Struck by Cupid's dart, Apollo lusted after Daphne, who, thanks to Cupid's trickery, couldn't stand the sight of any man and so made her father promise never to force her to marry. Apollo's desire drove him to pursue the nymph; he chased her, running faster and faster, threatening to overtake. And just when she was within his grasp, she called on her father: "Help me, Peneus! Open the earth to enclose me, or change my form, which has brought me into this danger."

Immediately, her body became stiff and encased in bark, her hair turned to leaves, her feet to roots. Peneus had kept his word, and changed her into a bay laurel tree. Apollo — distraught, bewitched, and besotted — decreed that the leaves of the bay laurel would remain forever green. He wove leaves into a crown and wore it always; thus, a crown of bay leaves became a symbol of honor. And in honor of Apollo, laurel wreaths were presented to the victors at the first Olympics in 776 B.C., and they are given to marathon winners to this day.

Poor Apollo, but lucky us.

Dry beans (Recipe: everything-from-the-pantry bean soup)

By nature and by habit, I am a decanter.

Not the kind with an hourglass figure (don't I wish?) and a cork stopper.

No, I am a person who decants almost everything in my pantry into clear jars so I can see how much of each item I have on hand. I've never been able to divine, just by looking at a box on the shelf, exactly how much sugar, or rice, or bulgur wheat, is left in the box. The smaller jars, mostly one-quart canning size, hold the things I use in smaller quantities: lentils, cocoa powder, arrowroot, table salt for baking. In medium jars, I keep various kinds of rice, and breakfast cereals. The large jars hold the basics: sugars, kosher salt, flours.

My favorite jars are what I call the amalgamators: the jar that holds leftover odds and ends of dry pasta, and the one that gathers dry beans. I only allow like-minded beans — those that cook in approximately the same time, or have the same texture or color — to cohabit. Today, my bean jar contains red kidneys and Anasazi beans, and a few navy beans hiding at the bottom. At other times, it might have cranberry beans, if I'm lucky enough to find them, or pink pintos. By the way, the United States is the world's leading producer of dry beans; I never knew that.

As kids, we were taught (by whom, I can't remember....): Beans, beans, good for your heart/The more you eat, the more you f***/ The more you f***, the better you feel/So eat your beans at every meal.

True?

Peppercorns (Recipe: Grandma's beef brisket)

With apologies to Sesame Street (go ahead and sing along — you know the tune):

Three of these things belong together,
Three of these things are kind of the same.
Can you guess which peppercorn is not a pepper,
Even though it has the same name?

If you guessed pink, you're a star! Black, white and green peppercorns are all fruit of the same plant (Piper nigrum), picked at different stages and processed in different ways. Pink peppercorns are the fruit of Schinus terebinthifolius, cultivated only since the 1980s.

Scallion pancakes (Recipe: scallion pancake pizza)

After a solid two weeks of baking and decorating cookies for Drop In and Decorate, the last thing I want to do is cook.

Thank goodness for a well-stocked pantry, and for frozen scallion pancakes.

Not what you'd think of as a pantry item? Well, if all you do with them is heat and serve, I'd have to agree, because my definition of a pantry item is one which is kept on hand for the purpose of creating something else. But scallion pancakes can be so much more than the appetizer you get in Chinese restaurants, served cut into wedges with a soy dipping sauce. They're easy to make from scratch, but even easier to buy and stash in the freezer.

Meringue powder (Recipe: Drop In & Decorate royal icing)

Until I started experimenting with recipes for Ninecooks' holiday cookie donation project, I'd never used meringue powder. I don't think I'd ever actually made cookie icing! So I went to a local cake and candy supply store, and asked for advice.

Our cookies would be donated to family shelters and food pantries, and some of the recipients might be people with compromised immune systems. I knew that using raw egg whites would be a bad idea. Lynne, the shopkeeper, suggested meringue powder.

I'd never heard of it.

I thought it was made from tiny meringues.

(Is it obvious that I didn't really know what meringues were, either?)