The Perfect Pantry

Capers (Recipe: confetti spaghetti)

Was it Peter Piper who first pickled a peck of prickly perennial pods?

Inquiring minds want to know.

I want to know.

Who first thought that pickling the unripened flower buds of Capparis spinosa, a bushy Mediterranean plant, would be a good idea? An adventurous cook who lived before 3,000 BC, because history records capers used as a food at least that long ago.

Dried mushrooms (Recipe: potato and mushroom soup)

A few Junes ago, Ted was mowing the occasional blades of grass in our lawn.

Along the edge of the woods, underneath the oak trees, he spotted a couple of oddly shaped mushrooms. Are they morels, he wondered?

Oh, yes, they were morels. And the more we looked, the more we found.

Two quarts of morels!

Have I told you that our land was once used by a charcoal maker? He was known as "The Indian," because he was a member of the Narragansett tribe that has its roots here in Rhode Island. (Nobody we know remembers his name.) There are large concrete platforms buried beneath our grass; on those platforms, more than forty years ago, The Indian burned wood into charcoal. A mushroom forager told us that the residual ash in our lawn creates a happy environment for morels.

I noted the date on the calendar, and the following year, with anticipation -- and with recipes in mind -- we hunted and hunted, but didn't find a single morel. The year after that, just a handful. Last year, none.

We should have dried our harvest that first year.

Dried mushrooms I've purchased from farmers and farm stands in France (cepes) and in the Pacific Northwest (mixed morels, chanterelles and porcini) have kept for more than two years in tightly-sealed glass jars in my pantry, with no significant loss of quality.

Panko (Recipe: chicken fingers)

I'm the same age, give or take a couple of months, as Peeps and Swanson TV Dinners, but I'm forty years older than panko.

Neither a dance, nor an exercise regimen, nor very cool drum-beating music, panko are the Japanese bread crumbs that have taken Western cooking by storm over the past five years or so. More coarse than traditional dried bread crumbs, panko are really bread flakes; the flakes absorb less moisture and, therefore, food made with them stays more crisp.

Introducing "Other People's Pantries"

Ted built this spice rack to hold many of my everyday herbs and spices.

I have another "holding area" in the cellar, for things I use less frequently (yes, I'll show you that, too). And I keep larger quantities of some herbs and spices in the freezer. If my pantry were really perfect, the spice rack would be the length of a supermarket aisle, and everything would be stored at the eye level of a five-foot-two woman. No reaching, no bending.

Our log house kitchen features bumpy walls inside and out. Ted rummaged around in the barn and found an old wooden door, part of which became this spice rack, custom sized (28 inches wide, 22 inches tall) to hold my assortment of old and new jars and tins. The best part is that it looks like it's been there forever.

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I've shown you mine. Now, you show me yours.

Show me your pantry: cupboard, shelves, closet or cellar. Or your spice rack. Spice box. Spice cabinet. Or the corner where you've stacked boxes of pasta or cans of tomatoes.

Show me, and I'll show everyone else, because -- admit it -- we're all curious about Other People's Pantries.

Send (to lydia AT ninecooks DOT com):

• a photo of your pantry (all or part), along with
• your first name,
• city or state or country where you live, and
  
• if you're a blogger, your blog name and URL.

If you want to write something about your photo, please do -- but it's not required. If you've already blogged about your pantry, be sure to include a link to your post.

Photos should be JPGs, ideally 460 pixels wide --and if what I just wrote is gibberish to you, don't worry; just send whatever size and shape photo you have, and I'll make it work. Feel free to watermark your photo if that's what you usually do.

On Saturdays, I'll post the photos, one each weekend in the order in which I receive them, along with your first name, and, if you're a blogger, a link to your blog.

Send everything to lydia AT ninecooks DOT com.

Come on -- snap a photo. Give us a peek inside your pantry.

Onions (Recipe: onion bhaji)

Whenever I cook, I hear voices.

I hear Jacques Pepin, Diana Kennedy, Ina Garten and Martin Yan, all urging me to try, trust, experiment, enjoy.

I hear Julia Child, and sometimes I hear Dan Aykroyd channeling Julia, encouraging me to keep going, even if what I'm creating looks like a googly mess.

I hear my grandmother, telling the little girl in me to keep stirring, keep chopping, pay attention.

When I cook jambalaya, I hear Justin Wilson.

A humorist, storyteller, and talented home cook who spent the first part of his career as a safety engineer inspecting warehouses in South Louisiana, he hosted a cooking show on public television in the 1970s and 1980s, before the rest of the country heard of blackened catfish, etoufeé and andouille.

From Justin Wilson I learned about the Cajun trinity, the mirepoix of flavorings that start every good soup and stew: celery, bell pepper, and onion. What he actually said was SEL-ray, bell PEPpah, and un-NYUANH, way up in the nasal back of his throat, and whenever I make anything that begins with the trinity, I hear his voice.

Baking powder (Recipe: coffee spice cake)

While cleaning out several decades' worth of accumulated stuff in his barn, my friend Matt discovered a small book, which he passed on to me.

Published in 1939, A Rhode Island Rule Book is not about football, or dating, or straight lines.

It's a cookbook. More precisely, it's a cheat sheet for women (yes, women) who already know how to cook. The introduction explains:

The Rule Book of the past contained only those rules which were too complicated to be memorized by the cook, the mother.

Directions for cooking eggs, fish, meats, and vegetables were unwritten lore handed down from mother to daughter, who learned by doing. These were fundamentals and to know them not was a disgrace...

I am sensing disgrace in my future.

In the chapter titled Cakes and Frostings, the Rule Book states that "Baking powder is new-fangled. Saleratus and cream of tartar will keep cake more moist."

Saleratus? I had to look it up. (See? Disgrace.) Saleratus is sodium or potassium bicarbonate: baking soda, which has been used in baking since ancient times. The "new-fangled" baking powder has been on the market only since 1856.

Kecap manis (Recipe: nasi goreng)

What does ABC mean to you?

Something fundamental, yes? A starting point. A building block.

In the world of food, ABC reminds me of two things.

First, an ABC I don't keep in the pantry: When Ted and Cousin Martin and I traveled through Malaysia, we tasted a dessert called ABC, air batu campur -- literally, "water stone mix" --  a mound of shave ice topped, improbably, with red beans, sweet corn, grass jelly and a drizzle of evaporated milk. Also called ais kacang, it looked like a kind of psychedelic sno-cone.

Second, an ABC I always have in my pantry: kecap manis, a wonderful, sweet soy sauce sold under the ABC brand and, in our house, known as "that ABC stuff in the cupboard."

Food blogs and birthdays: nothing to fear

When I tell people I'm a food writer, they generally respond in a couple of ways.

Ooooh, that's exciting!

Fun, yes. Lots of fun. But exciting like Andrew Zimmern "put anything in your mouth even when you have to hold your nose" exciting? No.

Ooooh, you must get lots of free food!

I don't, of course.

Ooooh, you must know the best restaurants in town!

Again, no. I'm one of those food writers who doesn't review restaurants. It's not that I'm not opinionated, but I'd rather write about farms and markets, cooking classes and food producers, and food-related experiences I think my readers will enjoy. Also, I live out in the woods, almost twenty miles from the nearest fine-dining restaurants.

Ooooh, where can I see your writing?

Well, in magazines. And I write a food blog.

Food blog? Ummmm.... errrr.....

Uh-oh. That's the conversation stopper.

Carnaroli rice (Recipe: risotto alla Milanese)

Arlecchino. Pantalone. Pulcinella. Carnaroli.

One of these things is not like the others.

The popular characters of the Commedia dell 'arte, Italy's reigning comedy improv for the past five hundred years, might tickle the funny bone, but only carnaroli tickles the taste buds.

Along with its supporting cast (arborio, baldo, and vialone nano), carnaroli plays one role in my pantry.

One starring role -- in dozens of risotto variations.

Lemons (Recipe: avgolemono — chicken soup with rice and lemons)

Peter, Paul and Mary, I love you guys.

I love Puff, that magic dragon, and the big blue frog, too. I know where all the flowers have gone, and what's blowin' in the wind.

But when you dissed the lemon ... well, what you were thinking?

Lemon tree, very pretty,
and the lemon flower is sweet.
But the fruit of the poor lemon
is impossible to eat.

Impossible to eat?

More like impossible to do without. 

Whether you're going sweet or savory, unless you live in a country that grows limes instead of lemons (Mexico, for instance, or much of Southeast Asia), you probably can't imagine cooking without lemon.