On Sat, 01 Mar 2008 19:03:17 -0800, Mark Thorson >
wrote:


>No salt? I'd have salt before lots of the stuff
>you mention. Mustard is nice, too.

I said spices: I include salt and pepper in those spices. Yes..mustard
is nice, but not a bare minimum necessity for me. What I have
currently is not necessarily bare minimum.

Okay, my bare minimum are these things, to give you all an idea of
what I mean. I listed those things that I have on hand now, but they
set off my train of thinking of what I could get by with at the
minimum.

Olive oil, herbs and spices, celery, carrots, onions, garlic. I could
probably do without the ginger, but the other 4 are essential items to
much of what I cook. I use canned tomatoes a lot, so at least one can
of them in the pantry. I use cannola oil for the other major cooking
oil. I can live without many Asian ingredients.

Eggs are essential..as is butter, cream, milk. If I start to run low
or out, I had better get some soon, cause I use them a lot. Parmesan
cheese is almost essential to my cooking too. Other cheeses not so
much, although maybe I would put cheddar on my list. Bread is
essential to me.

Pasta is nice, but I don't have to have it. Same with rice and beans.
I use a lot of Italian parsley, so that goes on my essential list. Tea
is my caffeine drink of choice, so I need that. I use sugar in
various things, and I use flour in baking. So those go on the
essential lists. I could make pasta with flour, salt, water and eggs,
if I needed too: I would already have the essential ingredients.

I know I am forgetting a lot of things that I consider essential. I
know mustard is nice..and maybe I should put Dijon mustard on the
essential list, as it goes into many dishes I fix.

Anyway...this may give you a better idea.

Christine