An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace

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a.m.: Therapy is over. I love my therapist. I lollygag and do random stuff until I realize I’m hungry. I’d taken some leftover greens and potatoes out of the fridge this morning, thinking I might make a breakfast omelet. But I also spotted leftover Sichuan tofu and celery and rice in the fridge. I heat it up, all together, and eat it as a sort of spicy rice porridge. Then I dump the leftover room temperature potatoes and greens in the same bowl—now empty—and squeeze it all with lemon juice, and eat it as a second course. It is a strange 10:30 a.m. meal, but pretty par for my course. By 10:53 I feel ready to conquer the world! (The lemon wedge I didn’t use goes in my water. I love lemon water.) I felt a sense of warm companionship as I read Tamar Adler's words. It was as if we had sat down together to reminisce about life, cooking and favorite mealtime experiences.

Tamar Adler Powers Through Tennis Class and a Mountain of

Steeped in culinary practicality, mixing vibrant ideas with sharp real-world strategies... her tone is generous." — The Wall Street Journal I don’t know what “foodie” means, but it seems to me to mean something unbalanced. There is a difference, and should be, between being in the know about “in” restaurants, chefs, food trends and liking and feeling able to eat well. One thing that really matters is feeling as though one, and often only oneself, is able to completely freely satisfy one’s own appetite. That is a good reason to know how to cook. Through the insightful essays in An Everlasting Meal, Tamar Adler issues a rallying cry to home cooks. This is my "go-to" minestrone recipe. I make it every other month or so, and love it every time. So versatile and delicious.One of her most important lessons is that we need to spend less time thinking about food and more time just enjoying it. Her suggestions about how to prepare vegetables contradict much of what we have been taught, or

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She explains how to smarten up simple food and gives advice for fixing dishes gone awry. She recommends turning to neglected onions, celery and potatoes for inexpensive meals that taste full of fresh vegetables, and cooking meat and fish resourcefully. I still have plans to make so many — so many different — curries that it would make your head explode. If I told you how many I’m afraid the information would hurt you. There's something so startling about the encounter with passion. A true, full-bodied passion that's been embraced and integrated into every aspect of life. Most days my choices extend only so far as hammer and nail, and I forget the force of joy. I forget the way bliss can trip into meaning, into vibrancy, into a stunningly pigmented existential composition. I forget. Tamar Adler reminds, in prose both crisp and seductive, that passion persists as an option; that there is a world beyond the factory floor. I very much enjoyed this adaptable salad. As she says, its a good way to brighten leftover roasted roots. I didn't have quite all the ingredients, but it hardly matters. That said, this was a mildly successful book, in that it did teach me some things, while also boring me through some chapters of stuff I already know. The chapter on beans was especially eye-opening, as I do not cook beans nearly enough (usually I just reach for the canned ones at the last minute). And for that alone, as well as some useful tidbits here and there, this was worth reading.

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Reading [ An Everlasting Meal] is like having a cooking teacher whispering suggestions in your ear.... Mindfulness, I’m discovering through this terrific book, can be delicious." Tamar is creative, frugal, daring, practical, sensible, skilled, and she assures the reader that he or she can be too. The upshot is that I am going to have to own this book (thank you inter-library-loan service for the test-drive). Waste not. Want not. Influenced by the first chapters, while I was making one meal I piled the vegetable scraps and skins I would generally toss into the compost into a big pot and covered them with water and the bit of beer I had leftover from the main dish...threw in a few peppercorns & a bay leaf...and simmered until the scraps were very soft and had given up their flavor. I strained the broth through fine mesh. The result was a beautiful brown delicately earth flavored broth. I pulled leftover mashed potatoes and the quarter cup of leftover cream I had in the refrigerator. Sauteed the quarter onion in the vegetable drawer. We had two huge bowls of delectable potato soup for dinner that night...sprinkled with a last small bit of gruyere grated...with a glass of hearty rustic red wine. It was a spectacularly simple feast made from bits & pieces. So satisfying.