The Perfect Pantry

Dulce de leche (Recipe: dulce de leche milhojas)

Now for a special treat: guest posts by the three food bloggers I've adopted through the Adopt-a-Blogger mentoring program. (Please be sure to visit their terrific blogs.) Today, meet Rebecca of From Argentina With Love, the first blog I adopted. A former teacher, she writes about Argentinean food, wine, and life in and around the small town of Bowen, where her husband's family lives. She's a wonderful cook who teaches classes in the Denver area, and her charming stories of the people and food of Argentina will enchant you.

Guest post and photos by Rebecca of From Argentina With Love

Along with tango and Evita, dulce de leche is one of the first things that comes to mind when people think of Argentina.

The sticky, sweet caramel spread plays so beloved a role in the culinary culture in Argentina that, in 2003, the country declared it a "national product" and lobbied UNESCO for official designation -- much to the chagrin of neighboring Uruguay, who argued that they have been making dulce de leche just as long as Argentina has.

Dulce de leche’s legendary status comes complete with a saga of mythic proportions.

Baking spray (Recipe: Lucia's walnut cake)

Baking spray changed my life.

I don't bake often, or very well, and when I do, I can be a bit of a lazy baker.

Up until a couple of years ago, when a recipe said to "butter and flour the pan", I'd drench my cake pans with cooking spray. Then I'd watch little puddles form in the corners as the spray slid down the sides of the pans.

One day my friend Cindy, an executive pastry chef, introduced me to baking spray -- cooking spray with flour added -- "butter and flour" in a single can.

No sliding, no pooling. You spray, and it stays.

Pecans (Recipe: classic pecan pie)

When Harry met Sally, sparks did not fly.

What did fly were some of the funniest ad libs in movie history.

In one of my favorite scenes, Harry (Billy Crystal) and Sally (Meg Ryan) visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Harry decides they will speak only in funny nasal voices, and ad libs the line, "I would be proud to partake of your pecan pie."

Sally tries to repeat it in just the same singsong way, but cannot, and Harry coaches her. Pee can PIIIEEEEE. She tries again. Pee can PIIIEEEEE.

Would the scene have worked as well with if Harry had said pee KAHN? Who knows?

Refrigerated pie crust, and a cookbook giveaway (Recipe: rum raisin pear pie)

Dear readers, you know that I'm a bake-o-phobe, and I know how much you love desserts. I'm really trying, all this week, just for you. Welcome to The Perfect Pantry's first-ever Baked Desserts Week, Day One.

When I turned 40, which was oh-so-many years ago, I made my first two-crust pie.

Well, honestly, it was my first any-crust pie.

And it wasn't even my crust. It was refrigerated pie crust, from the supermarket.

I couldn't have been more proud if I'd made the crust from scratch.

Which I never, for a single minute, considered doing.

Eggs, or no eggs (Recipes: Wacky Cake and Poor Man's Cake)

Please welcome Sarah, who with this post joins The Perfect Pantry as guest blogger. A working artist, sculptor, and consultant on public art projects, Sarah's work has won numerous awards and fellowships, and has been featured in exhibits across the country. She is a dedicated urban gardener and coordinates a large multi-cultural community garden in Boston's South End.

Guest post and photos by Sarah in Boston

When I was a kid, my mom created a special scrapbook cookbook especially for my dad.

He was plagued with terrible headaches and swelling in his hands and feet, and assumed that he had food allergies. Through trial-and-error cooking, they concluded he must be allergic to eggs. 

As a traveling salesman, my dad had to eat most of his meals on the road, so when he came home they tried to calm his system with all his favorite comfort foods.

It wasn’t until he was in his late sixties that he was diagnosed with a rare genetic disease, hereditary angioedema -- not food allergies -- and, after treatment, to his great joy he could eat anything. But two of those egg-free desserts, made with ingredients from my mother's pantry, remained his particular favorites: Wacky Cake (in the top photo), which my mother made for family birthdays, and Poor Man’s Cake.

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.

Pineapple (Recipe: Love in pieces)

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

Back in Rhode Island, whenever I could afford it (when Dole ran a Maui Gold supermarket special), I would stand in the produce aisle and carefully smell, pull the leaves from, and gently press my thumbs into dozens of fresh pineapples, until I found the perfect one.

I would nurse that perfect pineapple to full ripeness over the next week or so. Then, my daughters and I, in a rare and special ritual, would sit around a bowl of freshly cut pineapple chunks and savor each golden morsel, each juicy bite.

Like many Northerners, I had been brainwashed to associate pineapple with Hawaii, colonial New England hospitality, Cantonese cocktails, and the archway on Federal Hill in Providence (I know it’s a pine cone on that arch over Atwells Avenue, but it’s amazing how many people think it’s a pineapple.).

Forgive me, Carmen Miranda.

Whole wheat flour (Recipe: apple spice cake)

When Ted and I moved to Boston thirty years ago, we discovered a health food store called Erewhon.

Erewhon.

Nowhere, spelled backwards.

Nowhere -- oops, Erewhon -- sat north of Harvard Square, in a part of Cambridge that could have been called Hippie Central, with a tea and incense shop a block away, and stores that sold old oak furniture and long granny dresses.

We lived in Boston, but made the trip across the river to Erewhon for earthy foods sold out of bins, things like nuts and beans and whole wheat flour.

Pie crust (Recipe: as-American-as apple pie)

All this week, I'm updating posts from the very first month of The Perfect Pantry. New links, new photos, and some great recipes for summer.

When I was growing up, my family didn't "do" dessert.

I don't mean that we didn't eat it. We did, but dessert in our house meant one of two things: fresh fruit, or coffee-chip ice cream by the quart from Grunings, our local ice cream parlor.

There was no in-between.

And so, there was no pie, no making of pie crust, no learning how to criss-cross the lattice.

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.