The Perfect Pantry®

The Perfect Pantry's fridge, freezer and fresh: 73 essential ingredients

Three ingredients in my refrigerator door.

As part of the celebration of the three-year anniversary of The Perfect Pantry, I've been sharing the inventory of all of the ingredients in my pantry.

We've had a good prowl through the spice rack and cupboards.

Finally, here are the pantry items I keep in my refrigerator and freezer, plus a few fresh items you'll always find sitting in bowls on the counter.

Sugar, cookies (Recipe: the world's best sugar cookie)

We interrupt our regular programming to celebrate Mothers' Day, which in my kitchen is synonymous with sugar cookies. Three hundred and fifty sugar cookies, decorated by friends in my kitchen, and donated here in Rhode Island to a shelter for homeless women, a residential program for pregnant and postpartum women with addiction issues, and six emergency shelters for women and children who are victims of domestic abuse.

Please share these cookies with someone you love, courtesy of Drop In & Decorate™ and The Perfect Pantry.

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.

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.