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!).