The Perfect Pantry

Linguine, spaghetti (Recipe: linguine with tomato-olive sauce)

Nothing says "pantry" like dried pasta, and the shelves of The Perfect Pantry hold every imaginable shape and size. Welcome to Italian Pasta Week, Day One, Long and Stringy.

One noodle, two noodles, red noodles, blue noodles.

Red sun-dried tomato ravioli. Blue curacao linguine from Giacomo Rizzo, our favorite pasta shop in Venice. Pasta shaped like sombreros, ear lobes, wagon wheels, stars, and corkscrews.

Dittalini. Cappellini. Rotini. Fettucine.

Roll the names around on your tongue, and you can almost taste the pasta.

You don't have to be Italian to love pasta, but you have to love pasta that's made in the Italian way, from durum semolina, semola di grano duro, the coarsely ground hard wheat, high in gluten, golden in color. The real thing.

Linguine, capellini, fedelini, vermicelli, spaghetti, spaghettini and spaghettoni — these pastas fall into what I call the Long and Stringy category, as do long, hollow shapes like bucatini and pici. With pasta, shape matters. There are, according to Zingerman's Guide to Good Eating, something like 500 shapes of pasta. Each has a perfect mate, a sauce that clings but isn't clingy, that enhances and celebrates the pasta.

For these long and stringy pastas, choose a sauce that matches the thickness of the strands. For heavier shapes like spaghetti and linguine, go for something substantial, a basic marinara, meat, or cheese sauce, or olive oil/garlic/bread crumbs. Thinner pastas, like capellini (angel hair), can take more delicate sauces, often with seafood. Bucatini likes a bit of spice in a sauce that gets trapped inside the hollow tubes, surprising you with every bite.

To cook pasta properly (and there is a proper way), give it space, give it salt, give it heat, and give it a taste. First, bring many quarts of water to a full boil, at least one quart per quarter pound of pasta. No matter how much or how little pasta you're cooking, give the pasta — and its starch — plenty of room to swim. When the water boils, add a couple of tablespoons (yes, tablespoons) of sea salt. Add your pasta, give it a stir to make sure it's not sticking together or to the bottom of the pot, and bring it back to the boil. Stir every now and then.

Two minutes before the end of the recommended cooking time on the package, start tasting the pasta. (If you're going to serve your pasta hot, with a sauce, it's best to finish cooking the pasta in the sauce.) It should be just shy of al dente, tender outside and firm (but not raw) on the inside. Never, ever rinse the pasta unless you are planning to serve it cold; you'll wash away all of the lovely starch.

LINGUINE WITH TOMATO-OLIVE SAUCE
A medium-weight sauce that can be thickened with a dollop of tomato paste, if you wish. I like it a bit lighter, so the taste of the fennel comes through. Serves 6.

4 lb Roma tomatoes, seeded and cut into quarters
3-4 Tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, sliced thin
1/2 bulb fennel, sliced thin
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1 bay leaf
1 Tbsp fresh oregano, minced
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 can pitted large black olives (not Greek olives — too salty), sliced
Lots of fresh ground black pepper, to taste
1-1/2 lbs long and stringy pasta of your choice: linguine, spaghetti, etc.
2 Tbsp sea salt
Fresh-grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

In a stock pot, cook the tomatoes in olive oil over medium heat for 10 minutes. Add onion, fennel, garlic, bay leaf, oregano and wine, and cook uncovered for 30-45 minutes, until the tomatoes break down. Add the olives and black pepper, and continue cooking for 15-30 minutes more until the sauce has reduced to desired thickness. At the same time as you add the olives, bring 6-8 quarts of water to a rolling boil in a large stockpot. Add 2 Tbsp sea salt, and the pasta. Cook for 7-8 minutes, and taste. When the pasta is almost al dente, drain and add to the tomato sauce along with any water that clings to the pasta. Stir, add a scant 1/4 cup of the pasta cooking water, and cook until the pasta and sauce have married, 2-3 minutes. Serve hot, with grated cheese.

A Bookworm recommends

This week's Bookworm in the Pantry, Fran, has travelled all around the world, but her home base is one town away in rural northwest Rhode Island. She loves to cook, and loves to read — and since retiring last year from the Rhode Island School of Design, she has a bit more time for both.

UPDATE. Fran recommended:

• Back Story (and the entire Spenser series)
• Blessed are the Cheesemakers
• Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen
• The Gastronomical Me
• The Measure of Her Powers: An MFK Fisher Reader
  

Browse through the eclectic library of previous Bookworm recommendations here.

We'll have a new Bookworm every Saturday, at least through early June.

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

 

Curry pastes (Recipe: green chicken curry with eggplant)

The perfect Perfect Pantry would be as large as an airplane hangar, as beautiful as the food halls at Harrod's, and as well-stocked as my favorite book store.

It would have an aisle for chocolate, a wing for noodles, an enormous spice rack five feet tall, and a freezer filled with enough sugar-free ice pops (my shameful addiction) to last for months.

And, it would have an entire section just for Asian condiments — especially curry paste.

Unlike Indian curry powder, aromatic Thai curry paste combines dry spices with "wet", or fresh, ingredients like chile peppers, fish sauce, shrimp paste, herbs, garlic, shallots and lemongrass. Mixed with a bit of coconut milk, it's an almost-instant sauce base, making it one of the world's best convenience foods.

Curry paste is classified by color, ranging from deep red to yellow-orange to deep green, and often by the type of food with which it's traditionally used. The best and most enjoyable way to figure out which curry pastes you like is to taste your way through a few meals at a Thai restaurant. There you'll discover:

• Red curry paste, medium-hot, the most versatile, used with chicken, duck, beef, pork, shrimp and fish, and noodle curries.
• Green curry paste, the hottest, used in coconut sauces with beef, pork or chicken.
• Panang curry paste, medium-hot, smooth and mellow, popular in Thailand and Malaysia. Sometimes has crushed peanuts in it, so be sure to read the label. Most often used with beef, but also with seafood.
• Massaman, the mildest, named after the Muslim people of south Thailand and Malaysia. Very fragrant, with cinnamon, star anise and cardamom, used to make stew-like curries with beef, potatoes or egg noodles.
• Yellow curry paste, mild-medium, used with beef, chicken, potatoes and onions.
• Nam prik khing, mild, used in dry curries with long beans, pork, fish or chicken.

All of these curry pastes really sparkle in vegetarian dishes, especially with tofu, which absorbs and radiates the flavor of anything around it.

In my less-than-perfect pantry I keep jars of red and green curry paste, but that's just the tip of the flavorful iceberg. Temple of Thai, one of the best purveyors of authentic Thai food and cookware, sells no less than 18 different curry pastes. That's enough variety to try some new recipes for soup, noodles, chicken, shrimp, salmon or veggies.

Of course you can make your own curry paste fresh as you need it, if you don't happen to have a whole aisle in your own pantry for the storebought stuff.

GREEN CHICKEN CURRY WITH EGGPLANT (GAENG PUANG KAI)
Another wonderful and simple recipe from Sandeep Chatterjee's The Spice Trail: One Hundred Hot Dishes from India to Indonesia. Note: if you cannot find coconut cream, let a can of coconut milk sit undisturbed for several hours, to allow the watery liquid to separate from the thicker milk. Pour off the liquid, and use the thick part of the milk in place of cream. Serves 4.

1 lb skinless, boneless chicken thighs
4 Tbsp coconut cream
3 Tbsp green curry paste
1/2 cup Thai eggplant or fresh green peas
2 Tbsp fish sauce (nam pla)
1 Tbsp brown sugar
Kosher salt, to taste
2-1/2 cups coconut milk
A few Kaffir lime leaves, torn (or a bit of lime zest)
A few sweet basil leaves

Cut each chicken thigh into four pieces. Heat the coconut cream in a large saucepan over medium heat until the oil starts to separate from the cream. Add the green curry paste and cook, stirring, 1-2 minutes. Add the chicken. Cook, stirring, 10-12 minutes, until the chicken is well coated with the paste and is about half cooked. Add the eggplant or peas, fish sauce, sugar and salt. Cook, still stirring, 5-7 minutes. Add the coconut milk, reduce the heat to low, and stir 8-10 minutes, until the chicken is cooked. Adjust seasoning with more salt, if necessary. Add lime and basil leaves. Serve over hot rice.

Bulgur wheat (Recipe: bulgur with cheese and eggplant)

You're looking at the photo. I know what you're thinking.

Oh, no, here comes the tabbouleh.

If you're a cook of a certain age, you discovered tabbouleh in the Sixties, when "cream" was a rock band and a "big hunk" was a candy bar.

It would have been easy enough to write about tabbouleh, the best-use-of-parsley-as-a-vegetable staple of Middle Eastern cooking, because I first added bulgur to my pantry years ago precisely so I could prepare it for a summer buffet. But then I wouldn't have time to tell you about kibbe and pilaf, and bulgur salads with fruit or chickpeas or nuts.

Bulgur is whole wheat kernels that have been steamed or boiled, dried, and crushed. Also called bulghur, or burghul (in Arabic), it has a tender, chewy texture and comes in coarse, medium and fine grinds. According to author Claudia Roden, in the days before mechanization, bulgur was made collectively; the men harvested the wheat, the women separated the wheat from the chaff. The wheat is boiled for hours in huge pots until it splits, and then it's dried in the sun, spread out on large sheets laid on rooftops or in fields. When dry, the grain goes to a stone mill.

Often, bulgur is soaked prior to cooking, but it's very forgiving. If you forget to presoak, simply pour boiling water over the bulgur and let it stand in a bowl for a few minutes while you are prepping the remaining ingredients for your recipe. One cup of dry yields three cups of cooked, no matter which way you fix it.

BURGHUL BI JIBN WAL BATINJAN (BULGUR WITH CHEESE AND EGGPLANT)
From The New Book of Middle Eastern Food, by Claudia Roden, this Syrian recipe combines bulgur with salty cheese and smooth eggplant. If you cannot find halloumi, substitute feta or mozzarella. Serves 4-6, as a vegetarian main dish or a side dish with grilled chicken and a spinach salad.

1 eggplant (approx. 3/4 lb) cut into 1-inch cubes
Kosher salt
1-1/2 large onions, diced
Vegetable oil
2 cups coarse-ground bulgur, washed in cold water and drained
3-1/4 cups boiling water or chicken stock
Black pepper
7-9 oz halloumi or feta cheese, cubed

Sprinkle the eggplant generously with salt and leave in a colander for 30 minutes. Rinse, and dry with paper towels.

Fry the onions in 2 Tbsp oil until golden. Add the bulgur and stir. Pour in the boiling water or stock, season with salt and pepper, and stir well. Cover and cook on very low heat for 15 minutes, or until the water as has been absorbed and the bulgur is tender.

Fry the eggplant briefly in hot oil, turning the cubes so that they are lightly colored all over. Lift out, and drain on paper towels.

Stir 4 Tbsp oil into the bulgur. Add the cheese and eggplant, and gently fold together. Heat through with the lid on until the cheese is soft. Serve very hot.

Frozen puff pastry (Recipe: asparagus gruyere tart)

Pâte feuilletée.

POT FEH-YOU-TAY.

Just the thought of making something with such an elegant name scares the bedoodles out of me. If I hadn't watched Julia Child on television, smearing the butter and folding and turning and folding and turning again, making it all seem so utterly doable, I never would have tried to make puff pastry from scratch.

I did make it.

One time.

Then I discovered frozen puff pastry. Someone else does the smearing and folding and turning for you. Imagine that! Puff pastry any time, without devoting an entire day to making it.

What makes puff pastry puff are the many layers of blobs of butter sandwiched in between layers of dough that, when baked, rise to several times their original height without any yeast or leavening. When heated, the butter in the dough melts, causing the layers to separate. The water in the butter turns to steam, puffing up the pastry with air bubbles that become trapped to form air pockets. In the classical pâte feuilletée recipe, made by folding and turning the dough six times, the finished dough has close to 1500 layers of butter and flour.

The two most available brands of frozen puff pastry are definitely not alike. Dufours, sometimes available at Whole Foods markets, is made with all butter; Pepperidge Farm, always in the freezer case of my local supermarket, contains no butter. Yes, Dufours tastes better, and rises higher when baked. It's also twice as expensive, and much harder to find, than Pepperidge Farm.

To thaw, remove as many pastry sheets as needed (wrap unused sheets in plastic wrap or foil and return them to the freezer) and thaw in the refrigerator (approximately 4 hours per sheet), which ensures that the pastry will thaw evenly. If you're in a hurry, separate the pastry sheets and thaw at room temperature for 30-45 minutes.

Puff pastry makes wonderful savory dishes as well as beautiful sweet desserts. And, as in the recipe below, it can turn the ordinary into something truly elegant, as befits the name pâte feuilletée.

ASPARAGUS GRUYERE TART
From Great Food Fast, the great little cookbook from the kitchens of Martha Stewart Living. Try to find asparagus of uniform width. Makes one tart that serves 4-6 people for lunch, with a side salad or bowl of soup.

1 sheet frozen puff pastry
2 cups (approx. 5-1/2 oz) gruyere, Emmental or swiss cheese, shredded
1-1/2 pounds medium asparagus
1 Tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400°F. On a floured surface, roll pastry into a 16 x 10 inch rectangle. Trim uneven edges. Place the pastry on a baking sheet. With a sharp knife score the dough 1 inch in from the edges to mark a rectangle. Using a fork, pierce the dough inside the markings at half-inch intervals. Bake until golden, about 15 minutes.

Remove the pastry shell from the oven, and sprinkle with cheese. Trim the bottoms of the asparagus spears to fit crosswise inside the tart shell; arrange in a single layer over the cheese, alternating ends and tips. Brush with oil, and season with salt and pepper. Bake until spears are tender, 20 to 25 minutes.

Bookworm on the coast

Toni, from San Diego, California, is this week's Bookworm in the Pantry . On Daily Bread Journal, Toni writes about food, family, and health. About herself, she writes, "I'm congenitally incapable of following a recipe, so my adventures in food have always had an original flavor. I've maintained a successful acupuncture practice for over 15 years, and aside from acupuncture and herbs, I counsel my patients on food, exercise and mindfulness meditation. Aside from cooking, my other main hobby is photography." She's just back from a trip to India, so watch her blog for photos.

UPDATE. Toni recommended:

• The Art of Eating
• French Lessons
• Why We Eat What We Eat
• A Natural History of the Senses
• Physiology of Taste

Browse through the eclectic library of previous Bookworm recommendations here.

We'll have a new Bookworm every Saturday, at least through early June.

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

Piment d'Espelette (Recipe: chicken basquaise with piperade)

On the last weekend in October, thousands of people will crowd into the narrow streets of the town of Espelette, in the Basque region of southwest France, for The Celebration of Peppers, honoring the area's most famous agricultural product: piment d'Espelette.

I'm partial to any food that merits an entire festival held in its name (Gilroy garlic, Hatch chiles, Crisfield crabs). I'm also partial to any food that comes from only one place on Earth.

Piment d'Espelette is a one-place-on-Earth, deserves-a-parade, sweet-hot pepper produced in only ten small villages in France with a total growing area of just 3,000 acres, earning it the coveted Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC) designation.

AOC certification is granted to certain French products, like champagne, that are unique and grown in only one well-defined geographic region. Roquefort cheese was the first AOC product, designated in 1925; piment d'Espelette received its AOC appellation in 1999. As a result, this newest addition to my pantry has made its way into the American food scene, and into gourmet markets and online shops.

As essential to authentic Basque cooking as jalapeños are to Tex-Mex cuisine and anchos are to molé, piment d'Espelette is harvested in late summer, when the bright red peppers are strung like the chile ristras of the Southwest US, and hung on the lovely white houses of the villages to dry in the sun.

If you can't find the real thing, you can substitute hot paprika, mild New Mexico red chile powder, or a combination of the two with a bit of pimentón mixed in.

Piment d'Espelette is used, most famously, to both color and flavor the outside of Bayonne ham, but once you have it in your pantry, you'll love the uniquely sweet heat in a variety of recipes for steak and chips, fish and ribs, pretzels or — oui, oui — let-them-eat cake.

CHICKEN BASQUAISE WITH ESPELETTE PIPERADE
Recipe adapted very slightly from Fieryfoods.com. Piperade is a colorful pepper sauce that is only spicy when made in the Basque region. This simple but delicious dish is often served at the Celebration of the Peppers. Serve with boiled potatoes and green beans, over rice, or with egg noodles; tastes best at room temperature. Serves 4-6.

1/2 cup olive oil
4 medium onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, sliced
4 green bell peppers, seeds and stems removed, chopped
2 red bell peppers, seeds and stems removed, chopped
4 large tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
3 Tbsp piment d'Espelette, or more to taste (substitute hot paprika or New Mexico red chile powder)
Pinch of thyme
Salt and pepper to taste
1 chicken, cut up, or equivalent chicken parts (2 breasts, cut in half; 4 thighs; 2 legs), skin on, bone in
1/4 cup chicken stock

Heat 1/4 cup olive oil in a large sauté pan and cook the onions and garlic for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the bell peppers and cook over medium heat for 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes and Espelette powder and cook for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the thyme, salt, and pepper and transfer to a bowl.

Wipe out the pan and heat the remaining 1/4 cup of oil. Brown the chicken in the oil until golden, turning often. Pour the pepper mixture over the chicken, reduce the heat, cover and simmer until tender, about 30-40 minutes. (If there is not enough liquid in the pan, add the chicken stock.) Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Dal, beans, lentils (Recipe: Punjab five jewels)

In Alan Davidson's The Oxford Companion to Food, dal fills a third of a page between Dagestan and damson.

Open any Indian cookbook, however, and you'll see that dal (or dhal) fills much more than a third of a page; it's one of the mainstays of both northern and southern Indian cooking, an important source of protein served at almost every meal.

Dal — literally, "split beans" — refers to both the ingredient and the dish that results from cooking it. In the broader sense, dal refers to all hulled, split pulses: beans, peas and lentils. (Whole pulses are called grams.) Some of the more popular dal include:

• Channa dal, split chickpeas (yellow)
• Tur (or toor, or toovar) dal, pigeon peas (orange)
• Moong dal, mung beans (cream or yellow)
• Urd (or urad) dal, lentil-like beans (black or, when skinless, white)
• Masoor dal, lentils (red or salmon pink)
• Muth (or moth) dal, beans (brownish green with yellow interior)
• Muttar (or matar) dal, peas (green or white)

In North India, dal is served thick and hearty, like a stew; in the south, generally it's thin and soupy. Though the term dal is somewhat generic, each type offers a different flavor and texture, and requires a different cooking time and method. Some need to be presoaked; some cook without salt; all benefit from being cooked in soft water.

Seasonings make dal come alive; try some classic combinations, or create your own using turmeric, mustard seeds, chile peppers or red pepper flakes, asafoetida, onions, scallions, ginger, garlic, tomatoes, garam masala, or curry. I keep my favorite Indian spices in a masala dabba.

There are, according to The Oxford Companion to Food, at least 60 kinds of dishes made from dal, some traditional and others a bit more innovative, pairing pulses with butternut squash, spinach, pasta, okra, chorizo, green beans, tomatoes — even sugar with cashews, for a sweet dessert. And while dal often likes to nestle in a bowl, it's happy if you form it into patties, balls, and squares, too.

PUNJ RATTANI DAL (PUNJAB FIVE JEWELS)
From Favorite Indian Food, by Diane Seed, this recipe, a delicious dal sampler, traditionally uses five different types of dal, but may be made with any combination of lentils and dried beans, or with any one type of dal. Yes, it looks like a long list of ingredients, but the dish comes together quite easily. Serves 6.

1/4 cup mung beans (moong dal)
1/4 cup white gram beans (urad dal)
1/4 cup pink lentils (masoor dal)
1/4 cup yellow lentils (toovar dal)
1/4 cup yellow split peas (channa dal)
1 large onion, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1-1/4 piece fresh gingerroot, grated or minced
2 fresh hot green chile peppers, minced
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp ground cumin
Salt
2 Tbsp butter
2 peeled, chopped tomatoes
1 tsp garam masala
3 oz plain yogurt
2 Tbsp chopped fresh coriander

In a mortar and pestle, combine the onion, garlic, ginger and seeded chile peppers; pound until the fibers break down. Heat the oil and cook the paste for 5 minutes. Stir in the dal and when they are coated with the mixture, pour in 2 quarts of water. Bring to the boil, and stir in the turmeric, coriander powder, and cayenne. Simmer until the dal are cooked and half the liquid has evaporated. Sprinkle with the ground cumin and salt to taste.

In another pan, melt the butter and add the tomatoes, garam masala and yogurt. Cook for approximately 10 minutes, then pour over the dal mixture and garnish with fresh coriander.

Bottled salad dressing (Recipe: hot roasted veggies)

Psssst. I've got a secret.

Paul Newman is playing peek-a-boo in my refrigerator. And he's not alone.

You'll always find three or four bottled salad dressings hiding in there with him.

These salad dressings aren't for salad; they're the best, quickest marinades in the world.

Not that making a marinade from scratch is a difficult thing, you understand, but bottled dressings win the speed and storage space competition. A great marinade takes a bit of time to concoct, as you fiddle with the balance of flavors and spices. Often it starts with oil and vinegar. Then, you might add mustard, yogurt, honey, buttermilk, tomato juice, salt and pepper. All of those bottles and containers take up a lot of room in the pantry and on your work table, too, and that's before you've zested a lemon or minced a scallion or plucked the leaves off a branch of rosemary.

Bottled salad dressings make cooking simple. The infinite variety of good-quality products (if I can find organics here, in my small-town market, you can find them anywhere) makes it easy to match dressings with meat, fish, chicken or veggies. Read labels carefully to avoid the dreaded high-fructose corn syrup.

For marinating veggies, shrimp and chicken, I love Newman's Own (which now offers an organic creamy caesar, along with a wonderful balsamic vinaigrette) and Seeds of Change. I use Annie's from time to time. Don't overlook the products available at farmstands, too; our local Chepachet Farms maple vinaigrette, far too sweet for salad, makes a perfect marinade for chicken cooked on the grill.

HOT ROASTED VEGGIES
One of those wonderful recipes that expands, contracts, adapts, and always pleases. I served this to some chef friends who came for dinner. Gutsy, don't you think? And everyone asked for the recipe! Make this totally vegetarian, or add shrimp or chicken. Use your favorite combination of vegetables. Great for potluck, picnic or buffet. Serves 6 or more.

2 zucchini, quartered lengthwise and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 red bell peppers, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 green bell peper, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 yellow or orange bell pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
3-4 portobello mushroom caps, stems removed, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 giant (or 2 smaller) red onion, peeled, cut into quarters and pieces separated
1 can jumbo black pitted olives, drained
1 bottle Newman's Own Creamy Caesar salad dressing, or bottled dressing of your choice
1 lb frozen shrimp (21-25 or 26-30), peeled and deveined, OR 1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into one-inch cubes (optional)
2 boxes instant couscous (I use Near East brand, with roasted garlic and olive oil)

In a large nonreactive bowl, combine all of the vegetables, the olives, and enough of the salad dressing to coat the vegetables. Mix, and let stand at room temperature for at least one hour, and up to several hours.

[Note: if you are using chicken, marinate the cubes in a small bowl with enough salad dressing to cover, for 1-4 hours in the refrigerator. If you're using shrimp, one hour before you're ready to serve, defrost the shrimp, and marinate them in a small bowl with enough of the salad dressing to coat them. Don't marinate meat/fish/poultry with the vegetables; use a separate bowl, and keep in the refrigerator.]

Preheat the oven to 500°F. Make the couscous according to package directions, and set aside. Add veggies (and chicken) to a roasting pan or cazuela, and cook for 15-20 minutes. Add the shrimp, and continue cooking until the shrimp are done, 5-8 minutes.

Fluff the couscous with a fork, and place in a large serving platter. Top with veggie mixture, including any pan juices. Enjoy hot, room temperature, or cold.

A Bookworm in Manila

Bookworms are everywhere! Christine, this week's Bookworm in the Pantry, creates her lovely blog, Ramblings from a Gypsy Soul, in Manila, The Philippines . Whenever I read her posts, I learn something new about Filipino culture and cuisine — and, of course, I want to get on a plane and go to the places she visits. Christine has traveled to the US, Thailand, Mexico, Vietnam, Egypt, and more. She photographs, she cooks, and, oh yes, she reads; her wish list features dozens of books I'd love to have in my own library.

UPDATE. Christine recommended:

• Feeding a Yen
• Havana Salsa
• The Mistress of Spices
• Her Fork in the Road
• Extra Virgin
  

Browse through the eclectic library of previous Bookworm recommendations here.

We'll have a new Bookworm every Saturday, at least through early June.

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