An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace

by Tamar Adler

Salsa verde 1 shallot, finely chopped 1/2 teaspoon salt red or white wine vinegar 1 bunch parsley, leaves picked from stems and roughly chopped 1/2 clove garlic, chopped and pounded to a paste with a tiny bit of salt in a mortar with a pestle or on a cutting board 1 anchovy fillet, finely chopped 1 teaspoon capers, finely chopped 1/2 cup olive oil Put the shallot in a small mixing bowl. Add the salt and then enough vinegar to cover. Let it sit for 10 to 15 minutes. Drain the shallot of its vinegar, reserving it for a future vinaigrette. Mix the shallot and the rest of the ingredients together.

Citrus peels are some of the most often forsaken tails. Before juicing them, remove the zest from one or two oranges or lemons and combine a spoonful of their zest, a half clove of finely chopped garlic, a big handful of roughly chopped parsley or mint, and a little crunchy salt, and you have a gorgeous and quite sophisticated sauce for sprinkling

over boiled chicken or poached eggs. Or remove citrus peels with a

I have a frugal friend who bakes and deep-fries potato skins. These are delicious, free, and worth keeping in mind if you have a pot of oil ready. Carrot peels, turnip

end of vegetable that has actually changed states—solid to liquid or, worse, to gas—its yellowed parts can be cut off, and it can be added to a pot containing sautéed onion, a chopped potato per three cups of vegetables, and meat or vegetable stock or water to cover. Find a turnip

The amount of food you have left from a meal is always the perfect amount for something. It may not be enough for a repeat of the first meal: a single bowl of beef stew is not stew for four. It is, though, just right for four hot beef sandwiches on warm little buns, with thinly sliced cabbage and pickles alongside.

Combine the rest of the leftover stew with another day’s boiled potatoes, smashed with a bit of olive oil, and the final bite of the sautéed greens. Spoon it into a ceramic dish, top it with crisp breadcrumbs, made from the tail ends of bread, and bake it until it’s bubbling.

Last night’s Thai green curry, or Indian saag paneer is the filling for today’s frittata. Omelets, which provide the gracious foil of soft, simple egg, are especially good at making less dramatic meals from restaurant leftovers, which are usually so strongly seasoned that eating them untransformed the next day can feel like meeting someone at the b...

today. Then we slither along, straight, linear things that we can be, wondering what we will make for dinner tomorrow. So we must spot our tails when we can, and gather them up, so that when we get hungry next, and our minds turn to the question of what to eat, the answer will be there waiting.

cook sliced garlic over very low heat in butter and a little water until it is completely tender and stewed. Top toasts thickly with stewed garlic, then very thinly sliced bacon or pancetta. Cook each toast under a broiler until the meat is crisp and its fat has seeped into the bread.

risotto with meat is not an accompaniment to the meat but the main dish, and a very good way to serve a lot of people on a little meat and a lot of rice.

Neapolitan street food arancini are a spectacular use of leftover risotto, which after sitting for a night becomes claylike and can be shaped around little pieces of cheese, rolled into balls, dipped in breadcrumbs, then deep fried. You can also simply shape cold risotto into little cakes and panfry them in olive oil until golden brown.

Or buy fish that are small enough to oil well and stick, in their shimmering entirety, on a hot grill. Little sardines and small mackerel, which are some of the best fish to buy anyway, just need to be cooked whole, hot, and fast. They can be served a few per person. They are as easy to cook as hot dogs and should be cooked the same way: allowed to char, flipped over once, then moved onto waiting plates.

Offer something small to eat as soon as anyone enters your house. It needn’t be sophisticated. Serve little halved radishes, chilled in the refrigerator, a dish of salt, and another filled with softened sweet butter. Let everyone spread the radishes with a smear of butter and sprinkle them with salt. Or serve a plate of fennel, cut

into thin wedges. Or cut carrots and celery into pretty sticks and quickly pickle them and serve them with butter and crackers.

you have olives, customize them. Drain them of their brine and put them in a small pot with a few wide pieces of orange or lemon peel, a teaspoon of chile flakes, a few fennel seeds, and a little good olive oil. Serve them warm. Or serve small pieces of stale bread quickly toasted and drizzled with herby oil, or toasted nuts, or halved soft-boiled eggs sprinkled with salt or topped with slivered anchovy. You will have provided the greatest hospitality you can, acknowledging the quiet gurglings we all have and never bother to tell anyone ...

One of the calmest and most pleasant dinners I remember attending was at the house of a very accomplished cook who’d plated our entire dinners: braised short ribs, haricots verts, and potato purée, and left them sitting on the dining room table for an hour while we drank wine and ate prosciutto in the living room. Because everything, down to the trouble of transferring dinner from pot to plate, had been done in advance, our hostess was utterly serene. She sat smoothly with us while we slowly lubricated our tongues and warmed our appetites. One of the guests spilled an entire glass of red wine on our hostess’s fox throw blanket, at which our hostess laughed, before moving the blanket to another room. It doesn’t need to be on the table chilling, but serve something best cooked in advance. It will