Author Topic: An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace  (Read 6191 times)

Cool Friend

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An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace
« on: January 25, 2019, 02:05:05 PM »
I mentioned this book in another thread (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/is-much-of-the-criticism-of-cheap-food-actually-snobbery/100/), and thought it might be a good recommendation.

The summary on Amazon does a good job of describing it:

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In this meditation on cooking and eating, Tamar Adler weaves philosophy and instruction into approachable lessons on feeding ourselves well. An Everlasting Meal demonstrates the implicit frugality in cooking. In essays on forgotten skills such as boiling, suggestions for what to do when cooking seems like a chore, and strategies for preparing, storing, and transforming ingredients for a week’s worth of satisfying, delicious meals, Tamar reminds us of the practical pleasures of eating. She explains what cooks in the world’s great kitchens know: that the best meals rely on the ends of the meals that came before them. With that in mind, she shows how we often throw away the bones, skins, and peels we need to make our food both more affordable and better. She also reminds readers that almost all kitchen mistakes can be remedied. Summoning respectable meals from the humblest ingredients, Tamar breathes life into the belief that we can start cooking from wherever we are, with whatever we have.

It really changed my mindset on everyday cooking, and it's one of the few "cookbooks" (it's not your standard cookbook but it does have recipes) that I went out and bought, because I return to it for wisdom all the time.

Highly recommended, hope you like it!

CNM

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Re: An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace
« Reply #1 on: January 25, 2019, 02:56:12 PM »
I really liked this book when I read it a few years ago.  It's not so much of a traditional cookbook, with specific recipes, but more of a meditation on the nature of cooking.  Cooking doesn't have to be hard!  Just do it and see what happens!

Kyle Schuant

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Re: An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace
« Reply #2 on: January 25, 2019, 04:40:19 PM »
Thankyou for the recommendation, I've bought it. BookDepository is a good site, free shipping.

https://www.bookdepository.com/Everlasting-Meal-Tamar-Adler/9781439181881

Cool Friend

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Re: An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace
« Reply #3 on: January 28, 2019, 09:50:13 AM »
Hope you like it, Kyle!

Moonwaves

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Re: An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace
« Reply #4 on: January 29, 2019, 05:01:30 AM »
Might see if I can get this out of the library. No used copies on sale on betterworldbooks* yet. It definitely sounds like my kind of cooking but with a whole lot more knowledge that I could probably use.



* I stopped using Book Depositry when they were bought by Amazon. Better World Books seems to have managed to stay independent so far.

Budgie

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Re: An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace
« Reply #5 on: January 29, 2019, 05:52:10 PM »
Added it to my library list, thanks, CoolFriend.

DaMa

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Re: An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace
« Reply #6 on: January 30, 2019, 05:49:27 AM »
Thanks for the recommendation.  I just put it on hold at my library.

Vasilisa

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Re: An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace
« Reply #7 on: February 19, 2019, 11:14:46 AM »
Love Tamar Adler! And before her MFK Fisher- especially "How to Cook a Wolf".

Adler does a great job of explaining that we do not need to cook every meal from scratch, that an efficient way to cook is to build on other work you've done before. I love how she talks about her vegetable prep, roasting this, chopping that, and then building on those things for a later meal. I tend to have containers in the fridge, grain that I cooked, veggies I roasted, that are easy to make into another dish.

Just got her new book "Something Old, Something New" and am looking forward to diving into it!

La Bibliotecaria Feroz

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Re: An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace
« Reply #8 on: February 19, 2019, 05:15:15 PM »
I also loved this book. The main things I took away from it that I do regularly are making my homemade beans way more delicious by adding veggie scraps and fat, and salting my pasta water was life changing.

Raenia

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Re: An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace
« Reply #9 on: February 27, 2019, 09:17:47 AM »
Just finished this one.  There were some very interesting ideas, I'm going to try to add one or two, see how it goes, and move on from there.  I already saved all my veggie scraps for stock, but I'm considering segregating them by type instead of all in one pot - she suggested things like cilantro stems for rice, onion and carrot scraps for soup, and so on.  And I think I should add more eggs to our diet as well, I didn't used to think of eggs as a way to deal with leftovers, other than potatoes in frittata.  But she is correct, many veggies can go in omelets or frittata, not just potatoes.  Also, saving beet greens and other leafy extras for cooking, rather than throwing in the stock pot.