The Perfect Pantry

Phyllo dough (Recipe: cheese phyllo triangles)

Cleveland, Ohio, stakes its claim as the phyllo dough capital of the world.

Athens Foods, which opened in Cleveland in 1958, makes more than 90 percent of the phyllo dough sold in the United States -- all told, more than five million pounds a year of the paper-thin, flaky dough called phyllo, phillo, filo or fillo.

Phyllo, the Greek word for "leaf", is made of wheat flour, water, and a small amount of oil. Filo and fillo are alternate spellings of the same word. In my local Middle Eastern market, I've heard people ask for FEE-LOH (the correct pronounciation) and FIE-LOH -- and, yes, for FILL-O.

In Turkish, phyllo dough is called yufka ... or youfka.

Sugar and spice, mustard and coffee (Recipe: double strawberry tartlets)

The next best thing for a pantry junkie to actually going food shopping for new pantry items is to have new pantry items appear, like manna from the post office, right at your front door.

So, when a package arrived last week from Erika at Tummy Treasure, and I saw the Wisconsin return address, I was excited.

Would there -- could there? -- be some local foods in the box, some new treats to add to The Perfect Pantry, and, perhaps, a lovely note from the blogger who drew my name in this Blogging-by-Mail exchange, organized by Stephanie of Dispensing Happiness?

Yes, yes and yes!

Granulated garlic (Recipe: dry rub for steak)

Granulated garlic is to fresh garlic as (blank) is to (blank).

As pepper flakes are to habañeros?

As decaf is to espresso?

As Brad Pitt is to George Clooney? (I guess this one depends on your taste. Maybe the other way around?)

The point is that granulated garlic will never have quite the zing of the fresh, but, as my family says when we're seeing the glass half full, it has other attributes.

Mixed grains (Recipe: Mixed grain and dried fruit salad)

When I moved from Boston's South End to a rural part of Rhode Island, I knew I would miss certain things.

Art museums within walking distance of my house.

Bookstores within walking distance of my house.

Great restaurants within walking distance of my house.

Chinese food that could be delivered to my house, on the days I didn't feel like walking anywhere.

What I miss most of all, though, are the ethnic groceries, especially the easy-to-walk-to Asian markets that carry everything from live lobster that you fish out of the tank, to funerary items and clay pots, to hundred-year eggs and baby bok choy.

While restocking The Perfect Pantry a couple of months ago, my friend Candy and I discovered this product in our favorite Asian market, and now that I've found it, I don't ever want to let it go: mixed grains, it's labeled in English (Is that a literal translation of the Korean words on the package, or does it have a more exotic name? Help!).

Fresh herbs, three bricks, one cookbook (Recipe: brick-grilled chicken thighs)

When Sunday morning starts with the ring of the telephone, you know someone, somewhere, is calling to tell you something you don't want to hear.

"I'm sick," my friend Cindy sniffled into the phone.

A summer cold, the kind that works its way through your entire body and makes you feel like jello, had taken hold, so we had to let go of our plan to spend last Sunday evening cooking together.

A few weeks ago, when Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice and Cath of A Blithe Palate invited me to join other bloggers and cook from Faith Heller Willinger's new book, Adventures of an Italian Food Lover: with recipes from 254 of my very best friends, I knew instantly which Italian food lover I'd invite to dinner. I called Cindy, not because she is my most Italian friend (she is), or because she is a professional food stylist (she is), or because she is a certified executive pastry chef (she is). And not because we have gone on several food adventures together, to an Asian supermarket in Boston and to farm stands closer to home (we have), and not even because she runs highly entertaining "insider" walking tours of Providence's Federal Hill, the most Italian neighborhood in Rhode Island (she does).

I wanted to cook for Cindy, and her husband Ken, because she makes friends wherever she goes. She knows the man who sells her pasta and proscuitto, the woman who grows giant zucchini blossoms, the ladies who bake the best pastries, and the neighbor who grows grapes in his backyard vineyard and makes wine in the garage. Food shopping, to her, is a person-to-person experience, and that is the premise of Ms. Willinger's book, too.

Choosing a menu was easy.

Bookworm across the pond

On All the Best, Ronda, this week's Bookworm in the Pantry, lets us in on all of her favorite things and people from the worlds of interior design, food, fashion, travel, and books. An ex-pat Texan now living in the UK, she's a fundraiser and a mom, married to a professor. When they had the opportunity to move overseas to work and travel in Europe, they jumped at the chance. Ronda's blog is fun and quirky; one day you'll read about green tea ice cream, the next day espadrilles or antique furniture or dinner with friends or a trip to Spain.

UPDATE. Ronda recommended:

• Apricots on the Nile
• Extremely Pale Rose: A Very French Adventure
• My Life in France
• Consuming Passions: A Food-Obsessed Life
• The Kitchen Diaries
  

Would you like to be a Bookworm in the Pantry and add to our collective library of good reads?

Start here.

Cider vinegar (Recipe: tomato-nectarine chutney)

In a pantry filled with olive oils from Italy, Spain, California and Trader Joe's, there's bound to be a vinegar or two. Or more. Welcome to the end of Vinegar Week, Day 3.

Pickles, shmickles.

I was going to rave about cider vinegar's culinary assets, how it's wonderful for making pickles and chutneys and cole slaw and salad dressing and marinades.

I was going to tell you about the cider vinegar diet, and that cider vinegar supposedly possesses magical curative powers over everything from arthritis to the common cold.

I was going to explain that cider vinegar is made from the fermented juice of apples, diluted with water to a uniform strength of 5% (50 grains) acidity, and that consistent minimum acidity is necessary for the safe canning and pickling of food.

I was going to add that that same acidity means that cider vinegar has a long shelf life (almost unlimited if unopened, and six months or more after you've opened it).

I was going to point out that pure (i.e., unflavored) cider vinegar is kosher and gluten-free.

I was going to mention that, while the color is mild and mellow, the taste is not.

I was going to confess that I've tried expensive, small-producer artisan vinegars, and see little difference between those and the one I find most easily in my local supermarket (other than price and the fact that the supermarket brands are filtered to remove any sediment).

All of that pales next to this one fact, this life-altering nugget of information that I discovered while reading up on vinegar this morning. And even if it seems that this has nothing to do with food, with cooking, or with The Perfect Pantry, it has changed my world forever.

Japanese rice vinegar (Recipe: carrot beet salad)

In a pantry filled with olive oils from Italy, Spain, California and Trader Joe's, there's bound to be a vinegar or two. Or more. Welcome to Vinegar Week, Day 2.

In a blind taste test, would you be able to tell the difference between Japanese rice vinegar and rice wine vinegar?

Maybe.

Would you know which is which?

Maybe not.

Does it matter?

Not so much.

In fact, they are virtually the same product, as both are made from rice and not from wine. Both are pale in color, slightly sweet, moderately acidic, and mild in flavor. And in most recipes they are interchangeable.

Kind of like ketchup and tomato ketchup, if you catch my meaning.

White wine vinegar (Recipe: caponata)

In a pantry filled with olive oils from Italy, Spain, California and Trader Joe's, there's bound to be a vinegar or two. Or more. Welcome to Vinegar Week, Day 1.

Before Marc Antony fell on his sword, he fell in love with Cleopatra, and she, though married to Caesar at the time, loved him right back.

One night, Cleopatra prepared a very over-the-top meal for Antony, who should have been impressed, but instead had the bad manners to comment on the extravagance. Piqued, Cleopatra wagered that she could consume a fortune in one meal. She then removed one of the very large pearls in her earrings and threw it into a cup of vinegar. The vinegar dissolved the pearl, and she drank it.

I like my vinegar a bit more moderate: strong enough to balance the effects of a rich olive oil, but mild enough not to dissolve my jewelry.

Confectioners sugar (Recipe: chocolate refrigerator cake)

Friends, I have failed you.

I've tried and tried to find the confectioners for whom confectioners sugar was named.

I checked the library, the telephone directory, and the Internet. I searched everywhere for an "association of confectioners who gave their name to sugar," but to no avail.

This would be so much easier if the sugar had been named for a particular confectioner. Edward's Sugar. Sabina's Sugar. Joe's Corner Store Sugar.