The Perfect Pantry®

Recipe for vegan Napa cabbage soba with spicy peanut sauce

TRUE CONFESSION: Put this spicy peanut sauce on anything -- a piece of shoe leather, marshmallows, or even the cauliflower I dislike so much -- and I will eat it. Put it on something I do like, and I will lick my plate clean. Peanuts and Japanese buckwheat noodles (soba) have a natural affinity, but this dish will be just as good with spaghetti, or whole wheat penne, or just about any type of noodle or pasta. One tip: don't stir-fry the vegetables for more than a minute. You'll like the crunch of barely-cooked Napa cabbage with the chewy soba. The recipe makes far more peanut sauce than you'll need. Store the extra in the refrigerator for up to two weeks, and use it as a dip or a dressing. You can thank me later.

Piment d'Espelette (Recipe: grilled vegetables with piment d'Espelette sauce)

 

Hatch has its chile peppers, Gilroy its garlic.

My little town in Rhode Island has no food to call its own, no festival that draws people from all over the world to celebrate its unique cuisine. We do have some pretty good pizza, but nothing that's grown here and only here.

The small town of Espelette in the Basque region of southwest France has its mildly smoky, sultry, absolutely sensational piment d'Espelette, the pepper grown nowhere else on Earth. And they have a festival every year, to celebrate the harvest.

If you can't find piment d'Espelette (unless you live near a very good market, you won't find it, but it's easy to buy online), you can substitute hot paprika, mild New Mexico red chile powder, or a combination of the two with a bit of pimentón (Spanish smoked paprika) mixed in.

Wouldn't it be more fun, though, to travel to Espelette and buy the pepper at its source?

(The festival is in late October, if we're making plans to go.)

Wine you'd be happy to drink (Recipe: grilled beef and potatoes with chimichurri sauce)

You know that I seldom give relationship advice here in The Perfect Pantry, and when I do, it is the very best advice. So you can trust what I'm about to tell you.

If you are seeking your life partner, and you are a non-drinker who likes to cook with wine (like I am), ask yourself these very important questions before you give your heart away.

First, does your prospective partner drink wine, and will he or she be happy to drink whatever is left from your cooking? (This is the best case.)

Second, if you ask this partner-to-be to bring home a bottle of wine you'd be happy to drink (if only you weren't a teetotaler), will he or she know that cooking wine is not wine for cooking?

Third, will he or she ask the all important question: what are we having for dinner?

Fourth, will he/she be willing to knock on doors with an empty measuring cup to borrow a cup of wine from a neighbor when your own supply runs out?

If the answer to these questions is yes, you are on the road to a happy life together. Trust me.

Capers (Recipe: grilled tuna sandwiches with tartar sauce)

True confession: I don't love capers all that much.

More than once, the long-stemmed giant caper berries from The Gourmet Outlet, so beautiful on an antipasto platter, have tempted me. More than once, a tin of medium-sized salt-packed capers from France has leapt off the gourmet shop shelf and into my cart.

The fancier the capers, the more I've wanted to love them.

I've tried, really. More than once.

Nevertheless, there's always a jar of capers, from the supermarket or local Italian market, in the door of my refrigerator. Some dishes just need the flavor of capers, and nothing else will do.