"ThePerfectPantry" news and stories

• Beth D'Addono writes about becoming a compassionate carnivore (one who makes sure to only buy and consume meat from producers who raise their animals in a humane manner). Challenges include the fact that she isn't able to buy meat at regular supermarkets, limited availability and higher prices.
  
• Farmers' Market season kicked off early in the Philly region this year, and while prices are higher than they were last year, there are still good deals to be had.
  
• A listing of all area markets (my favorite is still Headhouse Square!).
  
• What should be in your pantry? What to do with those specialty ingredients you buy for a single recipe? Linda Walshin tries to answer those questions on her blog The Perfect Pantry.
  
• The Rush Hour Gourmet offers a stir fry recipe to help you use and enjoy all those fresh, spring veggies.
  

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Here's an improbably mental puzzle for you. If you were stranded on a desert island (with stove, oven and good bug screens), what items in your pantry would you really want to bring along? It's a question that Lynda has asked and answered on The Perfect Pantry. She lists 23 items she'd like to have and her top five are: two types of salt (kosher and sea), black peppercorns, soy sauce and honey.

I think that my top five would be kosher salt, black peppercorns, olive oil, garlic powder (the California style kind, with the parsley flakes) and a hardy rosemary plant that was impossible to kill (I have yet to find one of these in real life).

Lynda is having a whole week of Things We Can't Live Without over on The Perfect Pantry, so you'll also find a list of 13 invaluable baking ingredients as well as her readers' top choices for the things that must be in their pantries at all times.

What's in your essential pantry?

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