The Perfect Pantry

Bookworm across the sea

Men are bookworms, too! Meet Ian, of Yorkshire Deli, who shares his reading list as this week's Bookworm in the Pantry (see his recommended food-related non-cookbooks, over there on the right). Ian's charming blog chronicles the evolution of his dream — to open a café. If you've ever fantasized about owning the perfect little eatery in the perfect town in the perfectly beautiful Yorkshire Dales (and who hasn't?), then settle in with a cuppa, and read about everything from choosing furniture to sampling foods from the area's many purveyors.

UPDATE. Ian recommended:

• Floyd in the Soup
• The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones
• An Omelette and a Glass of Wine
• Chocolat
• La Cucina

We'll have a new Bookworm every Saturday, at least through mid-May.

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

Roasted unsalted peanuts (Recipe: tofu with peanut sauce)

Whew. I almost forgot: March is National Peanut Month.

If it weren't for George Washington Carver, we wouldn't have a peanut month; in fact, we probably wouldn't have a peanut industry in the United States.

Peanuts originated in South America, where Spanish and Portuguese explorers discovered these legumes and brought them on trade voyages to Africa. With favorable climate conditions, peanuts grew well in Africa and became important in many local cuisines, and so they came back across the ocean to North America with the slave trade.

In the 19th century, Dr. Carver, an agricultural chemist, suggested that farmers in the South plant peanuts to replace their cotton fields that were destroyed by the boll weevil infestation following the Civil War. He invented more than 300 uses for peanuts, including peanut butter, cooking oil, margarine, peanut sausage and peanut punch, as well as linoleum, laxatives, scalp pomade and vanishing cream.

Mirin (Recipe: teriyaki tofu wraps)

It sounds like The Queen, though its origins are not particularly royal.

Mirin (get it?), Japanese sweet cooking wine, dates back more than 400 years. Made by combining and fermenting steamed mochigome (a glutinous rice), komekoji (rice yeast), and shochu (Japanese liquor), mirin is clear and light gold in color, and a bit syrupy.

Herbes de Provence (Recipe: Mediterranean red snapper)

"Herbs from the sunny province of France can change your cooking."

So says the tag on this little pot of herbes de Provence, a classic blend of thyme, basil, savory, fennel seed and lavender flowers.

Herbes de Provence combines the vigorous, resinous herbs that grow on hillsides in the summer in the south of France. As with garam masala, there are many formulations that can include, in addition to the herbs in my pot, tarragon, dried orange zest, celery seeds, white pepper, dried mint, oregano, rosemary, chervil and bay leaf.

It's Bookworm time

This week's Bookworm in the Pantry, Karen, a native Rhode Islander, blogs from St. Louis, Missouri. On FamilyStyle Food, Karen chronicles the healthy and delicious food she prepares for her family. General Tso's chicken? Pasta fagioli? Orange-almond muffins? I wish my mom had been such a good cook.

UPDATE. Karen recommended:

• Murder Alfresco (Nadia Gordon's Napa Valley mysteries)
• The Whole World Over
• A Cordiall Water
• On Persophone's Island
• Adventures on the Wine Route
  

We'll have a new Bookworm every Saturday, at least through mid-May.

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

Dried chile peppers (Recipe: mushrooms and peppers in puff pastry)

On our first trip to Oaxaca, Mexico, Ted and I fell in love.

Not with each other — that had happened years before — but with the daily markets in every city, town and village.

With Oaxaca as the hub of the wheel, Ted and I and my cousin Martin, our traveling companion, would set out every morning in our crusty-dusty rented VW Beetle, along one of the "spokes" to another market in another town: the shoe market, the livestock market, the markets known for produce, the ones famous for textiles and ceramics.

Everywhere, in every market, we found dried chile peppers. Sometimes they were piled several feet high, pyramids in shades of red, brown and black, on sun-bleached blankets spread on the ground. The air smelled spicy, if you can believe it, and I couldn't help but buy bags full to smuggle home (don't tell!) in my backpack full of laundry.

Evaporated milk (Recipe: coconut flan)

Why would a self-proclaimed bake-o-phobe and skim-milk addict always have a can of evaporated milk in the pantry?

Hmmm...

(I suspect my husband, the resident baker, might know something about this.)

Preserved lemons (Recipes: lentils with spinach and preserved lemon)

When the universe conspires to teach you about something, you have to learn to ... well, learn.

That's what happened with preserved lemons, which are now a permanent fixture in my pantry.

I can't remember which came first: Bob's desire to create some tagines in his pottery studio, or Jessica volunteering to teach The #1 Cooking Group how to make preserved lemons, or the going-out-of-business sale at a small Moroccan shop down the street from our house.

No matter. I bought three clay tagines at the sale, brought them to Bob's studio where we designed new tagines based on traditional forms, and took Jessica up on her offer to teach us to make our own preserved lemons and to use them in some interesting recipes.

Another Bookworm!

Nupur, this week's Bookworm in the Pantry, writes a popular blog about Indian regional cooking . I always learn something new when I visit One Hot Stove, especially from her ongoing series, The A to Z of Indian Vegetables. My list of must-have pantry items grows every time I read her recipes! Nupur grew up in central India, and now blogs from St. Louis, Missouri.

UPDATE. Nupur recommended:

• Interpreter of Maladies
• Toast
• On Food and Cooking
• Like Water for Chocolate
• Garlic and Sapphires
  

We'll have a new Bookworm every Saturday, at least through mid-May.

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

Wasabi sauce (Recipe: ginger salad dressing)

Our friend Matt — artist, designer, and carpenter extraordinaire — helps Ted with construction projects from time to time.

One Saturday morning, as they were working on the mega-bookcase that now houses 350 of my cookbooks, I overheard the following snippet of conversation. I don't know who started it, or why.

"What's that Japanese word? You know, for good design, or beauty. It's kind of like wasabi."

"Wasabi??? No, no, that's the spicy stuff for sushi."

"Hmmm. Maybe it's wabi-sabi? Could that be right?"

"Sounds right, but I can never remember which is which."

I'm still giggling. And they didn't even get around to Wasabi, the Jean Reno movie (tag line: Quite possibly the greatest French-Language, English-Subtitled, Japanese Action-Comedy of all time).

Real wasabi, a member of the cabbage family, has a root that's ground into a spice, much like horseradish — which often substitutes in the wasabi served in American (and many Japanese) restaurants.

Horseradish subs in my favorite Gold's Wasabi Sauce, too. This bright green slather isn't the healthiest thing in my pantry (sometimes it's best not to read labels too closely), but it's absolutely delicious. People who fear wasabi — too strange! too spicy! too green! — love this sauce, which contains no wasabi at all. I often use it when making sushi, both as a dip mixed with soy sauce, and as an ingredient inside the maki rolls. It's also a great topping for a cold roast beef sandwich, or mixed with yogurt for a veggie dip. The flavor is mildly hot, with a noticeable kick of ginger, and it's mildly addictive, too.