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An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace
Reviving the inspiring message of M. F. K. Fisher’s How to Cook a Wolf — written in 1942 during wartime shortages— An Everlasting Meal shows that cooking is the path to better eating.
Through the insightful essays in An Everlasting Meal, Tamar Adler issues a rallying cry to home cooks.
In chapters about boiling water, cooking eggs and beans, and summoning respectable meals from empty cupboards, Tamar weaves philosophy and instruction into approachable lessons on instinctive cooking. Tamar shows how to make the most of everything you buy, demonstrating what the world’s great chefs that great meals rely on the bones and peels and ends of meals before them.
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.
By wresting cooking from doctrine and doldrums, Tamar encourages readers to begin from wherever they are, with whatever they have. An Everlasting Meal is elegant testimony to the value of cooking and an empowering, indispensable tool for eaters today.
Through the insightful essays in An Everlasting Meal, Tamar Adler issues a rallying cry to home cooks.
In chapters about boiling water, cooking eggs and beans, and summoning respectable meals from empty cupboards, Tamar weaves philosophy and instruction into approachable lessons on instinctive cooking. Tamar shows how to make the most of everything you buy, demonstrating what the world’s great chefs that great meals rely on the bones and peels and ends of meals before them.
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.
By wresting cooking from doctrine and doldrums, Tamar encourages readers to begin from wherever they are, with whatever they have. An Everlasting Meal is elegant testimony to the value of cooking and an empowering, indispensable tool for eaters today.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published October 18, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,071 reviews
December 2, 2012
This book changed my life. I'm not even kidding. I now make my own beans, and her dead simple (and incredible) parsley oil, and roast farmers market vegetables as soon as I get home, which fills the house with amazing aromas and the fridge with food for the week. Tamar Adler writes about parsley, and boiling water, and roasting vegetables with a grace and lyricism that elevates the act of cooking and eating to poetry. There are lines like this, for example, when she exhorts the reader to toast a piece of stale bread and rub it with a garlic clove and then to place it in a bowl. Over the bread, "spoon the beans and egg... salt each egg, grind it with fresh black pepper, drizzle the beans and egg copiously with olive oil, grate them thickly with Parmesan, and dine like a Roman plebian, or a Tuscan pauper, prince, or pope." Simple, right? But also food as meditation, food as discovery, food as the transformation of unwanted odds and ends into something new and deeply desirable. Food, really, as philosophy -- Adler writes: "We do know that people have always found ways to eat and live well, whether on boiling water or bread or beans, and that some of our best eating hasn't been our most foreign or expensive or elaborate, but quite plain and quite familiar. And knowing that is probably the best way to cook, and certainly the best way to live." Amen to that.
March 4, 2012
Adler's chapter titles (which are lovely) acknowledge her debt to MFK Fisher, and Fisher's style is clearly what Adler is shooting for. Unfortunately, she lacks Fisher's genius of finding the unexpectedly perfect word, and too often she misses and lands on twee, pretentious or just meaningless. There's nothing particularly solemn about cauliflower stalks; capers do not taste anything like pebbles; and I have never been bewildered by a breakfast of cold pasta, no matter how delicious.
I'm being unfair to the book, because there's a lot of good stuff in here - I have a new resolve to find things to do with my scraps and leftovers, and her method of pitting olives is worth the price of admission by itself. (Put them on a board and squish down with the bottom of a mug or jar or something, then wiggle it around a bit. Pick out the loosened stones and you're done. BRILLIANCE.) There's a valuable cooking philosophy in here screaming to be let out. A more transparent style would have given it a chance to shine.
I'm being unfair to the book, because there's a lot of good stuff in here - I have a new resolve to find things to do with my scraps and leftovers, and her method of pitting olives is worth the price of admission by itself. (Put them on a board and squish down with the bottom of a mug or jar or something, then wiggle it around a bit. Pick out the loosened stones and you're done. BRILLIANCE.) There's a valuable cooking philosophy in here screaming to be let out. A more transparent style would have given it a chance to shine.
March 8, 2023
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.
Adler begins by stating that "we don't need to shop like chefs or cook like chefs; we need to shop and cook like people learning to cook, like what we are - people who are hungry." She takes all the angst out of the performance of cooking. Instead, she presents it as an enjoyable and inclusive activity for everyone.
I loved her paragraphs on roasting vegetables and what she has to say about adding "a few bunches of dark, leafy greens. This will seem very pious. Once greens are cooked as they should be, though: hot and lustily, with garlic, in a good amount of olive oil, they lose their moral urgency and become one of the most likable ingredients in your kitchen."
She uses her all her senses to distinguish to detect the freshness or doneness of the ingredients and writes that through touching "the food you cook, you develop intelligence in our fingertips." We instinctively add just the right amount of seasoning or garnish.
About salad, Adler writes, that "it just needs to provide tonic to duller flavors, to sharpen a meal's edges, help define where one taste stops and another begins." Who knew? I feel as if I have a whole new perspective on salad and will look at it with fresh eyes.
Adler takes the anxiety out of entertaining by simply stating "that no one ever comes to dinner for what you're cooking. We are all hungry and thirsty and happy that someone's predicted we would be and made arrangements for dealing with it."
Finally, I loved how Adler ends her book as the ending of a meal. There is "an old British tradition of serving something savory at the end of a meal. It is designed as a shield against dessert's taunt. What if, a savory bite asks, the wisp of sadness at a meal's close were swept away with a riddle?"
There is a sense of joy and pleasure in feeding yourself and others throughout this book that I truly enjoyed and appreciated.
Adler begins by stating that "we don't need to shop like chefs or cook like chefs; we need to shop and cook like people learning to cook, like what we are - people who are hungry." She takes all the angst out of the performance of cooking. Instead, she presents it as an enjoyable and inclusive activity for everyone.
I loved her paragraphs on roasting vegetables and what she has to say about adding "a few bunches of dark, leafy greens. This will seem very pious. Once greens are cooked as they should be, though: hot and lustily, with garlic, in a good amount of olive oil, they lose their moral urgency and become one of the most likable ingredients in your kitchen."
She uses her all her senses to distinguish to detect the freshness or doneness of the ingredients and writes that through touching "the food you cook, you develop intelligence in our fingertips." We instinctively add just the right amount of seasoning or garnish.
About salad, Adler writes, that "it just needs to provide tonic to duller flavors, to sharpen a meal's edges, help define where one taste stops and another begins." Who knew? I feel as if I have a whole new perspective on salad and will look at it with fresh eyes.
Adler takes the anxiety out of entertaining by simply stating "that no one ever comes to dinner for what you're cooking. We are all hungry and thirsty and happy that someone's predicted we would be and made arrangements for dealing with it."
Finally, I loved how Adler ends her book as the ending of a meal. There is "an old British tradition of serving something savory at the end of a meal. It is designed as a shield against dessert's taunt. What if, a savory bite asks, the wisp of sadness at a meal's close were swept away with a riddle?"
There is a sense of joy and pleasure in feeding yourself and others throughout this book that I truly enjoyed and appreciated.
April 8, 2015
Remove the word "foodie". Forget the gadgets. Pull any old pot out. Fill it with water. Light a fire. Rummage around. Create. Let your senses take over. Taste, taste and taste once more. Food is sustenance. Grace. And a gift...body and soul...to ourselves and our friends.
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.
This is cooking as an act of love...it is practical...and it is joyful.
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.
This is cooking as an act of love...it is practical...and it is joyful.
September 2, 2020
READ.THIS.BOOK. When I began reading An Everlasting Meal, I was struck by how beautifully Tamar Adler described food she cooks - not just the usual how does it smell, how does it taste - but with glowing descriptions of the texture, feel, and appearance. When she describes a meal, you are right there with her!
It wasn't far into the book that I decided that I simply MUST have a copy to call my very own. Not long after that, I realized that one of the reasons I loved this book so much is that it reminds me of my grandmother. Tamar cooks with the grace & love that my grandmother did, and that she passed along to me.
Tamar's description/explanation of cooking is how I cook most of the time, so no wonder I loved this book! It reminds me of all the things I love about "playing" in the kitchen, and why I should spend even more time there.
It wasn't far into the book that I decided that I simply MUST have a copy to call my very own. Not long after that, I realized that one of the reasons I loved this book so much is that it reminds me of my grandmother. Tamar cooks with the grace & love that my grandmother did, and that she passed along to me.
Tamar's description/explanation of cooking is how I cook most of the time, so no wonder I loved this book! It reminds me of all the things I love about "playing" in the kitchen, and why I should spend even more time there.
July 7, 2015
In an age when every recipe seems to come with a list of ingredients as long as my arm, Tamar Adler's approach to food is disarmingly simple, refreshingly intuitive, and utterly sensible. I found her suggestions for what to do with the odds and ends of dishes particularly helpful. (I'll never stare at a giant bunch of parsley or a rind of Parmesan with bewilderment again!) The night I finished the book, I found myself confronted with rather bare cupboards and, armed with Adler's injunctions and encouragement, managed to whip up a delicious soup of old potatoes, wilted green onions, and bacon bits that quite literally may have changed my entire outlook on cooking.
Beginner chefs may balk at not having step by step instructions or exact measurements (Adler tends to suggest rather than dictate, and it can be dizzying at times to attempt to follow all of the uses she finds for one ingredient) but for anyone comfortable at a stove, Adler's book will feel like learning long-lost tricks in grandmother's kitchen. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to cook with a little more economy or a little more grace.
Beginner chefs may balk at not having step by step instructions or exact measurements (Adler tends to suggest rather than dictate, and it can be dizzying at times to attempt to follow all of the uses she finds for one ingredient) but for anyone comfortable at a stove, Adler's book will feel like learning long-lost tricks in grandmother's kitchen. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to cook with a little more economy or a little more grace.
December 4, 2020
This is one of the best books about food I have ever read! Freaking loved it. A beautiful book of essays peppered with recipes and guidance. Her approach to food is pleasure-centered with equal weight to simplicity, practicality, and economical thriftiness which checks all my boxes! I immediately started using her recipes and dreaming about cooking with turnips. She shares her reverence for ingredients and uses every part of the animal or vegetable. She’s anti diet, anti capitalist, and anti-classist and writes beautifully. One of my favorite quotes:
“And always a few bunches of dark, leafy greens. This will seem very pious. Once greens are cooked as they should be, though: hot and lustily, with garlic, in a good amount of olive oil, they lose their sense of moral urgency and become one of the most likable ingredients in your kitchen.”
I really feel that this book will shape my cooking ethos for years to come!
“And always a few bunches of dark, leafy greens. This will seem very pious. Once greens are cooked as they should be, though: hot and lustily, with garlic, in a good amount of olive oil, they lose their sense of moral urgency and become one of the most likable ingredients in your kitchen.”
I really feel that this book will shape my cooking ethos for years to come!
August 3, 2012
If I could go back in time for just a couple of days, one of the things I'd like to do is sit down with my grandmothers and let them teach me all of those little secrets they knew about getting a meal to turn out just right. Born in the 1880's, both grandmother's knew how to cook before there were such things as degrees on oven dials. They used real ingredients, very few came from a box. What I remember of them cooking from when I was a little girl, their hands moved instinctively. Just a taste would tell them what was missing--what belonged in the pot, and what to keep out. If I could go back in time for just a couple of days, I'd spend a part of those two days in their kitchens--breathing in the aromas of hot fresh donuts, or roast beef. Tamar Adler's book is the closest I will ever come to breathing in those aromas. Reading her book is like sitting down with your grandmother as she explains to you exactly what she's doing and why. Tamar knows those little secrets, and in beautiful prose, she passes them along to you. It takes a masterful writer to make a pot of boiled water into a cauldron of curiosities and wonders, but Tamar can do it. I loved this book. I adored this book. I highly recommend this book. If it doesn't have you dashing into your kitchen, digging through your pantry for those just-right ingredients, nothing will.
March 27, 2023
The earthy, poetic soul of Robert Farrar Capon's "Supper Of The Lamb."
The understandable, simple concepts of Samin Nosrat's "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat."
These are the kinds of food books I actually enjoy. Because as I like to tell me husband, I am *physically incapable* of following a recipe for anything (including baking). I will not be boxed in. At least a couple items will be altered, substituted, or otherwise switched up.
Cooking for me (when not in emergency mode with my tiny children) is meant to be cathartic, and a creative process as much as a scientific one. I love that Adler offers a giant sandbox. The boundary lines are full of needful skills, basic concepts, and a mindset of endless, resourceful creativity. A gem of a book. Loved hearing the author read it in her own voice, but I might need to purchase a copy to refer to!
The understandable, simple concepts of Samin Nosrat's "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat."
These are the kinds of food books I actually enjoy. Because as I like to tell me husband, I am *physically incapable* of following a recipe for anything (including baking). I will not be boxed in. At least a couple items will be altered, substituted, or otherwise switched up.
Cooking for me (when not in emergency mode with my tiny children) is meant to be cathartic, and a creative process as much as a scientific one. I love that Adler offers a giant sandbox. The boundary lines are full of needful skills, basic concepts, and a mindset of endless, resourceful creativity. A gem of a book. Loved hearing the author read it in her own voice, but I might need to purchase a copy to refer to!
March 29, 2023
What you think of this book really depends on who you are. What doubtless is true, whatever your take, is that An Everlasting Meal: Cooking With Economy and Grace isn’t really a cookbook, as Alice Waters points out in the foreward, who adds that the book “gently reveals Tamar’s [Tamar Adler] philosophy.”
And then some.
If paragraphs like these annoy you as too twee by half, run for the hills. This book is not for you.
I don’t even know what to say. I can’t even be my usual snarky self, I’m so gobsmacked. But if you appreciate these sentiments, this will be a five-star read for you.
However, if you can hold your nose, there are some pretty fine recipes buried here and there, some not in recipe format at all. Author Adler makes you work as much in reading as she would have you in making mayonnaise. (Just bring out the Kroger brand, thank you very much.) But I found it was worth it, making it a three-star read.
Another reason for three stars? Alice Waters highly recommends “Chapter 4: How to Catch Your Tail,” and so do I. Skip the rest, if you must, but that chapter gives you ways to save money and waste by using so many bits and pieces we normally throw away. If only the entire book could rise to this level!
And then some.
If paragraphs like these annoy you as too twee by half, run for the hills. This book is not for you.
The simplicity of boiling vegetables might be maligned n our country, but the idea of boiled meat is pure anathema….
Frying eggs to put on pasta is an especially good use of eggs you feel proud of. I recently did it with duck eggs, which I didn’t want to poach because I wanted their huge, orange yolks to make themselves immediately known….
This [making mayonnaise] should all be done by hand. Good olive oil gets bitter when broken by blades. Making mayonnaise by hand is tiring, hurts a little, and is particularly worth it once you’ve stopped sweating.
I don’t even know what to say. I can’t even be my usual snarky self, I’m so gobsmacked. But if you appreciate these sentiments, this will be a five-star read for you.
However, if you can hold your nose, there are some pretty fine recipes buried here and there, some not in recipe format at all. Author Adler makes you work as much in reading as she would have you in making mayonnaise. (Just bring out the Kroger brand, thank you very much.) But I found it was worth it, making it a three-star read.
Another reason for three stars? Alice Waters highly recommends “Chapter 4: How to Catch Your Tail,” and so do I. Skip the rest, if you must, but that chapter gives you ways to save money and waste by using so many bits and pieces we normally throw away. If only the entire book could rise to this level!
June 19, 2017
Tamar Adler's message and tone are somewhat at odds in this book. Her words are saying that cooking is for everyone and not just celebrity chefs and experts, that food does not have to be perfectly arranged on a plate, that it can be a messy daily thing full of mistakes and made on the spot with leftover ingredients that would have ended up in the trash anyway. I happen to hold all of these same beliefs, but her tone is contradicting her. Instead of opening us up to the possibilities of cooking, she tells us what we should do. That word "should" crops up everywhere. We should put our leftover bones into a pot and make stock. Which is fine for me, but I'm a believer (and I already do this, most days). If she is aiming to convert the noncook into a new lifestyle, she would do better to open up the possibilities using words that suggest and entice rather than prescribe.
Sometimes she even comes across as snobby, which I'm sure is not her point. As when she says no egg that isn't coming straight from your own backyard chickens will do. I agree with her on moral principles--cruelty and factory farming practices necessarily impinges on our plate. But baby steps! That is an entirely different book than this one, and should be attempted once a daily practice has been established. Again: who is her intended audience here? Not to mention that it's also an extremely privileged stance; most of the people she's trying to reach will not be lucky enough to have their own chickens or have access to them (or afford them at a farmer's market).
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.
Adler's approach is to splice short recipes within long paragraphs of non-recipe prose (though there are recipes in those paragraphs too, just not in recipe form). Though it is definitely meant to be read from cover to cover and not as a reference book, it's a bit boring to read it like that at times, and her attempts at being poetic don't always work.
Perhaps my opinion is tainted by the fact that I am already familiar with many of her strategies here (using leftovers, using all parts of the ingredient, etc.) Maybe for someone with less experience, this book would be useful. But then again, reading some of her recipes, I doubt a less experienced version of me would have found it very useful. Her prescriptions are very specific, and without going into the general principles behind why she is doing the things she is doing, a beginner would find it hard to generalize and find substitutions. Plus, she breezes past many of the most simple things that a beginner would need to execute these dishes. But then she has a chapter called How to Boil Water (tip: salt it, in most cases). So there's very advanced stuff here thrown in with very beginner stuff. I don't know who she's writing for.
Sometimes she even comes across as snobby, which I'm sure is not her point. As when she says no egg that isn't coming straight from your own backyard chickens will do. I agree with her on moral principles--cruelty and factory farming practices necessarily impinges on our plate. But baby steps! That is an entirely different book than this one, and should be attempted once a daily practice has been established. Again: who is her intended audience here? Not to mention that it's also an extremely privileged stance; most of the people she's trying to reach will not be lucky enough to have their own chickens or have access to them (or afford them at a farmer's market).
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.
Adler's approach is to splice short recipes within long paragraphs of non-recipe prose (though there are recipes in those paragraphs too, just not in recipe form). Though it is definitely meant to be read from cover to cover and not as a reference book, it's a bit boring to read it like that at times, and her attempts at being poetic don't always work.
Perhaps my opinion is tainted by the fact that I am already familiar with many of her strategies here (using leftovers, using all parts of the ingredient, etc.) Maybe for someone with less experience, this book would be useful. But then again, reading some of her recipes, I doubt a less experienced version of me would have found it very useful. Her prescriptions are very specific, and without going into the general principles behind why she is doing the things she is doing, a beginner would find it hard to generalize and find substitutions. Plus, she breezes past many of the most simple things that a beginner would need to execute these dishes. But then she has a chapter called How to Boil Water (tip: salt it, in most cases). So there's very advanced stuff here thrown in with very beginner stuff. I don't know who she's writing for.
February 8, 2015
I heartily recommend this book to anybody who used to love to prepare good and sustaining meals but who's lost inspiration in the wake of so many cooking shows, food blogs and Pinterest.
When I was growing up, my mom cooked every meal, every day, for years. While it was drudgery to her, the meals never reflected that. She grew up knowing true hunger and learned how to prepare food with economy, but not with parsimony. She used quality ingredients, fresh and in season, always prepared correctly -- and always with an eye to using the leftovers in the next meal. Until I was older, I never realized that was, in itself -- Art.
She would probably think this book of essays a pure waste of time: elevating to prose what she used to do every day and celebrating what she gladly stopped doing when all of us began leaving home. Read it selectively and choose your essays based on the skills it imparts. Take some time to visit the author's blog and watch the videos if the essays begin to feel overwhelming. It's not a recipe book -- there are no photos of food. But you'll be encouraged to return to basics.
When I was growing up, my mom cooked every meal, every day, for years. While it was drudgery to her, the meals never reflected that. She grew up knowing true hunger and learned how to prepare food with economy, but not with parsimony. She used quality ingredients, fresh and in season, always prepared correctly -- and always with an eye to using the leftovers in the next meal. Until I was older, I never realized that was, in itself -- Art.
She would probably think this book of essays a pure waste of time: elevating to prose what she used to do every day and celebrating what she gladly stopped doing when all of us began leaving home. Read it selectively and choose your essays based on the skills it imparts. Take some time to visit the author's blog and watch the videos if the essays begin to feel overwhelming. It's not a recipe book -- there are no photos of food. But you'll be encouraged to return to basics.
February 9, 2018
I don't say things like this lightly, so listen up: This book changed my life. It is so simple and lovely and useful and delicious.
July 10, 2020
I enjoyed reading this. It's not an over the top superlative enjoyment nor a disdain at over-writing. It was a pleasant, empowering read. It helps to think of food a little differently, to think of the beauty and companionship of food, the simplicity of enjoying good food well cooked.
The idea of an everlasting meal where one meal feeds into the next and that the next is a beautiful idea. Adler's presentation seems like it is perfect for a single person or couple, but for a family - we eat a head of cauliflower in a meal, and would gladly eat more - there are none left to jar lovingly and add to the fridge for later use.
I really enjoyed most of the chapters as descriptive, not prescriptive. As one meal ending and holding hands with the next. Springboards. Some people don't like food that much to think about it so ... constantly, but I found the ideas inspiring. It is a book to cook in the spirit of, not the specifics. I don't really understand the constant ladling soup over bread ...
I may try some of the things ... I should do the boiling water exercise at least. Maybe not in July/August.
The idea of an everlasting meal where one meal feeds into the next and that the next is a beautiful idea. Adler's presentation seems like it is perfect for a single person or couple, but for a family - we eat a head of cauliflower in a meal, and would gladly eat more - there are none left to jar lovingly and add to the fridge for later use.
I really enjoyed most of the chapters as descriptive, not prescriptive. As one meal ending and holding hands with the next. Springboards. Some people don't like food that much to think about it so ... constantly, but I found the ideas inspiring. It is a book to cook in the spirit of, not the specifics. I don't really understand the constant ladling soup over bread ...
I may try some of the things ... I should do the boiling water exercise at least. Maybe not in July/August.
October 27, 2019
i read this book a couple of years ago, and enjoyed it-- it's a quick read!-- but didn't think much about it since. it's more of a practical how-to lifestyle book than a cookbook, per se, and the language can get pretty corny ("whilst", "of an evening", stuff like that-- "let's dial it back just like 15% huh," is what i thought a lot).
but today as i was making broth in my kitchen for the next couple of weeks, i realized it was because of this book, and that the change it had brought about in my life, tho small in some ways, is probably one of the more significant forms of impact a book has ever had on me. i used to buy broth in bulk every month or so, and now, instead, i always make my own. i make it every other week or so, enough to last a week or two or three. and i do it without thinking about it much, and without spending anything on it (other than i now buy fancy bay leaves in bulk). i make it out of bits of things that i've saved over the week for that purpose-- also without thinking about it much. and, truly, i do it because (1) it makes everything i make taste so much better, (2) i enjoy it, and (3) because this lady explained to me in detailed, practical terms, what it looks like to be a person who regularly makes her own broth. for years now i've done it. "with economy and grace" might be overstating my achievement, but it's certainly been without much thought or effort. i'm transformed!
so, tamar adler changed my life, i guess. thanks, TA! i'm really grateful. a five star goodreads review is the least i can do.
but today as i was making broth in my kitchen for the next couple of weeks, i realized it was because of this book, and that the change it had brought about in my life, tho small in some ways, is probably one of the more significant forms of impact a book has ever had on me. i used to buy broth in bulk every month or so, and now, instead, i always make my own. i make it every other week or so, enough to last a week or two or three. and i do it without thinking about it much, and without spending anything on it (other than i now buy fancy bay leaves in bulk). i make it out of bits of things that i've saved over the week for that purpose-- also without thinking about it much. and, truly, i do it because (1) it makes everything i make taste so much better, (2) i enjoy it, and (3) because this lady explained to me in detailed, practical terms, what it looks like to be a person who regularly makes her own broth. for years now i've done it. "with economy and grace" might be overstating my achievement, but it's certainly been without much thought or effort. i'm transformed!
so, tamar adler changed my life, i guess. thanks, TA! i'm really grateful. a five star goodreads review is the least i can do.
March 27, 2012
I've heard a number of people saying they love this book and I see the appeal. But it wasn't for me. The writing was too precious and prescriptive for my taste and, having a lot of experience with using up every last bit of food by necessity, I didn't learn a lot from the content. (I also am wary of her advice. She made a number of claims that suggest that we have very different tastes- for example, that broccoli stems are delicious if you cook them long enough. Broccoli stems are in fact delicious if peeled, but she didn't mention that step.)
I very much liked her idea of roasting vegetables in big batches for the week all at once and might give it a try. It's an especially great way to use up CSA shares effectively.
I very much liked her idea of roasting vegetables in big batches for the week all at once and might give it a try. It's an especially great way to use up CSA shares effectively.
January 15, 2014
I alternately loved Adler's prose and rolled my eyes at it. Many people love this book, and I can see why, but she kinda gets on my nerves. :)
December 17, 2022
My life intersected with this book at such a unique time. Tamar’s philosophy of cooking is exactly what I have been craving to learn but didn’t even know it. I feel forever indebted to her for fanning into flame a passion for meal making and serving others with simple but intentional food. Love love love.
July 7, 2017
A cookbook is only for you if you like the kind of food the author likes to make. So, this book is for people who like traditional French and German food, with a hippie twist that makes it low-protein and low-spice. The author believes, against all reason, that washing and drying your own lettuce is “just as convenient” as buying prewashed, and urges us to buy $8 eggs at the farmer's market, on the theory that the chicken's feelings make the eggs taste better. Everything has parsley and Parmesan in it, and everything is served on toast, and worst of all, vegetables are served cold!
So. If you like that sort of thing.
So. If you like that sort of thing.
Read
February 5, 2024“We’re anxious about serving, but the simple, blessed fact is that no one ever comes to dinner for what you're cooking. We are all hungry and thirsty and happy that someone's predicted we would be and made arrangements for dealing with it. We come for the opportunity to look up from our plates and say "thank you." It is for recognition of our common hungers that we come when we are asked.”
July 7, 2012
As I'm writing this, I'm making something from this book, a recipe that Elise and I (affectionately) refer to as "butt pesto." (You'll have to ask me.)
This is one of my favorite books about food I've ever read. It's patterned as a modern homage to MFK Fisher's book "How to Cook a Wolf." While I also enjoyed the MFKF book, TA's book has had much more of an actual impact on my life with food.
What I think makes this book so special is that it is not about food in isolation ("here are a bunch of things that taste great!"), as most books about food tend to be. Rather, it provides a vision of the place of food and cooking in one's life. If you think about it, there are a lot of possible versions of this, more or less as many as there are people. TA's vision happens to be fairly aligned with the way I think food fits into mine and Elise's lives, but she articulates it in a way that is inspiring and thought-provoking.
Her way of thinking of course owes a lot to MFKF, and is also pretty close in style to Robert Farrar Capon's "ferial" cooking from "The Supper of the Lamb." Basically, as the title suggests, this view centers around treating meals not as independent events, to be separately conceived and planned in advance, but as a sort of unbroken chain in which the leftovers or leavings of one meal provide substance and inspiration for another in the future. In practice it involves having lots of little glass jars in the fridge, which I enjoy a lot, containing basically anything you didn't use, down to the liquid from your can of chick peas.
It's certainly a frugal method, and one that really encourages creative cooking. But more than these things, I love it because it establishes a sort of living rhythm to the food in one's life, in a way that reminds me of the following words from Nel Noddings' book "Caring" which have stuck with me for a long time:
"The one-caring, then, is not bored with ordinary life. As the Christian-Catholic finds new truth and strength in repeated celebrations of the mass, so the one-caring finds new delight in breakfast, in welcoming home her wanderers, in feeding the cat who purrs against her ankle, in noticing the twilight. She does not ask, 'Is this all there is?,' but wishes in hearty affirmation that what-is might go on and on."
This is one of my favorite books about food I've ever read. It's patterned as a modern homage to MFK Fisher's book "How to Cook a Wolf." While I also enjoyed the MFKF book, TA's book has had much more of an actual impact on my life with food.
What I think makes this book so special is that it is not about food in isolation ("here are a bunch of things that taste great!"), as most books about food tend to be. Rather, it provides a vision of the place of food and cooking in one's life. If you think about it, there are a lot of possible versions of this, more or less as many as there are people. TA's vision happens to be fairly aligned with the way I think food fits into mine and Elise's lives, but she articulates it in a way that is inspiring and thought-provoking.
Her way of thinking of course owes a lot to MFKF, and is also pretty close in style to Robert Farrar Capon's "ferial" cooking from "The Supper of the Lamb." Basically, as the title suggests, this view centers around treating meals not as independent events, to be separately conceived and planned in advance, but as a sort of unbroken chain in which the leftovers or leavings of one meal provide substance and inspiration for another in the future. In practice it involves having lots of little glass jars in the fridge, which I enjoy a lot, containing basically anything you didn't use, down to the liquid from your can of chick peas.
It's certainly a frugal method, and one that really encourages creative cooking. But more than these things, I love it because it establishes a sort of living rhythm to the food in one's life, in a way that reminds me of the following words from Nel Noddings' book "Caring" which have stuck with me for a long time:
"The one-caring, then, is not bored with ordinary life. As the Christian-Catholic finds new truth and strength in repeated celebrations of the mass, so the one-caring finds new delight in breakfast, in welcoming home her wanderers, in feeding the cat who purrs against her ankle, in noticing the twilight. She does not ask, 'Is this all there is?,' but wishes in hearty affirmation that what-is might go on and on."
May 15, 2012
This is not so much a cookbook as a book about cooking, a philosophy of cooking. Adler’s premise is that simple meals are better than production numbers; that great meals can be had from bits and bobs of old meals; that you should save every little vegetable scrap or peel. Her theories are sound; onion peels and broccoli stems make great stock and everything tastes better cooked in stock. Stale bread is good for any number of things, from croutons to thickening sauce. But while the word ‘economy’ is in the title, the author uses it to mean ‘not wasting things’, rather than ‘eating cheaply’. She recommends vast amounts of butter and olive oil; organic, free range chickens; fancy olives and prosciutto, and buying a responsibly raised cow – going in with a group to do this, of course, not taking the whole beast home yourself- but still expensive when you consider butchering costs and the freezer to put it all in.
On the other hand, she does praise beans, bean soups, and grains and tells how to make them turn out best. Those are economical, and, if the free range chicken is place sparingly atop the rice, as she recommends, makes an extremely tasty meal while not using much of the chicken.
My other problem is her statement that everything is better salted. While the average human can use (needs!) moderate amounts of salt, a lot of us are getting far too much; a significant population develops hypertension when they eat too much salt. I’d prefer to see most things prepared without much salt, if any, and those who need it can add it at the table. Simple enough to just ignore her statements about salt and not put it in when following her recipes, but I’m not sure the world needs a voice telling it that such and such NEEDS salt.
Adler has a elegant, rambling way of writing. Some sections are lovely; others drag slowly to the point. There are only a few recipes; they are of the ‘see how simple this is?’ sort to encourage people to try cooking by her methods. It’s a book for if you really want to *think* about cooking.
On the other hand, she does praise beans, bean soups, and grains and tells how to make them turn out best. Those are economical, and, if the free range chicken is place sparingly atop the rice, as she recommends, makes an extremely tasty meal while not using much of the chicken.
My other problem is her statement that everything is better salted. While the average human can use (needs!) moderate amounts of salt, a lot of us are getting far too much; a significant population develops hypertension when they eat too much salt. I’d prefer to see most things prepared without much salt, if any, and those who need it can add it at the table. Simple enough to just ignore her statements about salt and not put it in when following her recipes, but I’m not sure the world needs a voice telling it that such and such NEEDS salt.
Adler has a elegant, rambling way of writing. Some sections are lovely; others drag slowly to the point. There are only a few recipes; they are of the ‘see how simple this is?’ sort to encourage people to try cooking by her methods. It’s a book for if you really want to *think* about cooking.
August 21, 2014
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.
Then there is the breed of vegetable that strides at its own pace, regardless of yours. It has a brief season and is probably laborious, needing to be shelled or shucked or peeled, then leaving you a tiny pile of its edible self.
But it is invariably this vegetable that tastes so resonantly of its moment in the year that the surrounding months echo with it. There are festivals organized around this sort: in Spain there's one for the sweet leggy onions called calcots. Everyone runs out and picks them, builds big fires, roasts bushels and bushels, makes romesco sauce, and gets drunk, eating as many as they can. In Italy if a vegetable's festival is not on the calendar, it's tacitly observed: there will be picnics when the first wild asparagus arrive. This sort of vegetable is impractical if you're trying to look ahead, but is very good at making you stop and look around.
One of the most common in our soil is English peas, which arrive, adamantly, in the spring...
I doubt, sincerely, that I will ever religiously patronize a farmer's market. I doubt I will scale and gut a fish, contend with a brined caper, roast a butternut squash. But I will keep this book. And I will read this book again. Because I need to be reminded.
Then there is the breed of vegetable that strides at its own pace, regardless of yours. It has a brief season and is probably laborious, needing to be shelled or shucked or peeled, then leaving you a tiny pile of its edible self.
But it is invariably this vegetable that tastes so resonantly of its moment in the year that the surrounding months echo with it. There are festivals organized around this sort: in Spain there's one for the sweet leggy onions called calcots. Everyone runs out and picks them, builds big fires, roasts bushels and bushels, makes romesco sauce, and gets drunk, eating as many as they can. In Italy if a vegetable's festival is not on the calendar, it's tacitly observed: there will be picnics when the first wild asparagus arrive. This sort of vegetable is impractical if you're trying to look ahead, but is very good at making you stop and look around.
One of the most common in our soil is English peas, which arrive, adamantly, in the spring...
I doubt, sincerely, that I will ever religiously patronize a farmer's market. I doubt I will scale and gut a fish, contend with a brined caper, roast a butternut squash. But I will keep this book. And I will read this book again. Because I need to be reminded.
September 18, 2020
I don't like to think of food as carbohydrates and fat because it gives an incomplete picture of how we digest. Belly laughter must burn calories, and good conversation helps speed what needs speeding.
Tamar Adler loves food and loves words. I love her writing. Two chapters in, and she's already quoted Robert Farrar Capon and C.S. Lewis. I surrendered.
I adore her unabashed campaign against food waste. It reminds me of Jacques Pépin's zeal for using up leftovers. (Anybody else recall The Tightwad Gazette?)
She writes very conversationally, with a recipe scattered here and there. Here are the chapter headings with (my summary).
How to Begin (introduction, continuity)
How to Boil Water (basics, salt)
How to Teach an Egg to Fly (eggs)
How to Stride Ahead (vegetables)
How to Catch Your Tail (leftovers, skin and bones)
How to Paint without Brushes (equipment)
How to Light a Room (fresh herbs)
How to Have Balance (bread)
How to Season a Salad (dressing)
How to Live Well (beans)
How to Make Peace (rice)
How to Feel Powerful (capers, olives, pickles)
How to Build a Ship (loving food)
How to Find a Fortune (onion, shallots, garlic)
How to Be Tender (meat)
How to Fry the Littlest Fish (fish)
How to Snatch Victory from the Jaws of Defeat (rescuing culinary failures)
How to Weather a Storm (poverty)
How to Have Your Day (canning, preserving)
How to Drink to Saints (hospitality)
How to End (nontraditional desserts)
Tamar Adler loves food and loves words. I love her writing. Two chapters in, and she's already quoted Robert Farrar Capon and C.S. Lewis. I surrendered.
I adore her unabashed campaign against food waste. It reminds me of Jacques Pépin's zeal for using up leftovers. (Anybody else recall The Tightwad Gazette?)
She writes very conversationally, with a recipe scattered here and there. Here are the chapter headings with (my summary).
How to Begin (introduction, continuity)
How to Boil Water (basics, salt)
How to Teach an Egg to Fly (eggs)
How to Stride Ahead (vegetables)
How to Catch Your Tail (leftovers, skin and bones)
How to Paint without Brushes (equipment)
How to Light a Room (fresh herbs)
How to Have Balance (bread)
How to Season a Salad (dressing)
How to Live Well (beans)
How to Make Peace (rice)
How to Feel Powerful (capers, olives, pickles)
How to Build a Ship (loving food)
How to Find a Fortune (onion, shallots, garlic)
How to Be Tender (meat)
How to Fry the Littlest Fish (fish)
How to Snatch Victory from the Jaws of Defeat (rescuing culinary failures)
How to Weather a Storm (poverty)
How to Have Your Day (canning, preserving)
How to Drink to Saints (hospitality)
How to End (nontraditional desserts)
July 23, 2020
Humorless, pretentious, preachy, and nearly every chapter starts with "M.F.K. Fisher says..." Adler immediately states that Fisher is an influence, but in my opinion, she does not add anything new or unique to the dialogue about thoughtful, economical, and graceful cooking. Not being familiar with her any of previous work, her authoritarian tone (e.g., "Children must help shell peas.") was off-putting. I would much rather read Nigel Slater, Simon Hopkinson, Fergus Henderson, Melissa Clark, Mark Bittman, Deborah Madison, or even Alice Waters, who gives a glowing review of Adler's book, but oddly enough, I find less offensive...perhaps because I am familiar with her works.
If you read a lot of cookbooks and books about cooking, Adler's work will seem like well-worn and dry territory.
If you read a lot of cookbooks and books about cooking, Adler's work will seem like well-worn and dry territory.
November 19, 2012
This cookbook was inspirational not in the usual bookmark-to-later-try-a-recipe way, but in a soulful, lasting way. The author's simple yet clever descriptions and transparent adoration of good food warmed my heart and yes, changed how I think about cooking. Before moving house I finally cooked up that bag of beans and it became a warm soft mash beside a Fiorentina-style steak, then part of a breakfast fry-up with apple slices, then (best of all!) an improvised homemade bean with bacon soup. Lastingly tasty!
August 17, 2019
Tamar Adler has written a down-to-earth and charming book about making and sharing food. It is chock full of great ideas rooted in old (mostly European) and practical ways of doing things in which cooking is a kind of folk art to be shared. Some other reviewers have complained about the writing style, but I found Adler to be fun and literate without being pretentious. She avoids hipster twee and millennial self absorption with grace. In addition to inspiring us to try more parts and forms of the animals and vegetables that we eat, she has given me a mind to check out MFK Fischer’s writing as well.
Like the earlier work of Michael Pollan, and so many who wrote before, say, 1950, Adler’s simple and somewhat tradition-based approach could go a long way to ending the confusion around food - and many of the environmental and health problems that accompany it - in North America today.
I started reading a library copy but my wife and I went out and bought our own copy because we intend to return to it often.
Like the earlier work of Michael Pollan, and so many who wrote before, say, 1950, Adler’s simple and somewhat tradition-based approach could go a long way to ending the confusion around food - and many of the environmental and health problems that accompany it - in North America today.
I started reading a library copy but my wife and I went out and bought our own copy because we intend to return to it often.
September 15, 2019
This entire book is about cooking. But not just simply cooking as a recipe cookbook would speak to you. It's about how to cook with frugality, economy, efficiency and most of all Grace because we all make mistakes in the kitchen. She has chapters on the major food groups and how to cook those Foods within that group. She has suggestions on how to fix mistakes. And dispersed throughout the chapter are recipes. But I really like the way she writes. It's fluid and Flowery and not what you would expect in a book about cooking. It's beautiful writing.
May 24, 2023
Chapter 1 is "How to Boil Water". This is the right book for me. While it does contain recipes as illustrations, it's much more a philosophy and guidebook for how to weave cooking into your daily life, how to relax and enjoy it. It's about working with what you have, planning for interesting leftovers, and salvaging mistakes. It's about improvising, experimenting, learning, and getting comfortable. It's a gentle nudge, an affirmation, and a delight.
September 9, 2016
This book does for practical home cooking what Nina Planck's REAL FOOD does for the consumer by providing a delightful (and much needed) dose of common sense and assurance about the choices we make about what we eat and how we prepare it into a meal.
How can a book about food that has no pictures and very few recipes earn four stars from me? She had me from the very first chapter--YES, a dozen pages on boiling water!
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).
I've heard it said that we should be taught HOW to think, not WHAT to think. Over the past fifty years we have been crippled in the kitchen--relying on television shows, you-tube clips, photographs, and recipes to venture into the realm of food preparation. We have been taught the WHAT, but not the HOW. No wonder we opt out so readily to fast food and ready-made's. We soothe ourselves with excuses such as "no time", "no equipment", "no interest", etc.
I did stumble across a few words not in my vocabulary. They follow, with definitions and followed by the sentence (or paragraph)in which they appear.
p.53 palliative: 1. Tending or serving to palliate. 2. Relieving or soothing the symptoms of a disease or disorder without effecting a cure. n. "One of the most common in our soil is English peas, which arrive, adamantly, in the spring. English peas need shelling, but they need it for only a few weeks, which makes the process bearable, and not a little grounding. My restless mind has found no better palliative: after a little time with the gratifying solidity of a bowl in my lap and the sound of legumes pattering into it, I always feel as though some cobwebs have cleared."
p.56 ursine: of or relating to a bear or the bear family (Ursidae). 2. : suggesting or characteristic of a bear "A good strategy for odd, unfamiliar vegetables, strange and lovely ones that interest you but you don't know quite what to do with--marigold-yellow squash blossoms or the little squashes themselves, blossoms still attached--is to buy a few, put flour in a bowl, mix just enough seltzer in to turn it into a paste, let it sit for an hour, then add a touch of salt and more seltzer until the batter looks like cream. Then fry them, hot and quick, to be eaten immediately with nothing in mind but the crisp, salty vegetable itself. ... It sounds like a vague prescription for cooking any unfamiliar vegetable. Any vegetable? you wonder. Can any vegetable be made sense of just by being fried? My response is my father's other favorite saying, also urisne: Does a bear...? And so on."
p.83 Obviating: To anticipate and dispose of effectively; render unnecessary. "I have a certain tart dough that I make. It doesn't rely on cold butter, which starts to sweat too quickly on my warm, uneven wooden table, and it doesn't toughen up when I roll it "Twenty times!Willy-nilly." It's accommodating because it's made with olive oil. Thar also makes it sturdy, obviating a need for breadcrumbs at its bottom."
p.95 Analeptic: adj. Restorative or stimulating, as a drug or medication. n. A medication used as a central nervous system stimulant. "Other humble ingredients make similarly fine analeptics. Use a vegetable peeler to peel long slices off carrots. Fill a bowl with the carrot ribbons, add a light sprinkle of toasted cumin or coriander, a little vinegar and salt, then dress it with a lot of good olive oil."
p.95 Remoulade: A piquant cold sauce made with mayonnaise, chopped pickles, capers, anchovies, and herbs. "Rich, piquant remoulade salads, usually made from celery root, are in season when the ground ices over and the only vegetables available, are fibrous roots."
p.118 anodyne: Adjective--Not likely to provoke dissent or offense; uncontentious or inoffensive, often deliberately Noun--A pain-killing drug or medicine. "It will do for you what you believe food should, no matter who you are. Gourmets are satisfied: the seductions of rice are whispered of; it can be topped with buttered spinach and Parmesan or shaved with white truffles, and to the palates of children who still think eating a beastly reality of life rice remains agreeably anodyne."
p.155 ontological: 1. Of or relating to ontology. 2. Of or relating to essence or the nature of being. 3. Of or relating to the argument for the existence of ... "Of all of the people who have had opinions about whether eating meat is an evolutionary inevitability or an ontological crime, none is so right as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, who wrote a very big, comprehensive book called "The River Cottage Meat Book" He starts it by answering the question all of us who write recipes for meat should: "It seems obvious to me that the morality of meat eating lies in the factual details of our relationships with the animals we kill for food. It is what we do to them that counts." "
How can a book about food that has no pictures and very few recipes earn four stars from me? She had me from the very first chapter--YES, a dozen pages on boiling water!
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).
I've heard it said that we should be taught HOW to think, not WHAT to think. Over the past fifty years we have been crippled in the kitchen--relying on television shows, you-tube clips, photographs, and recipes to venture into the realm of food preparation. We have been taught the WHAT, but not the HOW. No wonder we opt out so readily to fast food and ready-made's. We soothe ourselves with excuses such as "no time", "no equipment", "no interest", etc.
I did stumble across a few words not in my vocabulary. They follow, with definitions and followed by the sentence (or paragraph)in which they appear.
p.53 palliative: 1. Tending or serving to palliate. 2. Relieving or soothing the symptoms of a disease or disorder without effecting a cure. n. "One of the most common in our soil is English peas, which arrive, adamantly, in the spring. English peas need shelling, but they need it for only a few weeks, which makes the process bearable, and not a little grounding. My restless mind has found no better palliative: after a little time with the gratifying solidity of a bowl in my lap and the sound of legumes pattering into it, I always feel as though some cobwebs have cleared."
p.56 ursine: of or relating to a bear or the bear family (Ursidae). 2. : suggesting or characteristic of a bear "A good strategy for odd, unfamiliar vegetables, strange and lovely ones that interest you but you don't know quite what to do with--marigold-yellow squash blossoms or the little squashes themselves, blossoms still attached--is to buy a few, put flour in a bowl, mix just enough seltzer in to turn it into a paste, let it sit for an hour, then add a touch of salt and more seltzer until the batter looks like cream. Then fry them, hot and quick, to be eaten immediately with nothing in mind but the crisp, salty vegetable itself. ... It sounds like a vague prescription for cooking any unfamiliar vegetable. Any vegetable? you wonder. Can any vegetable be made sense of just by being fried? My response is my father's other favorite saying, also urisne: Does a bear...? And so on."
p.83 Obviating: To anticipate and dispose of effectively; render unnecessary. "I have a certain tart dough that I make. It doesn't rely on cold butter, which starts to sweat too quickly on my warm, uneven wooden table, and it doesn't toughen up when I roll it "Twenty times!Willy-nilly." It's accommodating because it's made with olive oil. Thar also makes it sturdy, obviating a need for breadcrumbs at its bottom."
p.95 Analeptic: adj. Restorative or stimulating, as a drug or medication. n. A medication used as a central nervous system stimulant. "Other humble ingredients make similarly fine analeptics. Use a vegetable peeler to peel long slices off carrots. Fill a bowl with the carrot ribbons, add a light sprinkle of toasted cumin or coriander, a little vinegar and salt, then dress it with a lot of good olive oil."
p.95 Remoulade: A piquant cold sauce made with mayonnaise, chopped pickles, capers, anchovies, and herbs. "Rich, piquant remoulade salads, usually made from celery root, are in season when the ground ices over and the only vegetables available, are fibrous roots."
p.118 anodyne: Adjective--Not likely to provoke dissent or offense; uncontentious or inoffensive, often deliberately Noun--A pain-killing drug or medicine. "It will do for you what you believe food should, no matter who you are. Gourmets are satisfied: the seductions of rice are whispered of; it can be topped with buttered spinach and Parmesan or shaved with white truffles, and to the palates of children who still think eating a beastly reality of life rice remains agreeably anodyne."
p.155 ontological: 1. Of or relating to ontology. 2. Of or relating to essence or the nature of being. 3. Of or relating to the argument for the existence of ... "Of all of the people who have had opinions about whether eating meat is an evolutionary inevitability or an ontological crime, none is so right as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, who wrote a very big, comprehensive book called "The River Cottage Meat Book" He starts it by answering the question all of us who write recipes for meat should: "It seems obvious to me that the morality of meat eating lies in the factual details of our relationships with the animals we kill for food. It is what we do to them that counts." "
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