"The most surprising feel-good book of the year" — Richard Peabody, editor/publisher, Gargoyle Magazine

Pantry’s bite-sized essays invite you into the kitchen to explore recipes, spices, ingredients, menus, and all the things that make up holidays as metaphor for the fractaling kaleidoscope of human emotions we feel while shopping, cooking, and eating with the people we love. Pantry says it all, with a wink, a tear and a hug.

Pantry is a 70-page, A5-sized book and perfect for inclusion in gift boxes.

80 pages

Perfectbound paperback with spine

ISBN: 979-8-90214-218-8

To be published: November 17 , 2026

About Author Hildie S. Block

Hildie S. Block is a writer living in Arlington Virginia with her husband, two kids, a white dog, a black cat and a pink Axolotl named Xipe! Her day doesn’t start until after coffee and a dash of NPR. She’s the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, a proud member of Gen X and obsessed with the weather. As a teacher, she’s spent the last 30 years nurturing writers in the Washington DC metro area through college courses, workshops, and online interactive learning. She edited the anthology NOT WHAT I EXPECTED: The road from womanhood to motherhood, and has published in the Washington Post, Salon, Gargoyle and many other anthologies and literary magazines where her work has won contests and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize 4 times.

Pantry is separated into 5 sections, of 10 essays each:

Spice, Cold Storage, Dry Goods, Recipes and Menus

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SPICE

Salt (What is love?)

Pepper (Not knowing)

Parsley (Queen of Cups)

Sage (Advice)

Rosemary

Thyme

Cinnamon

Spicy

Mint

Vanilla

COLD STORAGE

Egg/shells

Blackberries

Sex, Death and Fish in the bathtub

Farmer’s Market

Bill the Butcher

Garlic

Ice Cream

Fish Heads

Look Closer

Sweet and Sour

DRY GOODS

Sugar/high

Coffee

Holden Caulfield’s Chocolate Dichotomy

Popcorn Diplomacy

Things not to do in Gibraltar (M&Ms)

Hanging the Ghost (Halloween Candy Stash)

Diet Coke with Lime

Pop the Cork

Myth of the Neglected Kitchen Grater

The Yellow Pot

RECIPES

Stewing

Stirring the Pot

Holiday “Rain” Casserole

Making Dinner

Oma’s Plum Cake

Recipe for a New Year’s Eve Cocktail

Olio (You Dip Your Bread in It)

Smell the Soup

How Long to Bake?

Recipe for a Holiday Meal

MENUS

Eating While Broke, a math lesson

Picnic, Roosevelt Island

Snow Day Menu

Getting Stuffed

Sitting Shiva

December, While Jewish

Drained

Good Luck

Holiday Postmortem

What Do I Want For My Birthday?

Excerpts from PANTRY

Vanilla

My dad made me read a story: a guy who studies with a teacher, who makes him look at a dead fish. All the man sees is a dead fish — the teacher keeps making him stare at it day after day until he: SEES. You say “that’s so vanilla” —You mean boring, basic, unworthy —Can you stare at vanilla? Only grown in Mexico, Tahiti, Madagascar? The stamens of orchids, so fragile they must be harvested by a death-defying human hand that has climbed 25 feet into the air to fetch that precious bean for You to declare it “plain”?Egg/shellsCheck the eggs before you buy them; make sure none are cracked. You carry this whole carton gently home to nourish your household. Use the shells in the garden later; the calcium keeps blossom-end-rot from your tomatoes. In turn, those tomatoes will build their bones strong. In turn, those strong bones will stomp and slam. At every perceived slight: You chew too loud. You moved my things. You complained about my tone, but what about yours? In turn, the stomping and slamming will shake the eggs in their carton. But they will not break as you continue to tiptoe around them. How Long to Bake?Is the wrong question. How long does it take to find the recipe, craft the shopping list, travel to the store. How long does it take to wander the aisles, picking up the things you don’t need, getting in the long line and realizing you forgot the thing you did need? How long to chat with the friend you haven’t seen? The mother of your kid’s friend, who you liked, but now can’t remember their name? How long to right the bag you put in the car that emptied its contents onto the floor. How long do you drive on empty before pulling into the filling station? How long to carry in the groceries, realize you left a bag in the car — at least you hope that’s where it is. And then preheat the oven.

PRAISE FOR PANTRY

"Hildie Block, a snarky sentimentalist, has created a subversive how to live cookbook of sorts. Think Mollie Katzen trapped on I-95 at rush hour in the pouring rain. This marvelous mashup of confession, food, family dynamics, and blackberries, plus hot and cold running cannibal rabbits, drum fish, and fungi infected zombies, makes Pantry: Bite-sized essays the most surprising feel-good book of this year or any year."

— Richard Peabody, editor/publisher, Gargoyle Magazine

"As someone who has spent more than 50 years behind the line and at the ovens, I know exactly how much labor, love, and history go into creating something truly nourishing. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Hildie S. Block as a regular customer at my farmer’s market bakery business, and reading Pantry feels exactly like chatting with her across the pastry counter. Divided into beautifully curated, food-centric sections like "Spice," "Cold Storage," and "Dry Goods", this collection of micro-essays captures the messy, vibrant, and bittersweet reality of life. Hildie connects the culinary to the deeply personal with exquisite precision—whether she is writing about the ancient magic of sage, the memory-evoking power of thyme, or the comforting predictability of an old family recipe. Her writing is sharp, witty, and deeply evocative. For anyone who understands that food is never just food—that it is a vessel for memory, grief, and love—this book is an absolute feast. For over five decades, I have used flavor to tell stories, but Hildie S. Block does it with words.

Pantry is a gorgeous, bite-sized celebration of life's ingredients—the sweet, the sour, and everything in between. A masterclass in culinary nostalgia that will leave you hungry for more."

— Chef Patrice Olivon & Farmer's Market Baker

“Pantry is a delicious journey that tempts our taste buds...a feast for the senses!”

— Courtney LeBlanc, author of Her Dark Everything

"In Pantry, Hildie Block turns food, spices & seasonings into portals to memory, desire, family, and the complicated work of living. each essay is beautifully seasoned and arranged so that the small details accumulate into something rich, surprising, and deeply satisfying."

— Melissa Scholes Young, author of Flood and The Hive

"Pantry explores and questions our assumptions, desires & rituals, especially around holidays and life events, with a sweet poignancy that should be savored. 

— Caroline Bock, author of The Other Beautiful People