The Perfect Pantry

Sesame seeds (Recipe: asparagus in miso sauce)

If you read about The Perfect Pantry in the Washington Post, and this is your first visit, welcome. This blog looks at what a professional food writer (me!) keeps in her refrigerator, freezer, cupboards and spice rack -- with a recipe for each item -- and the 23 things I absolutely, positively, have to have in my pantry. 

Two things I don't usually do:

I don't usually write about an ingredient in The Perfect Pantry just because I have a new kitchen toy -- oops, tool -- to show you, even when it is an adorable red Japanese sesame seed grinder that looks a little bit like a Mummenschanz crossed with a Tinkertoy.

And, I don't usually give advice about love and relationships and dating and all that.

I don't. Usually. Except today.

Today, I am going to tell you how to choose your life partner.

Molasses (Recipe: Boston brown bread)

Spring has sprung, and my friend Laura is back on the yard sale circuit. And -- lucky me! -- she's already scored a couple of vintage cookbooks to add to my collection.

This week's bounty includes a book of chafing dish recipes by Fannie Farmer, and a guide to restaurants (and recipes) rated tops by employees of the Ford Motor Company -- in the 1940s. That was the heyday of motoring, of Sunday "drives in the car", before environmental awareness and gas prices hovering near US$3.50 a gallon. I love reading the descriptions of some of the historic inns all across the country, and I love the recipes -- old-fashioned, made with old-fashioned ingredients like molasses.

Other People's Pantries #13

From Zoomie (Zoomie Station), in Point Richmond, CA:

This is our pantry closet, very deep as you can see (sometimes, fog forms in the back of it), which used to be such a jumble of stuff that I could never find anything in it... (read more here.)

On Saturdays, we peek into Other People's Pantries.

Come on -- show us your pantry.

Here's how.

Yeast (Recipe: one-rise pizza dough)

If I were a Twitter person (Would that make me a Twit? Surely not.), if I really knew how to use it, how to encapsulate my day into less than 140-character sound bites, or how to find time to Twitter at all, this would be me, today:

Matzoh, matzoh, matzoh. Enough already.

And later:

Daydreaming about cinnamon buns, bagels, baguettes...

Still later:

Craving pizza w/ extra cheese and mushrooms....

And then:

Just drove past a bakery. Smells wonderful. No no no!

I'm sure if I were a Twit(ter), I'd be Twitting with lots of people who are thinking about bread in a week when we've promised not to go there.

So, instead of obsessing about bread, let's just talk about yeast, the amazing one-celled fungus that converts sugar and starch into carbon dioxide bubbles -- bubbles that get trapped in the dough, causing bread to rise (it's the rising that makes bread off-limits during this Passover holiday).

Matzoh (Recipe: my dad's famous matzoh brei)

An updated post from the archives, with new photos.

My father, like all dads of the 1950s, mastered a couple of pieces of cooking equipment and had his special dishes that he produced on holidays, and on demand.

With the aid of a charcoal kettle grill in the back yard, he made the world's best lamb chops. In the electric frying pan, on Sunday mornings, he would make Spit in the Ocean, or another weird concoction that involved slices of bologna or salami floating in a sea of scrambled eggs. If that dish had a name, I've repressed it.

Every year in the Spring, my father did his best work, with a straight-sided covered sauté pan, a large melamine mixing bowl ... and his hands. Spring meant Passover, which meant matzoh, which meant matzoh brei. We ate this only once a year. And my dad was the matzoh brei king.

Soy sauce (Recipe: ginger cabbage salad)

The last time I wrote about lower-sodium soy sauce, I took a photo of the little bottle in my refrigerator.

Yesterday, I took a photo of the jug that's now in my fridge. You know what they say about something that comes in a jug, like the jug wine we used to drink in my college days.

It's cheap.

And you probably use it a lot.

Other People's Pantries #12

From Chris (Mele Cotte), in Atlanta, Georgia:

Here is my pantry. Scary!! This was a hard event because it exposes the inner sanctum!  :)

Montreal steak seasoning (Recipe: grilled tofu wraps)

Sometimes I spend hours researching an ingredient in my pantry, reading about food history or science or legend or nutrition.

Montreal steak seasoning should have been easier.

Tehhhhhhhhhd, what's Montreal steak seasoning?

That should have done it, one holler up the stairs, from my desk to the desk of my Montreal-born husband.

Huhhhhh?

Maybe he didn't hear me.

Montreal steak seasoningggggg? I tried again.

Never heard of it.

So much for shortcuts.

Prepared horseradish (Recipe: tart zucchini relish)

As the crow flies, it is 990 miles from my house to the Horseradish Capital of the World.

Collinsville, Illinois, struts its stuff every July at the International Horseradish Festival, when more than 15,000 devotees come out to celebrate a root that's also known as stingnose.

A root that makes your eyes water, your nose twitch, your tongue numb, your fingers wrinkle, and your ears burn.

A root used to treat headaches, respiratory distress and rheumatism.

A root that was a favorite of both the Oracle at Delphi and Dagwood Bumstead.

Beans and corn (Recipe: Twisted Three Sisters Soup)

Today, Arlo joins The Perfect Pantry as our first guest blogger. Many of you remember her letters earlier this year. A wonderful and generous storyteller, Arlo writes from Ottawa, the capital city of Canada, and I'm delighted to welcome her. Watch for her posts once a month or so.

Guest post by Arlo from Ottawa

Years ago I was asked by my son’s school council if I had an Aboriginal recipe I could prepare for our first ever Stone Soup Café, a fundraising event that would sell the students' hand-decorated bowls and a range of parent- and restaurant-donated soups.

Being new to the Ottawa region at the time, I immediately called a friend who is indigenous to this territory and asked her how to make corn soup, a traditional fare at many eastern Native festivals and ceremonies. Sadly, she never really made the soup herself and didn’t know where I could buy white corn either. So that year I ended up making a venison stew, a popular feast dish in my home prairies. The following year I made Metis boullets, a meatball soup made every New Year’s Eve. This year, I was determined to succeed with Three Sisters Soup, a recipe that has been passed down since the time when corn, beans and squash were first planted.