The Perfect Pantry

Dark soy sauce (Recipe: shrimp teriyaki)

One of my favorite Asian pantry ingredients, in a post updated from the archives, with new recipe, photos and links.

Yoda, the wise jedi master who seemed to know everything about everything, taught us all about the dark side, but I'll bet he didn't know that there's also a dark side in The Perfect Pantry.

There's dark chocolate, dark chili powder and, occasionally, dark ale.

And always a bottle or two of dark soy sauce.

Ginger root (Recipe: steamed fish in packets)

One horribly hot and humid day last summer, I visited my friend Julia's tiny urban garden.

I didn't go for the copious quantities of iced coffee that we both love, nor for her especially good egg salad, nor even for the effortless conversation we always enjoy.

No, what I really wanted was to dig ginger.

Julia, a chef and restaurant consultant, stores her ginger in the garden during the summer months. She digs it up when she needs a bit for cooking, breaks off a piece, then plants it back in the garden, where it continues to grow.

In the photo above, that's Julia's hand holding a "hand" of ginger, which has sent out new roots. In the front are three "fingers" of new ginger growth, brighter white than the old part, and with new green shoots coming out the top.

Feta cheese, and a cookbook giveaway (Recipe: baked shrimp with tomatoes and feta)

When I was younger, I learned a lot of what I knew about boys in summer camp, from my girlfriends who had older siblings or whose mothers had had "the talk" before mine ever worked up the courage to give it a try.

Similarly, I learned a lot of what I knew about food from my friends who had grandparents and parents from Italy and Puerto Rico and the American South. Pasta and parmesan, enchiladas and chicken fried steak -- all were new to me.

I didn't know any kids from Greek families, though, so it took years before I learned about feta cheese.

Onions (Recipe: salsa and shrimp stuffed avocado)

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

When I cook, I hear voices.

I hear Jacques Pepin, Diana Kennedy, Ina Garten and Martin Yan, all urging me to try, experiment, enjoy. I hear Julia Child, or Dan Aykroyd channeling Julia, encouraging me to keep going, even if what I'm creating looks like a googly mess.

When I cook Cajun, I hear Justin Wilson.

A humorist, storyteller, and talented home cook who spent the first part of his career as a safety engineer inspecting warehouses in South Louisiana, he hosted a cooking show on public television thirty years ago, long before the rest of the country had heard of etoufeé and andouille.

From Justin Wilson I learned about the Cajun trinity, the basic flavorings that start every soup and stew: celery, bell pepper, and onion. What he actually said was SEL-ray, bell PEP-pah, and un-NYUANH, way up in the nasal back of his throat, and whenever I make anything that begins with the trinity, I hear his voice.

Fennel seed (Recipe: potato and swordfish tortino)

If you grew up in Rhode Island, or spend your summers on the beaches here, you know certain things about food.

You know about stuffies and doughboys, jonnycakes and dynamites. You know a coffee cabinet from a kitchen cabinet. You know that an Awful Awful® isn't awful at all.

And you know pizza sausage, the kind of Italian sausage crumbled onto pizzas everywhere around here, the kind of sausage that gets its traditional flavor from fennel seed.

You might not know, though it is true, that Italian-sausage manufacturers are the major end users for most of the world supply of fennel seed.

Thank goodness they save some for the rest of us.

Frozen shrimp (Recipe: Blazing hot shrimp)

No matter where or how hard you look, you will not find a fresh shrimp anywhere in Rhode Island.

Lobster? Yes. Scallops? Of course. Clams? Dig them yourself, on the beach.

Shrimp? Nope, not a one.

New England may be famous for its shellfish, but our waters are too cold for shrimp (oh, you lucky, lucky folks who live in California or near the Gulf of Mexico!), so whether I buy shrimp at the best fishmonger in town or at the local supermarket, I'm buying frozen shrimp.

And because that local market is ten miles from my house, I keep a few bags of shrimp of different sizes in my freezer.

Dill weed (Recipe: leek, potato and salmon soup)

Five years ago, Ted and I rebuilt the front path to our house and created a much larger space for growing herbs and perennials.

Our garden has it all: plenty of sun, plenty of mulch, plenty of water and homemade compost. For the most part, the deer leave it alone, though they occasionally nibble the parsley, and rabbits munch on the strawberries.

Without interference, however, we grow sage, rosemary, thyme, anise, lemongrass, horseradish. Oregano. Lavender. Tarragon. Chives. Perennials and annuals.

Yes, we have it all. All except dill weed.

Pad Thai noodles (Recipe: rice noodle salad with shrimp)

Oodles of Noodles Week, Day Two.

There are noodles that tell you what to do with them, and there are noodles that leave much to the imagination.

Pad Thai noodles -- banh pho -- tell you exactly what they want to become.

Paprika (Recipe: salmon tagine with chermoula)

In the house where I grew up, paprika was the curly parsley of my mother's spice rack.

She used it to "fancy up" a dish like egg salad.

Or to "color up" a dish like flounder.

Or to cover up a blooper.

My mother never used paprika as an ingredient, at least not that I can remember, though the red-and-white Szeged tin, ubiquitous on supermarket shelves, was a fixture in her pantry.

If only she'd put that paprika in contact with some heat, she would have realized that paprika is more than just a pretty red spice in a pretty red tin...

Canned tomatoes (Recipe: cioppino)

You like potato and I like potahto,
You like tomato and I like tomahto;
Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto!
Let's call the whole thing off!

Are you a member of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Rainy Sunday Afternoon Romantic Comedy Movie Club?

Okay, there is no such club, but if there were, I would be its president. And if you were a member, you'd surely recognize this classic song from Swing Time.

It's a love song, and it's not really about potatoes and tomatoes.

But if there were a love song about tomatoes, I'd be singing along.