If you’re going to cook anything Italian, you need basil. You can use the dried variety, but like all dried spices, it begins to loose it’s flavor after six months. Use the fresh variety if you can get it at your grocers. Although there are more than sixty different varieties of basil, each with its own distinct flavor, the most common is sweet basil, also called Italian basil. It has broad, shiny green leaves and goes great with garlic, tomatoes and olive oil (which are the ingredients for a classic bruschetta).

Despite how they taste, dried bay leaves are a must for soups and stews, particularly French classics like bouillabaisse and beef bourguignon. They come from the sweet bay or laurel tree, known botanically as Laurus nobilis. Be sure to remove them before eating a dish since the leaves themselves are bitter and hard to chew and by the time the dish is ready to eat, the cooking has drawn out the flavor.

Chili Powder is a blend of ground chiles, spices (such as red pepper, oregano and cumin) garlic powder and salt that can be purchased commercially or—if you’re adventurous—made up at home. The commercial varieties are quite good and tend to the medium range of heat. You can try your hand at making a homemade blend from an assortment of your favorite chili peppers, dried and ground to a fine powder, with the addition of spices and garlic salt.

Dill comes either fresh or dried and combines well with many foods since it has just two volatile flavor oils. Most other spices have five or more. The two oils taste like lemon and celery which are light enough to harmonize rather than overpower other flavors. It’s great with fish or chicken and in salad dressings. If you use fresh, snip with scissors since mincing with a knife tends to smash the leaves and waste the flavorful oils.

Remember the gingerbread man? For many of us, gingerbread was our first encounter with this key ingredient in most Asian cuisines. From the fieriest of stir-fries to the sweetest of ice creams, ginger can cross over from savory to sweet. When buying fresh ginger, look for pieces with a plump, smooth, somewhat shiny skin. If it’s wrinkled or cracked, the ginger is drying and past it’s prime. To prepare fresh ginger, peel off the skin with a vegetable peeler or sharp knife. Store fresh ginger like you do potatoes (under the sink is a good place).

Garlic powder provides some of the flavor, but not the texture, of fresh garlic. It disperses well in liquids, so it's a good choice for marinades. You can buy garlic salt too, but you can also make your own by combing three parts table salt with one part garlic powder.

Although prepared mustard can be quite pungent and—in the case of Chinese mustard—hot enough to make your eyes water, dry mustard can add richness flavor to recipes that you can’t really identify as mustard. It’s like adding anchovies. The recipe is better but you can’t taste why. It’s great in salad dressings and other emulsified sauces (mixtures of oil and water based liquids where the oil becomes suspended) since it adds flavor and can help hold an oil and water mixture in suspension. If a recipe calls for dry mustard and all you have is a jar of prepared mustard (the yellow kind you put on hot dogs) you can substitute an equal measure.

Nutmeg is usually associated with sweet, spicy dishes — pies, puddings, custards, cookies and spice cakes—but a little of it can make a nice contribution to soups and stews. It combines well with many cheeses and is included in soufflés and cheese sauces. Keep some around during the holidays for the eggnog, mulled wines and punches.

Like basil, oregano is an integral part of Italian cooking. Its peppery, thyme-like flavor makes it perfect for tomato based sauces. It’s also great to use in a marinade for fish. Its rich flavor deepens and melds flavors without overwhelming the dish. It’s also considered to be an aid to digestion.

Paprika comes from a species of chili peppers (or capsicums) that are toward the mild end of the heat scale. The one that gives us paprika is native to South America, but now grown primarily in Hungary and Spain. The Hungarian variety is the stronger and richer version. It’s used in Hungarian cuisine, in Spanish chorizos and other sausages and as a garnish, sprinkled on eggs, hors d’ouvres and salads for color. A trivia note: Paprika and the pimento used to stuff olives are made from the same chili pepper.

Black, white and green (and even red) peppercorns come from the small dried berry of the vine piper nigrum. They are not related to chili peppers. The black ones are made by picking the pepper berries when they are half ripe and just about to turn red. They are then left to dry which causes them to shrivel and become dark in color. The white peppercorns are picked when the berry is ripe and then the dark outer shell is removed. Green peppercorns are not yet fully ripened. The white peppercorns are best for use in pale colored or white sauces, unless you don’t mind the black flecks.

Cayenne pepper is hot and pungent and will burn all the way down. It’s used in chili powder, jerk, and a host of other hot seasoning blends. It’s also called red pepper. It’s made from the dried, ripened fruit pod of capsicum frutescens. Early Spanish explorers mistook the pods they found in the Caribbean for a variety of pepper berries and misnamed them red peppers. The name Cayenne comes from the variety grown in the vicinity of the Cayenne River in French Guiana.

This is what you find on the table next to the salt and pepper at your favorite pizza place. It can be made from a variety of crushed chili peppers including the kind that’s used to make cayenne pepper and sometimes ancho chiles. A little goes a long way.

Rosemary is a bit of a loner. It’s hard to pair with other herbs since its pine-camphor-citrus aroma is so complex. Garlic and onion work well with rosemary, but that’s about it. Use it in meat and game dishes, particularly lamb. It can also be used with lighter foods like squash and potatoes, and in vinaigrettes and marinades.

It tastes lemony and peppery with a touch of clove. It is one of the most versatile herbs. It’s a must for stews and roasts particularly roast chicken. Fresh thyme is best, but dried can be used. Be careful how old the dried kind is since it looses its flavor in about six months.

What passes for wasabi in most restaurants is usually horseradish with green food coloring added. You can get real wasabi in some gourmet stores or by ordering it online. It’s great in dressings, dips, sauces and marinades. It’s hot, but the heat doesn’t last as long as chili peppers.