The Perfect Pantry

A Bookworm's additions

After she perused last week's Bookworm list, Susan at The Well-Seasoned Cook noticed a few gaps. Her blog features beautiful photography and interesting recipes from all around the globe, and her reading list is just as eclectic as her cooking.

UPDATE. Susan recommended:

• Road Food
• Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World
• Fast Food Nation
• Fat Lane: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World
• The Omnivore's Dilemma
  

Want to be a Bookworm in the Pantry and add to our collective "library" of good reads? Start here.

Wonton skins (Recipe: wonton skin soup)

In the annals of medicine, nobody writes about it.

There are no tests, no consultations, no second opinons, no clinical trials.

And yet, this condition, this very real affliction, can be cured.

For those who, like me, occasionally succumb to wonton lust (defined as the overwhelming urge to eat Chinese food), there is no remedy more effective, more immediate, more satisfying than a bowl of steaming hot soup, redolent with ginger, and filled with lovely, pillowy dumplings floating here and there.

Alas, I live five miles from the nearest Asian restaurant. Thank goodness for my pantry, and a ready supply of wonton skins in the fridge or freezer.

Canola oil (Recipe: spicy green beans)

If olive oil comes from the pressing of olives, and sesame oil from the pressing of sesame seeds, does canola oil come from the pressing of canolas?

Ah... you're laughing, or groaning. After all, there's no such thing as a canola.

Or is there?

Canola -- an abbreviation of "Canadian Oil Low Acid" -- is a product of traditional plant breeding technology, genetic engineering, and clever marketing.

In the late 1960s, plant biologists created canola by crossing four varieties of rapeseed to reduce the levels of erucic acid (which makes oils go rancid quickly) and glucosinolate (which tastes bitter). The oil pressed from this new seed had a lower level of saturated fat, and a higher level of "good" fat, than other similar neutral-tasting oils like safflower and sunflower.

Celery seed (Recipe: refrigerator zucchini pickles)

If it weren't for potato salad and pickles, my celery seed would be toast.

All winter, it sits on the spice rack, pushed farther and farther to the rear of the shelf.

In summer, when I'm ready to make pickles and potato salad (Why only in summer? I don't know.), I retrieve the celery seed, dust off the jar, use a few teaspoons here and there, and send it back to its place. Every other year or so, I throw out the mostly-full but decidedly less-zesty spice, buy a new jar, and start the cycle again.

Time to admit that maybe celery seed shouldn't be in The Perfect Pantry? Time to broaden my culinary repertoire?

Time to start drinking Bloody Marys?

Prepared mustards (Recipe: deviled eggs)

Truth, or fiction?

Isabella Martinque, on the way to her first day of work at the National Mustard Museum, came within a foot – more like six inches to be precise – of killing a handsome young man in the prime of his youth.

Luckily for both Isabella and the young man, the right front bumper of her 1993 Toyota Tercel caught only the tattered brown leather suitcase he was carrying in his left hand, propelling it onto the shoulder where it opened and spilled out its contents. Socks, underwear, jeans, a few shirts, and several books were strewn along the side of Highway 78 about a quarter mile outside the village of Mount Horeb.

Isabella had been preoccupied with her new job as chef-in-residence at the Mustard Museum. Her brain was racing, conjuring up new and unique recipes for the golden condiment. Mustard creme brulee. Eggplant a la Dijon. Fig and mustard coulis...

Truth: There really is a National Mustard Museum in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin. Open to the public since 1992, the collection has grown to more than 4,700 prepared mustards from all 50 states and 60 countries, plus oodles of mustard-abilia.

Soba/buckwheat noodles (Recipe: asparagus-cashew stir fry)

So there we were -- Ted, his sister Jill, my cousin Martin and me -- huddled in the kitchen in my friend Rika's house, in the small village of Mihama on the west coast of Japan, in the middle of winter, drinking sake to stay warm, and learning how to make soba.

It was our second visit to Japan, February 1997, windy and snowing, cold beyond cold. We had come to Mihama after a couple of weeks of traveling in Vietnam, where it was hot beyond hot, and our bodies were having adjustment issues. Rika's house sits right on the beach; except for the kitchen, the rooms are heated only by space heaters, so even without the promise of a cooking lesson, we'd still have gravitated towards the only room that had both heat and food.

According to the traditions of the village, which is home to 50 families, property passes from oldest son to oldest son, and so Rika's husband, Ichiro, came to own the house, a fishing boat, and the fields that supply his family with rice and vegetables. Ichiro teaches at an agricultural high school, where students learn about all aspects of the growing cycle, including cooking, and he is quite a good cook, too.

Unsalted butter (Recipe: scotch shortbread)

What do Santa Claus, Richard Nixon, Elvis, and the unofficial mascot of a midwestern state fair have in common?

Each has been sculpted in unsalted butter.

It's true.

The 2006 Iowa State Fair's famous Butter Cow weighed in at 600 pounds, Santa at 700 pounds, and Elvis at a whopping 800 pounds. Nixon weighed just three pounds (insert obvious jokes here).

I'm not sure why unsalted butter is the choice of sculptors. Perhaps unsalted butter is more predictable. That's certainly why it is the choice of bakers. With unsalted butter, you know just what you're getting.

Bookworm in the country

One of the original Ninecooks nine cooks, and the best salad dressing maker I know, Jessica lives in the town next to mine in northwest Rhode Island, and she's this week's Bookworm in the Pantry. An avid reader, Jessica, who works for a nonprofit organization, and her husband, a university librarian, bought their old farmhouse in part because it's directly across the road from the town library! Her improvisational cooking style spans all cuisines, including a recent interest in Korean cooking, and her vegetable and herb garden provides ample inspiration.

UPDATE. Jessica recommended:

• A History of the World in Six Glasses
• Coming Home to Eat: The Pleasues and Politics of Local Foods
• Spice: The History of a Temptation
• Sweets: A History of Candy
• The Mammoth Cheese
  

Browse through the eclectic library of some previous Bookworm recommendations here.

NOTE: Since February, we've had a Bookworm in the Pantry every Saturday. As there are no more Bookworms waiting for a first turn at stardom, I'm going to publish a master list of all of the Bookworm recommendations next Saturday.

If your favorite reads are not on the list (and there are some surprising omissions), and if you've enjoyed this feature on The Perfect Pantry, why not be a Bookworm? If you've already had a turn as a Bookworm and would like to recommend five more of your favorite food-related non-cookbooks, I'd love to share your list.

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

Happy blogsday (Recipe: chocolate outrageous pie)

Today is my blog's birthday. One year old. If I'd planned better, I'd have started the blog two days later, on June 16, so Leopold Bloom and I could celebrate together. Happy Blogsday has a nice ring to it.

So, you get it now, don't you?

There is no such thing as a perfect pantry.

A pantry can be well-stocked, well-stacked, and well-rounded.

But it's always a work in progress, with new items coming in, and old ones discarded.

White whole wheat flour (Recipe: raisin-banana scones)

Meet the new love of my life.

As with any infatuation, I can't get enough of it.

I want to wake up to it in the morning and savor it all day long.

Alas, I am a bake-o-phobe, and my affair with white whole wheat flour might be doomed.

So I'd like to fix you up with my new love. Please, take my inamorata out on a date, get to know each other, commit to a long-term relationship. You won't be sorry.