February 1999

People frequently ask me what they can do, in a general way, to improve their cooking. The first thing I say is, look at how you shop - improve your marketing. The foundation of my philosophy of cooking has always been: start with good ingredients. If you use good food, you will make good food. Don't try to cheat. It is no savings to have bad pasta that will turn gummy when it is cooked, or flavorless, pre-grated "parmesan" cheese - those things will only drive you into restaurants, where you will spend much more!

Start with the very best ingredients you can find, and treat them with respect. Your cooking will improve at once, and will keep improving. This is true whether you are doing the simplest things, or the most sophisticated, and why good marketing is the first step of good cooking.

For me, so much depends on what I find close to hand when I walk into my kitchen. Sometimes I plan a meal in advance, make a list, go to the market, and only then go into the kitchen to cook - but how often is that? Maybe for a dinner party, or a holiday meal. It happens much more often that I step into my kitchen as I'm already getting hungry, or as my kids are raiding the refrigerator, and say, "OK, let's see - what can we have for dinner?" What is already there usually determines what I will cook, and I'm pretty sure that's true for most of us. So it just makes good sense to give some attention to how you stock your pantry, what you typically keep in your refrigerator, and how you do your day-to-day marketing. If you walk into a kitchen filled with good things, chances are you'll put together something nice.

Achieving that happy state falls into two distinct parts: the first is how you stock your pantry with staples. What do you keep in your cupboard? What are those less perishable items that you want always to have there when you reach for them, and that can form the foundation of a meal? The second part, and just as important, is how you shop for fresh food, the seasonal things that you buy on a daily or weekly basis - and that's what I'll be talking about next month.

I started thinking about what I keep in my pantry - what are my drop-dead essentials, without which I would not want to be in a kitchen - when I rented a weekend house in the mountains and suddenly had to start from zero. I understood my priorities when I refused to drive up with the U-haul to move in some old furniture until I had stopped in my local gourmet food store and bought a bottle of excellent virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, a big chunk of aged parmesan cheese, some good Italian pasta and some arborio rice. I also picked up a bottle of pure maple syrup, and some good cocoa, and a pound of my favorite coffee beans. I selected a few bottles of wine from the cellar. Before I left, I cut bunches of herbs from my garden - parsley, basil and thyme.

I realized that while the armchairs and beds could be hand-me-downs from my in-laws, the oil and the parmesan cheese had be the real thing. Over the next few weeks, as I settled into the tiny kitchen, I re-created, in miniature, my essential pantry. Of course, everybody's essential pantry is their own. It will vary with style and area. I can only tell you about mine, and here it is.

In my dry goods cupboard, I start with grains and legumes, the foundation stones of many cuisines, and indispensable to vegetarian cooking. In my family we all love Italian food, and most Mediterranean food, so good pasta, rice and couscous head the list. I buy imported Italian pasta - it's a little more expensive but worth every penny, and still dirt cheap compared to most foods - and I get it in a variety of shapes. I have arborio rice for risottos (and for the best rice pudding), and long grain rice for pilafs or for those times when we want plain steamed rice. I like couscous because it's so easy and fast, and very popular with the kids. I also keep kasha (buckwheat groats), a taste I love from childhood, and I frequently buy wild rice now that it is so easily available. Coarse ground polenta is absolutely required; some of my most successful meals have been based on that humble porridge.

For baking, I keep unbleached white flour, whole wheat flour, fine cornmeal, and corn masa (also called maseca, this is the cornflour used for making tortillas). And I would never be without rolled or steel-cut oats. Teddy and I love oatmeal for breakfast, and it's a wonderful addition to all sorts of baked things. I supplement these basics with rye flour, buckwheat flour and oat flour, and of course I always have salt, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and yeast on hand. In the weekend house, where I cook less frequently, I keep dried buttermilk. Buttermilk is so wonderful for baking, but unless you make pancakes or Irish soda bread every day, you'll be pouring a lot of spoiled, leftover buttermilk down the drain, so the dried version is a great back-up.

In the beans and legumes department, I always have lentils and split peas for big, hearty soups, and small white beans for one of my favorite dishes, Tuscan beans with sage and garlic. I also keep black beans for chili, pinto beans for every kind of Mexican food, and sometimes lima beans. garbanzo beans, or kidney beans, any of which make great pasta e fagioli. And yes, I keep a few cans of cooked beans on hand along with the dried. I prefer to cook dried beans - I like the texture and flavor better - but when you're in a hurry, a can of cooked beans can be a big help.

Speaking of cans - in general, I'm not crazy about them, but it makes sense to keep a few things on hand. Tomatoes are the most important for me, and I can my own every summer. I don't spend a lot of time making preserves, but I'll go the extra mile for tomatoes because I'm an addict. I grow my own, and dedicate one day of the summer to the big tomato sauce project (see The New Vegetarian Epicure for a full confession), so there's usually a good supply in my basement all winter. But if I run low, I buy plain, chopped tomatoes in cans. I also keep some tomato paste. And I always have one or two cans of Kalamata olives. Vegetable broth is also a stand-by for me. I make my own vegetable broth pretty often, and sometimes even put some in the freezer, but I use it up fast and it's a good thing to have on hand. I can't bear the dry sort, so I keep a few cans of one that I've found to be acceptable.

I also keep a few condiments in jars. There's always a salsa or two, as back-up for the home-made ones, and some roasted red peppers - I love them, and don't always have time to char and peel them myself. Like everyone, I have several jars of mustard in the refrigerator, and there's always several delicious jams, and at least one chutney.

Perhaps the most important thing on my shelf is a good bottle of olive oil. I buy several kinds of oil, but on those rare occasions when I've run out of olive oil, cooking has simply ground to a halt in my kitchen. It must be excellent, virgin olive oil, green and fruity. As I've come to use oil in very sparing quantities, the pure, true flavor of it has become even more important. Trust me, this is not the place to try to save money - the cost of one bad meal in a coffee shop will buy you a fabulous bottle of olive oil that will last for weeks.

In addition to olive oil, I keep a mild-flavored vegetable oil such as corn or canola, and a dark sesame oil - a few drops of that adds an irreplaceable flavor to a stir-fry or an Asian noodle salad. Lately, I've also become enamored of pumpkinseed oil; just a teaspoon or two transforms a salad in a subtle and wonderful way. It's not very widely available, but I order it through The Grateful Palate, an interesting little catalog put together by my friend Dan Phillips (order@gratefulpalate.com).

Alongside my oils are a selection of vinegars, starting with an aged balsamic. Since balsamic vinegar has become so popular, there are many so-so bottles on the shelves in supermarkets. I urge you to try, at least once, a great balsamic vinegar. You can order one from Williams-Sonoma, or find one in a specialty food store. It will be expensive, but you will find that a very tiny bit of it will add a profound flavor to your salad or sauce. I also keep cider vinegar, and rice wine vinegar. Next to the vinegars are soy sauce and Tabasco.

On a counter along one wall of my kitchen, the only wall not in sunlight, there is a row of shallow baskets. This is where I keep produce that is on a slower time line - the not so very perishable things that do better at room temperature. One basket is always piled with onions and heads of garlic. Another has potatoes, usually two or three kinds, including sweet potatoes. Then there are the winter squashes. Kabocha squash is in my kitchen at least 7 or 8 months out of the year, and other winter squashes rotate through - butternut, acorn and hubbard, and well as pumpkins in the fall. I go through onions and potatoes quickly, so keeping them out on the counter is not a problem, and I can tell at a glance what I need to put on the list for the market. I also keep a basket of citrus fruit; there are oranges for juice, lemons for everything, and sometimes limes. I live in California, so this is not a luxury for me, but I wouldn't be without fresh lemons no matter where I lived. Finally, because I'm so lucky in my local climate, there is a tray of nice, red tomatoes nearly all year long, either from my garden or from the farmer's market. But that takes us into the seasonal marketing area, so more on that next month.

Once you have the staples sorted out, you can turn your attention to herbs and spices. In fact, these are staples, too, in their own way. They're the culinary equivalent of the upgrade. You need the basic program, but it might not be much good without these improvements. A dab of this, a pinch of that, a drop of something else, and dull dish becomes a delightful one.

I have a pretty large array of herbs and spices in my spice cabinet. On a separate shelf, I keep the exotics - things I use occasionally for Indian or Asian cooking. And I usually have six or seven kinds of dried chiles on hand. But what do I reach for a dozen times a week? Those are the things I cannot do without, and that I bought immediately for the weekend kitchen. They include thyme, sage, oregano, tarragon, a good Hungarian paprika, and cayenne. I have plenty of basil, parsley, dill, and rosemary from the garden If I lived in a snowy place, I would dedicate a sunny windowsill to pots of herbs; they're the easiest things to grow, and give back so much.

In the seeds and spices category, I always have whole cumin seed, which I toast and grind myself in a mortar. This sounds more impressive than it is - it takes about a minute and makes a big difference to salsas, soups, and chili. I buy cinnamon, both ground and stick, in quantity. I always have nutmeg, cloves, ginger, as well as pure vanilla and almond extracts. The second tier - things I don't reach for as often - includes anise, mustard seed, sesame seed, cardamom, and mace.

Personally, I can't live without chiles, and keep a variety of dried ones in airtight jars (this is important, because bugs love them, too). Chipotles have been a staple for me for at least fifteen years. I always keep some milder chiles around, like anchos and pasillas. I love New Mexico chiles, and serranos for the times I want something really hot. I always try to have some crushed red chile on hand to throw into my pasta with garlic and oil, or to sprinkle on soup.

My sweets department is very simple. What is life without chocolate? I wouldn't want to consider it, so I keep good Dutch process cocoa and the best bittersweet baking chocolate in the cupboard, always. Other kinds of chocolate come and go. Then there's honey, white and brown sugar, and pure maple syrup. That's about it. I also like to have a few dried fruits around. Raisins are essential, all year round. And in my freezer, I keep almonds, walnuts, and pine nuts.

My refrigerator is always well stocked with dairy products - but we'll go into that next month.

Before leaving the subject of the larder, I must mention the other larder - the wine cellar. We're very lucky to have one, and have been stocking it, off and on, for a couple of decades. But that, as they say, is a whole other story. For the moment, I'll just say that if you don't keep even a minimal cellar, consider keeping a few bottles of wine on hand - something decent but economical, to cook with, and something a cut above that, so that you're always ready to make a special occasion out of an ordinary day. And on the subject of cooking wine, I have to say that, while it does not need to be an expensive grand cru, as a rule I would not cook with a wine that I would be unwilling to drink. After all, when you cook away the alcohol, what you're left with is the flavor.

Everyone's basics are their own, and these are the things that, over years of cooking, have become fixtures in my kitchen. You have your own. And in addition to staple items like pasta or lentils, everyone has their personal little list of special things that might not be considered staples by some but have become indispensable. My list includes dried porcini mushrooms, the pumpkinseed oil and chipotle chiles that I've already mentioned, sundried tomatoes, Madras curry powder, and the best fruit preserves I can buy. I admit that not everyone has to have kabocha squash, arborio rice or pine nuts in their kitchen, but they are vital for me. Think about the things you love - what do you reach for over and over? What gives you the most satisfaction, the most real pleasure? Search out the very best version of those things and keep them around. It is not an extravagance if it encourages you to cook at home more often, and to have more fun doing it.

In Ojai we don't get snowed in during the winter, but it's very satisfying to know that, with the things I have in my pantry, I could come up with several days of delicious meals, even if I couldn't get to a market. I could make roasted winter squash soup, tortilla espaņola, wild mushroom risotto, an effortless tomato soup, Tuscan white beans with sage and garlic, spaghetti with garlic and oil, black bean chili with cornbread... these are things that come to me off the top of my head, but the list goes on. When you add the fresh foods that you buy more often, the list becomes almost infinite. A bunch of spinach or carrots can be turned into something great - because you have everything else that you need.

This month's recipe, Rice Pudding with Cranberries, is a good example of something you can whip up with almost no effort if you keep a few good things on hand. It's a wonderful, warm dessert for a cold winter night, and if you haven't gone to the store, and don't have cranberries - just use raisins, it'll be fine.

Next month I'll talk about shopping for fresh produce, farmer's markets, seasonal cooking...and other things.

February 1999 recipe