The Perfect Pantry®

The gift of wok hay (Recipe: garlic eggplant)

This is the story of how a beautiful hand-hammered, carbon steel, fire-iron Chinese wok came into my life.

The story is too good. And, really, I am the wrong person to tell it.

My friend Marcia, who gave me this incredible cooking tool and with it the gift of wok hay, the sometimes-elusive spirit of culinary harmony that comes with a well-seasoned and properly-used wok, will tell you about the wok. First, though, please go to your cookbook shelf and look at the cover of Grace Young's stunning book, The Breath of a Wok. Then turn to page 27.

Ah, yes, now you understand. And this is Marcia's story:

The gift of cookbooks (Recipe: sweet potato bread)

Almost every Saturday, my friend Laura visits yard sales. Her "finds" are the stuff of legend.

A real diamond ring forgotten in a box of junk jewelry. A set of mid-century modern patio chairs and table for $10.

A car.

To me, though, her most exciting finds are cookbooks (well, perhaps not quite as exciting as a diamond ring), classic and contemporary, the relics of other people's culinary whims, sometimes with notes penciled in the margin or recipes cut from newspapers and used as bookmarks.

Wonderful friend that she is, Laura often passes those cookbooks on to me.

Mexican oregano (Recipe: smoky chipotle-balsamic salad dressing)

Twigs and leaves.

At this time of year, just a few days past peak foliage season in New England, I'm surrounded by twigs and leaves, shed by the maple, oak, pine, cherry, sassafras and birch trees on our land.

When I pulled this bag of Mexican oregano out of the freezer last week, I realized I've got twigs and leaves in The Perfect Pantry, too.

Foliage it might be, but oregano it is not. Mexican oregano, also called Mexican wild sage or Tex-Mex oregano, actually is a member of the lemon verbena family, not related to the more familiar Mediterranean oregano, stronger and sweeter but with a similar lemon-licorice aroma. I first sought out this herb when I started reading Diana Kennedy's and Rick Bayless' cookbooks; their recipes, both traditional and contemporary, often called for Mexican oregano, and I knew nothing about it.

Olives (Recipe: chicken with preserved lemon tagine)

A few nights ago, Ted and I walked over to Foodie's Urban Market in Boston's South End to pick up a few provisions for a quiet night of dinner and a DVD.

We didn't have anything particular in mind; we were following our cravings. Grapes. Cheese. Chips. Chocolate. We wandered up and down the aisles. Just as we passed the artisan breads, my little eye spied a hand-lettered label...

"Venetian olive rolls."

Oh boy! The last time we'd had those was in Venice, when we'd rented an apartment near the Galleria dell'Accademia, around the corner from a bakery. Every morning Ted would buy rolls that were warm and purplish with chunks of Kalamata olives, and we'd get cheese at a market a few doorways down the street. It's the only time I've ever had olives for breakfast, and it was a wonderful way to start each day.