The Perfect Pantry

Cake flour (Recipe: spice cake)

For thirty years, as I learned about cooking, Ted looked over my shoulder.

And he did all of the baking, which consisted of making hundreds of dozens of Toll House chocolate chip cookies.

In the past few years, Ted has become much more interested in cooking, and when Dorie Greenspan's book arrived in our house, Ted began to bake something new every weekend. Now I'm the one looking over his shoulder.

I didn't grow up in a baking house; I grew up in a Weight Watchers house. No cookies, no pies, no cakes.

So, until recently, I'd never used cake flour.

Old Bay seasoning (Recipe: Florida crab cakes)

As the crow flies, it is 430 miles from my house to Crisfield, Maryland, epicenter of the Chesapeake Bay crab world.

In 2007, Crisfield will host the 16th annual Soft Shell Spring Fair (May), the 31st annual Crab and Clam Bake (July), and the 60th annual National Hard Crab Derby (September). In fact, nearly every weekend from May through October, there's a crab festival (with or without jazz, with or without oysters, with or without crab racing) somewhere along the bay coast.

Nothing says "regional American cooking" more than Old Bay seasoning, born of the Bay area in the 1940s, popular from the Chesapeake to the Gulf Coast in crab and shrimp boils. Developed by a German immigrant, Gustav Brunn, it's now marketed by McCormick & Company, but the formula hasn't changed a bit.

La Bookworm in le pantry

Those of you who know Mimi from her elegant food blog, French Kitchen in America, will understand when I tell you that her list of favorite food-related non-cookbooks could not possibly be limited to five; her blog often delights readers with literary references, interviews with authors, and her obvious love of books. I've split the list in two parts, and will share the second half later this spring. A professional writer and the daughter of a chef, Mimi cooks and photographs in her Wisconsin kitchen.

UPDATE. Mimi recommended:

• Chocolat
• From Here You Can't See Paris: Seasons of a French Village and Its Restaurant
• On Rue Tatin: Living and Cooking in a French Town
• Poet of the Appetites: The Lives and Loves of MFK  Fisher
• Vie De France: Sharing Food, Friendship, and a Kitchen in the Loire Valley
  

We'll have a new Bookworm every Saturday, for the next few months.

Want to be a Bookworm in the Pantry? Start here.

Tamarind (Recipe: pineapple shrimp curry)

What fruit can ward off night demons (stick the pod in your ear, as the British did in Victorian India), polish copper and silver, cure a sore throat, enhance a woman's sexuality, and make amazing curries and vindaloos, chutneys, soups, sorbet and drinks?

And had an Omar Sharif/Julie Christie romantic thriller named after it?

You're right — it's tamarind.

The first time I brought home a block of tamarind, I had no idea what to do with it. It was heavy and squishy, the consistency of moist modeling clay, and the only word in English on the label was ... tamarind. No clues there, but it turns out that tamarind is easy to use, and the sweet-sour taste and aroma add authenticity to Thai and Indian dishes.

Beef broth (Recipe: zuni corn soup)

Dem bones, dem bones...

If it weren't for bones, slow-roasted in the oven until they turn a deep, dark brown, there would be no really great beef stock. Without great beef stock, there would be no great French onion soup.

And without French onion soup, or pho, or vegetable-beef soup or beef stew ... oooh, I don't even want to think about it.

Seems like I'm always making chicken stock — roasting a bird, tossing the carcass into a pot with some aromatic vegetables and water — but I can count on one hand the number of times in my cooking life that I've made beef stock.

I think it's dem bones.

When every family did its own butchering, bones were abundant. (Actually, I grew up in New York City, where we didn't butcher anything except an occasional culinary experiment.) I never seem to have leftover beef bones, so in order to make stock, I have to buy bones.

Instead, I keep beef broth in my pantry. I don't use it often, and when I do, I usually combine it with homemade chicken stock. Now you know the secret to my own French onion soup.

Valencia or bomba rice (Recipe: chicken paella with slow-roasted tomatoes)

Everyone plays favorites.

Ice skating over roller skating.

Rock 'n roll over jazz.

Peanut M&Ms over plain.

In the rice department, I have favorites, too. For short grain, I choose carnaroli over arborio when I want to make super-creamy risotto or rice pudding. For long grain, Carolina beats Uncle Ben's every time.

When it comes to medium-grain rices, the ones used for paella, I haven't cooked with Valencia or bomba rice often enough to pick a favorite, so naturally I keep both in The Perfect Pantry. (Of course, that is my excuse for having such a full pantry: inability to narrow down my spice, condiment, and dry goods choices!)

This week's Bookworm

Elaine, a Pantry reader from Spokane, Washington, is this week's Bookworm in the Pantry. She's a self-taught cook and devotee of the Food Network, food blogs, and new cookbooks. In a post last month about lemons, Elaine shared her family recipe for lemon curd.

UPDATE. Elaine recommended three books by Ruth Reichl:

• Tender at the Bone
• Garlic and Sapphires
• Comfort Me with Apples

We'll have a new Bookworm every Saturday, for the next few months.

Want to be a Bookworm in the Pantry? Start here.

Yeast (Recipe: oly koeks)

In a speeded-up world, where byways became highways and dial-up gave way to DSL, it's no surprise that yeast had to speed up, too.

Chinese five-spice powder (Recipe: vegetable medley with five-spice dip)

Can you name:

The five W's? (who, what, where, when, why)

The five senses? (sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste)

The five elements? (wood, fire, earth, metal, and water)

The five flavors? (sour, bitter, sweet, pungent, salty)

The five spices in Chinese five-spice powder?

Er....uh.....um....

Stumped?

Star anise, clove, fennel, cinnamon (or cassia), and Szechuan pepper comprise the only common spice blend in Chinese cookery. India has its masalas; the Mideast and Africa give us berbere and baharat, harissa and ras el hanout. From France comes the incomparable quatre-epices. And America offers barbecue dry rubs of infinite variation, and crab boil.

Another Bookworm in the Pantry

Ximena Maier blogs in Madrid, Spain, and she's our Bookworm this week (see her reading list of food-related non-cookbooks, over there on the right). Be sure to visit Lobstersquad, featuring Ximena's delicious recipes and delightful illustrations.

UPDATE: A reader suggested I list Ximena's recommendations, for those who are visiting this post after her official Bookworm week. Great idea!

Ximena recommended:

• Like Water for Chocolate
• Down and Out in Paris in London
• Short stories of Saki
• The Debt to Pleasure
• The Mortdecai Trilogy

We'll have a new Bookworm every week, for the next few months.

Want to be a Bookworm in the Pantry? Start here.