The Perfect Pantry

Marshmallow Fluff (Recipe: Rhode Island hot chocolate, with faux fluff)

Despite having close to 250 items in The Perfect Pantry, I can think of dozens of ingredients that might be in your pantry but are not in mine.

Almond extract. Anchovies. Bacon. Wild rice. Fennel pollen. Marshmallow Fluff®.

I know... you think Fluff is not an ingredient. But here in New England, it is.

Without Fluff, there would be no Fluffernutters or Whoopie Pies, two of our regional claims to fame.

Dried mushrooms (Recipe: mushroom soup a la Fred)

Updated from the archives, with new recipe, links and photos.

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. 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.

We harvested every one of those wonderful morels, and I noted the date on the calendar. The following year, we didn't find a single morel. The year after that, just a handful. Last year, none.

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.

We should have dried our harvest that first year.

Other People's Pantries #48

From Rhonda (I Dine Alone), in Arizona:

My pantry is spread out over a few locations, because I have to share with my hubby who could survive on potato chips and hot sauce, hence the theme of my blog "dining alone". I keep my spices right at the main part of my kitchen where I do most of my prep work.

I also have a bit of a tea fetish and have really got into that lately. It has now taken over an entire shelf in my kitchen.

Behind all of the tuna and peanut butter in the main pantry you will find mostly canned tomatoes and boxes of chicken stock. I am very fortunate to have so much space to accommodate my husband's hot sauce collection (addiction) and my dogs' many treats.

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

Come on -- show us your pantry.

*Other People's Pantries will be ending in early 2009 to make way for a new Saturday feature. There's still time to share your pantry photos, so please send them as soon as possible!

Here's how.

Holiday greetings

Happy holidays, from our pantry to yours.

Gifts for food lovers: Last-minute stocking stuffers

The final part of an eight-part series.

For you, there are two words:

Gift certificate.

And two more words:

Don't panic. You have two days until Christmas, and six more nights of Chanukah.

So, quickly now, get out your credit card. Here are nine quick links to nine quick gifts:

Cornmeal (Recipe: Polenta, squash and cheese loaf)

Do what I say, not what I do.

When I say store your stone-ground, super-nutritious, little-flecks-of-goodness cornmeal in the refrigerator, please do it.

If you don't, then please don't make polenta when one of the finest chefs in town is coming to your house for dinner, because you will have to throw out the whole beautiful loaf when you taste it (thank goodness you taste!) and discover that the cornmeal went a bit off as it sat in your cupboard, instead of in the fridge where it belonged.

Other People's Pantries #47

From Thessa, in Sesimbra, Portugal:

It's great to peek into all these pantries and it's just fair I send a few photos of mine. I live alone but I enjoy to experiment with new recipes and different foods so I always keep a lot of food at home.

I used to have a walk-in pantry that became my laundry room so now I don't have all my food in one place. I have a few cupboards where I keep my food and sometimes even over the counter tops. I've a bit more than I'm showing you but those are on the bottom shelves behind the plates and other china stuff. It's mostly cans of beans (all sorts), cans of pineapple and rice packets I keep there for lack of space.

 

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

Come on -- show us your pantry.

*Other People's Pantries will be ending in early 2009 to make way for a new Saturday feature. If you'd like to share your pantry photos, please send them as soon as possible!

Here's how.

Fresca (Recipes: Fresca cake, salad, and a cocktail)

When we were in college, my best friend Joyce and I went on a Fresca®-and-tuna-sandwich diet.

Two weeks later, we'd each lost a couple of pounds and gained a life-long addiction to the grapefruit-flavored sugar-free soda.

Last week, in a post about food gifts for food lovers, I wrote that Fresca did not meet the test for a pantry item, though I drink it every day and always have copious amounts in my refrigerator, because it's not used as an ingredient in creating other dishes.

I was wrong.

Gifts for food lovers: Gifts of giving (Recipe: fried sweet potatoes)

Part Seven of an eight-part series.

All I want for the holidays is a piece of a water buffalo*.

Or a hand pump for drinking water**.

Or a few meals on wheels*** (and I don't mean pizza delivery).

Yes, I'd also love a wooden spoon or two, some puffy slippers, the latest Kay Scarpetta, a few romantic comedies on DVD, or a CD of the Colombian cumbia that I heard in a Brad Pitt movie and now can't seem to get out of my head, but I don't need any of these things.

I have food and clean drinking water and a roof over my kitchen. But around the world -- and, yes, shamefully, here in America -- millions of people do not.

You can make food lovers like me very happy with gifts to hunger relief organizations at home and abroad, and there's still time to donate before the holidays. Here are nine ideas to get you started:

Guava paste (Recipe: guava souffle with custard sauce)

Guest post and photos by Peter in Brazil, chef and co-owner of Pousada do Capão

In any small town here in Minas Gerais, there is plenty of animated discussion around who makes the best goiabada, or guava paste.

Here in São Gonçalo, Dona Geralda wins my vote. Her alchemy turns humble guavas and sugar into red gold -– stirring, stirring, patiently stirring over the fire. My absolute favorite is goiabada cascão, guava paste with toothsome chunks of the slow-cooked candied peel suspended throughout. I always have a nice big hunk in my pantry.