"the perfect pantry" 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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Christmas displays are starting to appear in local stores and shopping centers. The orange-wrapped Halloween candy has been replaced with stuff swathed in red and green. Invitations for holiday parties are already starting to hit inboxes and mail boxes. Although it's only the beginning of November, it seems that the yuletide season is upon us.

If you happen to be one of those folks who already has holiday baking on the brain, here's an idea that might tickle your fancy. Instead of having a traditional cookie swap this year, why not turn your cookie making skills in a charitable direction. Over at the Perfect Pantry Lydia suggests having a party where you decorate cookies and then donate them to a local agency that serves children and adults. She calls it Drop In & Decorate Cookies For Donation. She's been doing it for six years now and it's become so popular that King Arthur Flour has gotten in on the act by creating a cookie baking kit to get you started. Lydia has also created a guide for hosting, in case you're looking for a little extra guidance.

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The Perfect Pantry is a great blog, filled with tips for stocking your pantry or kitchen. As webmaster Lydia herself says, there's no such thing as a perfect pantry, but there are certainly things in there you need. And it's The Perfect Pantry's one-year birthday (well, it was yesterday), and Lydia made a Chocolate Outrageous Pie to celebrate. She found the recipe in a notebook filled with old recipes. Full recipe after the jump.