Paisano: Pantry, Part II

Thinking back on it, I decided the Paisano's irritation about my lack of tamarind was actually a complement. He had assumed my pantry was complete -- I couldn't remember his ever needing an herb or spice I didn't have. In fact, I recall an instance when he was making a lamb dish and asked if I had saffron. I did and he patted my cheek when I handed it to him saying, "I knew you would have saffron."

I'm convinced one of the reasons the Paisano likes visiting me so is because he loves my kitchen. Sure, he likes my knives (although he prefers the 10-inch chef's knife to the 7-inch blade I like so much, calling my favorite a "woman's knife") and he literally adores my dutch oven. One afternoon we broiled some salmon and hefting my heavy  commercial-grade baking sheets set him off on a rant about people who had "floppy, 50-cent, Walmart pans that are no more sturdy than a piece of metal foil." In short, he liked my pans. But it's my pantry he likes most.

As so many respondents commented in the first article on pantries, I have to store ingredients in multiple places. In addition to the spice drawer I use four overhead cabinets, the small pantry you see in the photo above, and in two refrigerator/freezers. These areas are specifically organized to make my cooking process more efficient.

Like me, Paisano cooks mostly Mediterranean-style dishes and in my spice drawer he can find the herbs he and I both use most often. The drawer is near, but not next to the stove (heat and light are bad for herbs and spices) and contains the spices and dried herbs I use most often: thyme, basil, oregano, bay, Herbes de Provence, Fines Herbs, tarragon, and the like. These are in the front of the drawer. Various grinds and kinds of black, white, and red peppers are at the back. All the jars are label up for easy identification.
 
A little plastic lazy-susan in one cabinet holds spices and extracts that I use mostly in baking while another lazy-susan holds less frequently used savory spices. Filling in the open spaces between the lazy-susans are larger jars containing homemade and commercial spice mixtures. So all of my primary flavoring ingredients are convenient and grouped according to use with the most common ingredients easiest to locate.

The cabinet with the lazy-susans also contains canned goods. Ideally these would be in the pantry-proper, but mine is tiny and I need to devote it's space to items that, are large (such as pasta boxes) or bulky (like dried peppers). Ideal or not, the cabinet does mean I can quickly reach a can of chicken stock or can of tuna when I need it.

I also keep oils and vinegars (and I have a lot of both) grouped in a cabinet above the stove. This isn’t ideal because they're exposed to heat, but in most kitchens the cabinet over the stove has the most headroom -- necessary for the wide range of bottle sizes for those ingredients. So I live with it.

My pantry proper is found space. The cabinet encloses the fuse box for the house and below the fuse box was an empty cavity that wasn't tall enough to hold things like mops and brooms. So when I moved in I installed three pull out shelves and made an abbreviated pantry. This space contains flour on the bottom -- bread, whole wheat, semolina, and rye as well as other bread-baking items like wheat gluten, sour salt, and oatmeal.

The second shelf holds two groups of items: starches and baking supplies. I usually have half a dozen pastas, four or five different kinds of rice, bulgar wheat, and couscous in the starch category. The baking supplies are things like cocoa, baking chocolate, gelatin, cornstarch, as well as sweeteners like white sugars (granulated, confectioners, and castor), honey, molasses, and sorghum.

The top pantry shelf is a hodgepodge holding dried mushrooms and chilis, over-flow baking supplies, grits and oatmeal, essentially the stuff that doesn't fit well, either because of size or category, elsewhere. It's on the top shelf because that shelf is the easiest one to rummage through looking for something -- if you've gotta search, it might as well be easy on the back and neck.

I have a small, dorm-room, fridge in the guest bedroom that contains most of my perishable items: pickles, olives, brown sugar, stock concentrates, that sort of thing. Its freezer holds bacon, pancetta, prosciutto, and country ham. A few things, like anchovy paste, mayonnaise, mustards, tomato paste, I store in the kitchen refrigerator. Along with frozen vegetables, homemade stock, and all the food I plan to use immediately.

I have a book named Women, Fire, and Other Dangerous Things, that discusses how humans categorize things. Categorization is a built-in part of our mental makeup, but how we categorize varies from culture to culture and person to person. Divide your pantry ingredients into categories -- however you define those categories -- and it will make your cooking easier.

Humans are also only able to contain seven items, plus or minus two, in their minds at once. So make sure you have no more than nine categories of items, but seven is optimal for most people. Sub-categories are a way of sticking to that rule. So, herbs and spices are one of my main categories, but I've subdivided that main category into sub-categories. Whether you have the option of a large walk-in pantry, or like me, must keep ingredients in multiple places, categorization and then organization is key.

I remember the first time the Paisano visited me in California where I had the best kitchen I've ever worked in. Paisano agreed. We were making a meal for ourselves and the two friends Paisano had brought along and at one point he turned to me and said, "This, my friend, is a kitchen! You have a place for everything and I already know where all those places are." For weeks after he left I kept finding things in odd places, but clearly, even though organization isn't one of his strengths, he appreciates it when he finds it. And I'm sure if I'd had tamarind he would have found it immediately.

In an alternate life, the Paisano is Kevin Weeks: a Gather food correspondent, personal chef, cooking teacher, and writer in Knoxville, Tennessee who spends too many hours on his feet, cooking. "Paisano" the column focuses on peasant dishes from around the world,Paisano the character is fictional. To read more of Kevin's writings or connect to him click here. His blog, Seriously Good, is read by 75,000 cooks a month. Kevin is also a consultant with ChefsLine.com.