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106th out of 469 books
—
979 voters
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 fr...more
In chapters about boiling water, cooking eggs and beans, and summoning respectable meals fr...more
Hardcover, 272 pages
Published
October 18th 2011
by Scribner
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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...more
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...more
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. Las...more
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...more
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...more
Yes, this was a bit pretentious and precious. Aside from those flashes of holier-than-thou, this book was a fabulous primer to regularly cooking at home rather than juggling discrete recipes and overinflated culinary ambitions.
The genius is in the small suggestions that stick: when it doubt, boil water. Stride ahead. Eat your tail.
I practiced a bit with these philosophies in mind, and it certainly is easier to cook at night, tired and crabby though you may be, when you remember how delicious an...more
The genius is in the small suggestions that stick: when it doubt, boil water. Stride ahead. Eat your tail.
I practiced a bit with these philosophies in mind, and it certainly is easier to cook at night, tired and crabby though you may be, when you remember how delicious an...more
I really enjoyed this book, but had some issues with it which detracted from my reading experience.
First, is it a cookbook or an essay? I felt that it was primarily an essay-type book, and read it lying in bed at night, but there were many places where I wanted to jump up and try to cook things. I think if I'd read it in the kitchen, I might have had a hard time using it because it's not quite arranged as an instructional book. If I'd bought it as a printed, bound book I would probably stick it...more
First, is it a cookbook or an essay? I felt that it was primarily an essay-type book, and read it lying in bed at night, but there were many places where I wanted to jump up and try to cook things. I think if I'd read it in the kitchen, I might have had a hard time using it because it's not quite arranged as an instructional book. If I'd bought it as a printed, bound book I would probably stick it...more
If you love language, cooking, frugality, and have evolved to enjoy the most simplest meals, then you'll like this book a lot. I also appreciate that the majority of recipes in this book are vegetarian or bean-based, sparse and interleaved with texts, waxing rhapsodically over leftover bits and scraps. For example on page 165, she relates, "I taught classes in butchery one spring, instructing students in how to take apart chickens and remove bones from legs of lamb. At the end of each class, bec...more
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...more
Book #60 of 2012
Hey! I actually read something non-fiction.
I really liked this book. I like the author's voice and how the cooking ideas came kind of rapid fire without a lot of recipes (there were some). Recipes are good, but sometimes you just need some ideas of how to cook something without reading 30 steps and 100 ingredients. When you need dinner but don't want to go to the store. I even took her advice a little bit in the past few weeks on "how to get ahead". Unfortunately, I got a tad bor...more
Hey! I actually read something non-fiction.
I really liked this book. I like the author's voice and how the cooking ideas came kind of rapid fire without a lot of recipes (there were some). Recipes are good, but sometimes you just need some ideas of how to cook something without reading 30 steps and 100 ingredients. When you need dinner but don't want to go to the store. I even took her advice a little bit in the past few weeks on "how to get ahead". Unfortunately, I got a tad bor...more
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...more
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...more
This is an inspiring collection of essays on cooking more than it is a cookbook (though there are recipes). I admire and envy the author's ease in the kitchen, and she tries to demystify the process for the rest of us. She at once simplifies and elevates the art of cooking. I confess, though, that she has so much ease that I sometimes felt all the more awkward by comparison. Her videos helped ease some of that.
I wholeheartedly agree with her admonitions about starting with seasonal, quality ingr...more
I wholeheartedly agree with her admonitions about starting with seasonal, quality ingr...more
Adler writes in the spirit of MFK Fisher, both acknowledging her love for Fisher's writing and admitting that "An Everlasting Meal" is modeled on the wildly entertaining and practical "How to Cook a Wolf." Although she has cooked professionally), Adler writes for the amateur chef, encouraging one to learn to cook intuitively, using good, fresh, simple ingredients and an openness to exploration, rather than relying on recipes and specialized grocery stores. Perhaps her most aggressive hat-tip in...more
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...more
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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 un...more
I'm being un...more
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The book is written with a sort of romantic prose style that makes you slow down and really ponder the way you approach food in the kitchen. In short, it's infused with that fashionable and elusive concept called mindfulness that everyone's always reaching for, but you get the sense that Tamar Adler has achieved it, and that her meals, especially the simple ones, must taste wonderful. Not because of the ingredients, but because she's so focused on every aspect of preparing food, bringing a rever...more
Originally posted at http://postdefiance.com/fresh-produce/, written by Timothy Thomas McNeely.
An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace by Tamar Adler is a book about eating practically, resourcefully, and mindfully. It encourages a thoughtful return to the cooking and eating life our grandmothers led.
The book’s title comes from the idea that elements of your meal and the items left in the kitchen after that cooking experience are the ingredients for the meal to follow. Leftover bread...more
An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace by Tamar Adler is a book about eating practically, resourcefully, and mindfully. It encourages a thoughtful return to the cooking and eating life our grandmothers led.
The book’s title comes from the idea that elements of your meal and the items left in the kitchen after that cooking experience are the ingredients for the meal to follow. Leftover bread...more
my only regret about this book is that i didn't read it 15 years ago when i started cooking for myself...although i suppose i shouldn't beat myself up since it was only published last year. of the many things this book taught me about cooking (all while making me laugh and sigh and pause to re-read the beauty of so many of its sentences), perhaps the most important was that you don't need a recipe to cook a wonderful dish. my mother-in-law was the first person to introduce me to the idea that yo...more
Nov 25, 2011
Bmfoa
is currently reading it
I ordered this book in the mail. I cannot WAIT for it to arrive. Read a chapter on a plane...delish. Crazy to love food so much that you even love to read about it! :)
Okay, I'm now a couple of chapters in. I keep dog-earing the pages, but if I don't stop, I'm going to have to fold the whole book in half. Beautiful writing. I'm constantly cooking, in my mind!
Okay, I'm now a couple of chapters in. I keep dog-earing the pages, but if I don't stop, I'm going to have to fold the whole book in half. Beautiful writing. I'm constantly cooking, in my mind!
I was first apprehensive about reading this book in ebook format because I thought it would be more of a cookbook. Luckily, it has more narrative and reads almost like a novel with handful of helpful recipes per chapter.
It was like this book was written especially for me. Other than in the recipes, the amount of things are pretty hand-wavy. The author also emphasizes wise use of all parts of vegetables and how to stretch one dish into several to cut down on preparation time. I especially liked t...more
It was like this book was written especially for me. Other than in the recipes, the amount of things are pretty hand-wavy. The author also emphasizes wise use of all parts of vegetables and how to stretch one dish into several to cut down on preparation time. I especially liked t...more
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I won a complete version of this through a goodreads giveaway, and I can't believe my good fortune. This book is inspiring - as someone who worked as a short order cook for 6 years to put herself through college, cooking had come to seem a dreadful chore.
This book quickly re-ignited a creative fire and the chapter on stale bread was the final straw that got me off the chair and back into my kitchen. I happened to have a crusty loaf of Italian bread right there that had gotten rock hard after si...more
This book quickly re-ignited a creative fire and the chapter on stale bread was the final straw that got me off the chair and back into my kitchen. I happened to have a crusty loaf of Italian bread right there that had gotten rock hard after si...more
I noticed this book popping up in various spots and have been waiting for the library to cycle through others who requested it before me. One thing I noticed that I thought was fantastic was that the readers actually were feeling bolder in the kitchen, more willing to experiment and throw together a meal from inexpensive ingredients on hand ... and coming up pleased and increasingly confident thanks to the meals they produced.
I like any cookbook which does that.
Having finally gotten a copy I can...more
I like any cookbook which does that.
Having finally gotten a copy I can...more
It took me a long time to get around to this book, partially because of my mild distrust of the rave reviews it received from others. MFK Fisher is one of my favorite food authors and I just could not imagine that anyone could truly base their own book off of her brilliant How to Cook a Wolf and not fall short. Well, Adler's book doesn't; it is beautifully written and, more importantly, it captures MFK Fisher's tone and hard-to-imitate confidence with its own author's equally quirky, resolute pe...more
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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 -...more
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 -...more
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So I just put this book on hold because it showed up in Wowbrary as a new purchase at my library (does your library have Wowbrary? It's amazing! If your library does offer it and you don't subscribe, you should! Right now!). And I put off reading it because, well, books about how to eat gracefully sometimes just don't seem as exciting as YA books about the end of the world.
But! This book was a delight to read. Almost poetic in its language, it managed to avoid the pretentious-ness bug that lots...more
But! This book was a delight to read. Almost poetic in its language, it managed to avoid the pretentious-ness bug that lots...more
Although An Everlasting Meal does contain several recipes, it's not so much a cookbook as a series of suggestions, written as short essays with such quirky titles as "How to Catch Your Tail" (fish) and "How to Make Peace" (grains). Immediately after reading "How to Live Well," I soaked a bag of navy beans to make soup.
Author Adler is a wise woman who suggests the use of local ingredients, minimal fuss, and getting the most out of every ingredient (vegetable ends and chicken feet make lovely stoc...more
Author Adler is a wise woman who suggests the use of local ingredients, minimal fuss, and getting the most out of every ingredient (vegetable ends and chicken feet make lovely stoc...more
I really expected to like this book--wordy meandering cookbooks are my favorite kind--but what nonsense. If you're going to be pretentious, at least use the right words. "Omelets are an egg's comeuppance"? Really? Omelets are an egg's well-deserved punishment? What did the egg do, buy the wrong kind of olive oil?
Also, not to be crude, but as much of a butter/bacon fat/oil/shmaltz fan as I am, if I cooked with the amount of (good*) olive oil and (good) butter sloshed around in this book, usually...more
Also, not to be crude, but as much of a butter/bacon fat/oil/shmaltz fan as I am, if I cooked with the amount of (good*) olive oil and (good) butter sloshed around in this book, usually...more
Possibly the best food-related book I've ever read. It's less a cookbook than a poetic statement of the author's philosophy of food -- how to eat, what to eat, how to cook it; although there are plenty of recipes included in the book. I love the way Adler writes and found myself reading through even recipes that I knew I'd never make, just for the eloquence of it.
"Cooking with economy and grace" perfectly encapsulates what this book encourages the reader to do; I couldn't wait to finish it (alt...more
"Cooking with economy and grace" perfectly encapsulates what this book encourages the reader to do; I couldn't wait to finish it (alt...more
Even though I'm trying to be stingy with my 5 stars - I would give this book a 6-star rating if I could. In reviewing all of the books I've read in 2012 - I think this is my very favorite...
I found myself counting down the minutes during my day until it was ME time, and I could snuggle in with a cup of tea and a few pages of this poetic book. I was torn between not wanting to stop reading (its that good) and wanting to stop and slow down in order to really savor this first-reading and make it la...more
I found myself counting down the minutes during my day until it was ME time, and I could snuggle in with a cup of tea and a few pages of this poetic book. I was torn between not wanting to stop reading (its that good) and wanting to stop and slow down in order to really savor this first-reading and make it la...more
Interesting ideas about how to think about cooking, rather than recipes per se. The book is ridiculously and distractingly overwritten, though. Many of the sentences read like a bizarre parodies of contemporary food writing. The overly descriptive writing just doesn't jive with Adler's call for simple-yet-smart cooking. Helen Nearing's Simple Food for the Good Life or Tom Colicchio's supremely underrated Think Life a Chef both would have served as great templates/role models for this. Good food...more
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You won't come away with tons of new recipes or how-tos, but what you will gain is a wonderful sense of food as nourishment, food as simple, and inspiration to enjoy food and meal making. With a family, this is not easy, but Adler's prose and straightforward approach to the process of making a meal remind me that making dinner does not have to be stressful. Some key reminders that have already made my last few weeks of cooking better: have vegetables on-hand, cleaned and ready to go at the begin...more
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“Great meals rarely start at points that all look like beginnings. They usually pick up where something else leaves off. This is how most of the best things are made - imagine if the world had to begin from scratch each dawn: a tree would never grow, nor would we ever get to see the etchings of gentle rings on a clamshell... Meals' ingredients must be allowed to topple into one another like dominos. Broccoli stems, their florets perfectly boiled in salty water, must be simmered with olive oil and eaten with shaved Parmesan on toast; their leftover cooking liquid kept for the base for soup, studded with other vegetables, drizzled with good olive oil, with the rind of the Parmesan added for heartiness. This continuity is the heart and soul of cooking.”
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6 people liked it
“If we were taught to cook as we are taught to walk, encouraged first to feel for pebbles with our toes, then to wobble forward and fall, then had our hands firmly tugged on so we would try again, we would learn that being good at it relies on something deeply rooted, akin to walking, to get good at which we need only guidance, senses, and a little faith. We aren't often taught to cook like that, so when we watch people cook naturally, in what looks like an agreement between cook and cooked, we think that they were born with an ability to simply know that an egg is done, that the fish needs flipping, and that the soup needs salt. Instinct, whether on the ground or in the kitchen, is not a destination but a path.”
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3 people liked it
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