The Perfect Pantry

Cumin (Recipe: mushroom bhaji/mushrooms in tomato-onion sauce)

Never let it be said that The Perfect Pantry avoids the big issues.

After all, we've taken a stand on Miracle Whip versus mayonnaise, chocolate versus vanilla, chili with beans versus chili without beans, and Fresca versus... well, versus everything.

Today we're tackling another of life's big questions: how to pronounce cumin.

COO-min? COO-men? KEW-min?

Is there one correct way that makes all of the others incorrect?

Turmeric (Recipe: saag aloo/potatoes with spiced spinach)

In days of old, when nights were cold, I used to spend a lot of time knitting.

Yarn shopping replaced clothes shopping as my favorite activity. I bought yarn wherever I found something out of the ordinary -- at a stall in Covent Garden, at a craft fair in New Zealand with Cousin Martin, at hidden-away sales of Uruguayan yarn in Manhattan --and eventually I took up spinning and dyeing my own yarn.

And that's why, long before I ever used turmeric in my cooking, I had some in my pantry. In the world of natural dyeing, turmeric turns everything it touches a golden yellow color; in cooking, it does the same thing.

Chinese five-spice powder (Recipe: five-spice applesauce)

A favorite post from 2007, updated with a new recipe, photos and links.

Can you name:

The five W's? (who, what, where, when, why)

The five senses? (sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste)

The five elements? (wood, fire, earth, metal, and water)

The five flavors? (sour, bitter, sweet, pungent, salty)

The five spices in Chinese five-spice powder?

Er....uh.....um....

Stumped?

Vadouvan, a Pantry Special (Recipe: butternut squash, apple and vadouvan soup)

Pantry Specials are great ingredients that find their way into my pantry from time to time, but not all the time. In this occasional series of short posts, you'll find information and recipes for foods that might not be on your local supermarket's shelves, but are available online.

Before last season's Top Chef, I'd never heard of vadouvan, so when I saw a small sample packet at the The Spice House in Chicago last summer, I couldn't pass it up. Basically, it's a French version of a South Indian curry powder (which can be a blend of up to 30 spices), and just as curry powders vary from one cook to the next, so does vadouvan. Sometimes it's more of a paste, made with cooked onions, that needs to be stored in the refrigerator. The packet I bought, which is a dry spice mix, contains curry, curry leaves, white and toasted onion and garlic powders, brown mustard seeds, shallots and kosher salt. Some blends also include fenugreek and cardamom. Use it as you would a sweet curry powder; the flavor is milder and a bit more fruity, with just a hint of smoke.

Brazil food: manioc, mandioca, cassava (Recipe: farofa with liver and onions)

The third in an occasional series of posts over the next few weeks about Brazilian food and ingredients we discovered during our visit.

On a day filled with magical experiences in the village of São Gonçalo do Rio das Pedras -- a second unsuccessful attempt to meet a cheese maker followed by a visit to Karine, who blessed us with sprigs of rue and incantations to help remove what was starting to seem like a "cheese curse", and a tour of Cynthia's multicultural organic garden -- we had the most magical experience of all in Lurdes' back yard.

In São Gonçalo, if you buy farinha de mandioca (and everyone does), you know Lurdes.

By any definition, she is an artisan, the third generation of women in her family to turn manioc (also known as mandioca or cassava or yucca or yuca) into farinha, used as both ingredient and condiment in Brazilian cooking.

Cider vinegar (Recipe: dried cranberry and pear chutney)

Ten things I know about cider vinegar (you'll be glad to know them, too):

Dried black beans (Recipe: gluten-free gazpacho)

While I'm visiting one of The Perfect Pantry's guest bloggers, please enjoy a classic recipe that turns gluten-free by swapping black beans for bread crumbs, in an updated post from the archives, with a printer-friendly recipe.

Way back when -- we're talking decades ago -- my best friend Joyce had a boyfriend named Tom, who had a series of uninspired jobs to support his dream of hosting a public-radio show about military history.

The jobs, all odd and of fairly short duration, were entirely forgettable. All but one, which involved the packaging of glass stopper-topped jars, presumably for storing chemicals, as the tops were quite tight-fitting. The jars came in a whole range of heights, from just a couple of inches to, well, spaghetti length.

You see where this is going.

Of course Joyce and I began to stockpile the jars Tom would bring home (Were they seconds or damaged? We never knew.), and we would fill them with pasta, nuts, peppers, M&Ms, and beans and pulses of every imaginable size and color. No matter that we could spend a lifetime soaking and cooking all of the beans we collected. We were "evolving" (i.e., decorating) our kitchens with beautifully filled glass jars.

Of all the beans, my favorite, then and now, are dried black beans.