An Everlasting Meal

My cooking has changed over the last week, thanks to the beautiful and inspiring book written by Tamar Adler called An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace. I am not going to review the book here, but I will tell you how she changed my cooking.

First, parsley. Adler recommends using fresh parsley on just about everything, for beauty as well as flavor. In the past I would grab a handful of parsley, leaves and stems, chop it up and throw it into soups and over a few select meals. Now I have a parsley bouquet sitting in a tumbler of water on my kitchen counter at all times. When cooking, I take the leaves only,this is key, and chop them up to sprinkle liberally over our food. Delicious.

Salting water for pasta. I never thought about this before. Sure, I would add a sprinkle of salt because, well, I'm not sure why really. Adler recommends salting the water to taste. This changes the outcome of the pasta dish.

Pounding garlic with salt. Grab your mortar and pestle, peel the garlic. Add your garlic to the mortar along with some salt, pound away until it is smashed into a paste, and add to your dishes. Amazing.

Don't be afraid to boil your vegetables. She spoke right to me on this topic. I am terrified of boiling vegetables. Steaming is fine. Roasting is fine, but boiling? Doesn't that take away all the nutrition? She claims that some vegetables just taste better boiled. Period. You can always use the nutritious water that is left over for other things, such as soups, water to cook your pasta in, water to cook beans in.

And that is the final lesson. Nothing is wasted in the mythical kitchen she writes of. One meal transitions into the next. Leftover rice becomes a fritatta or creamy rice pudding. Vegetable peels become a stock as do the parsley stems. Tamar Adler writes of food frugality with a lavishness that nurtures the artist in the kitchen. She opens up the possibilities and delights in simple ingredients. Her writing had me running to my kitchen, throw open the pantry and refrigerator door and savor all the possibilities that were waiting for me there.