The Perfect Pantry®

The Perfect Pantry's top 10 salads for picnic, potluck or barbeque

Unofficially, summer draws to a close here in the United States on Labor Day Weekend. All around the country, kids return to school, and women pack away their white pants and shoes. For those who, like me, still have a barbeque or two on the calendar, and who (again, like me) believe that sides make the meal, here are ten of my very favorite recipes for salads to grace any porch or picnic table over the holiday weekend.

What I've learned in five years of food blogging (Five? Yes!)

Five years ago today, I posted my very first words as a food blogger here on The Perfect Pantry.

After 15 years of food writing in newspapers and magazines, I was ready to blog. I had a name, I had a concept, and I had a couple of slick spreadsheets to keep me organized.

The plan? Blog for one year, four or five posts every week, everything you'd ever want to know about each of the (then) 220 basic ingredients in my fridge, freezer, spice rack and cupboards, always with recipes. Oh, and photos of each ingredient that you could take to the market and match to something on the shelf.

I had no idea what I was getting into.

How to make your pantry a green(er) pantry

One year ago, I posted this piece in honor of the 40th Annual Earth Day. Now Earth Day has become Earth Month, so it's the perfect time to revisit and update some ideas to make your pantry a green(er) pantry.

How green is your pantry?

Not Benjamin-Moore-paint-chip-green.

Good-to-the-Earth green.

I'd call my pantry greenish. Not perfect, but more environmentally aware than it used to be, and getting greener every year.

In celebration of the 41st anniversary of Earth Day, which has now grown into Earth Month, here are ten ideas to make your pantry more environment-friendly:

Housekeeping: a new feature, true confessions, and how to use Facebook

These icicles melted last week, after hanging around far too long. The window, in front of the desk where I'm writing to you now, looks out on a sea of snow that is half the height it was when the icicles formed, but still almost two feet deep. This winter, for the first time, I actually got snowed in, with heavy, wet, waist-high drifts blocking the way to my car, which was safe in the barn but more than 200 feet from my front porch.

And this is Rhode Island. The Ocean State.

A rodent named Phil, who uses his shadow to predict the weather, says Spring is just around the corner. And he might be right, because here I am, with a couple of fresh, new features you'll see in The Perfect Pantry beginning in March, just in time for Spring.