The Perfect Pantry

Eggs (Recipe: Italian style omelet appetizer)

Brown eggs are local eggs,
and local eggs are fresh.

If you're not singing along, you're not from here.

Here is New England, where our Rhode Island Red hens lay brown eggs, and where we've heard that jingle on radio and television ads for almost forty years. There's no difference in nutrition value, or in taste, between white eggs and brown; they just come from different breeds of chicken. Hens with reddish-brown feathers and earlobes (yes, chickens have ears!) lay brown eggs.

If brown eggs aren't your local eggs, you might pay more for them, because chickens that lay brown eggs tend to eat more than chickens that lay white eggs.

Who knew?

Pimentón agridulce/smoked bittersweet paprika (Recipe: chakchouka)

Guest post and photos by Kim in Pasadena, California.

When it comes to discovering new foods and ingredients, I’m like a dog who spots a squirrel. The world simply freezes for me.

I can walk down any grocery aisle in any store, and if there is something I’ve never seen before, my brain puts on the brakes, and before I know it I am reading the label. I’m flexible, but I keep Kosher, so I read carefully.

You’d think I would whip out my BlackBerry at this point, to reveal the mystery ingredient. But I don’t own a BlackBerry, nor do I have Internet on my phone. This might sound strange coming from a computer geek who makes a living building and fixing computers.

Even if I could, looking up stuff right there and then would spoil the ride home for me. All the anticipation until I can get to my computer and Google my new-found treasure is just too delicious. The surprise of some magical taste or a new recipe can be such wonderful journey. 

Sometimes this can be a bit of a let-down (mustard oil comes to mind), sometimes downright scary (got to put black salt in that box). But then there are the times when the food gods smile upon you and you get a real treat. 

Bittersweet paprika is one of those treats.

Tea (Recipe: "smoked" egg salad)

Please welcome Kim, who with this post joins The Perfect Pantry as guest blogger. Kim lives in Pasadena, California; she is the business manager for a local farmers market, and also the Friday cook for a nonprofit organization that gathers donated food from various locations, and makes and serves meals to the homeless. This is her first-ever blog post.

Guest post and photos by Kim in Pasadena, California

Many years ago, one of the rites of passage into womanhood was "going to tea" with my friends.

Back then, the really haute-couture department stores had their own tearooms for ladies to rest after a day's shopping. My mother would sometimes take me to tea so I would learn the proper way for a lady to act and dress.

Just about the time I came of age for tea parties, the Beatles, Rolling Stones and (for me) Jethro Tull swept me off to wilder places that were unencumbered by rules and roles. I couldn't really see going to tea in bell-bottoms and a tube top!

Garlic (Recipe: oven-baked tortilla española)

Adapted in part from the archives, with new photos, links, and a favorite tapas recipe.

Where will you be on July 24, 2009?

I'll be in Chicago with 1,000 bloggers at the BlogHer annual conference.

More than 100,000 people, perhaps including a blogger or two, will be in Gilroy, California, at the world's most famous garlic festival.

As interesting as it is, BlogHer's agenda can't compete with the Great Garlic Cook-off, the Miss Gilroy Garlic Festival parade, and hundreds of food vendors offering their specialties in honor of the "stinking rose".

Which, by the way, is not a rose at all; it's a lily.

Mayonnaise (Recipes: homemade mayonnaise and egg salad)

Guest post by Julia in Cambridge. Photos by David.

Every Saturday lunch when I was growing up, my mother made chicken sandwiches with the leftover roast chicken and challah from our Friday night Shabbat dinner. She slathered the bread with mayonnaise mixed with mustard.

On Tuesday nights, she served steamed artichokes or asparagus. And to entice my sister and me into eating our vegetables, she put out little dishes of mayonnaise mixed with ketchup. If the adage were true, that “you are what you eat,” I’d have been a bulbous, blue-lidded jar of Hellmann’s. 

Of course, I didn’t realize mayonnaise came in any other form than from a jar. Until I went to cooking school. There, I learned to make mayo by hand, from scratch: starting with 12 egg yolks and a spoonful of mustard in a bowl.

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.

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.

Grated or shredded cheese (Recipe: zucchini frittata)

I am way above average.

Not in a Michael Phelps way, but somehow, some way, way above average.

I always believed it, but now I have proof.

The average American eats 32 pounds (14.5 kilograms) of cheese per year. And if that's true, I am above average. I'm sure I eat more cheese than that.

My refrigerator always has a stash of hard cheese and soft, white and blue, spreadable and sliceable, and grated or shredded cheese.

For my grated cheese stash, I have Julia Child to thank.

Phyllo shells (Recipe: one-bite vegetable quiche)

Does your house sometimes feel like a bed-and-breakfast inn, with a steady stream of guests coming and going?

When you live in a log house in the woods, with a great kitchen and a fireplace and a big screened porch and indoor plumbing, you get plenty of company. (Yes, people ask. Do we need sleeping bags? Do you have towels? Should we bring flashlights? I remind them that, even out here in the woods, we have a dishwasher and DSL.)

If you're me, you love having people come to visit. Of course, if you're me, you don't bake, so you're always on the lookout for ingredients to keep in the pantry for easy entertaining.

When it comes to pastry, I'm all thumbs. Forget making it from scratch; even a store-bought pie dough becomes silly putty in my hands. However, a bit of pastry can dress up almost anything, from scrambled eggs to hummus to leftover Chinese food, so I stash a few boxes of phyllo shells in the freezer.

Eggs (Recipe: asparagus frittata)

For much of the year, within a mile or two in any direction from my house, you'll find a farm selling fresh eggs.

Last summer Ted stopped at a farm up the road from us, to photograph this sign that surely gave passers-by something to think about. Five flavors of eggs? Intriguing! But no, it was the goat cheese that came in five flavors. And no, the eggs weren't in that cooler; they were in the house, properly stored in the refrigerator.

Every culture that has chickens eats eggs, and thanks to Christopher Columbus, who brought some hens with him on his second voyage in 1493, that includes those of us in the United States.