*this post contains affiliate links*

If I had to choose just one book to read for leisure, for the rest of my life, it would be An Everlasting Meal. This book is kitchen poetry and practicality on every page.

The subtitle of this book is a clue to its agenda: Cooking with Economy and Grace.

The author, Tamar Adler, fills your imagination with noble possibilities for the lowliest table scraps.

This is a frugal, zero waste kitchen guide for the ages.

The pages are littered with prose and wit, all about the wonderfully delightful ways the humblest of food can take shape.

Adler tells you right up front, that her book is modeled after a small cookbook published in 1942 by M.F.K. Fisher titled, How to Cook a Wolf.

The “wolf” Fisher’s title refers to is a metaphor for the aggressive, ugly and unwanted presence of lack, poverty, and bare pantries.

Fisher lived during World War II, so ingredient shortages were part of everyday life (can you imagine getting tickets for sugar allowances?!) Cooking a “wolf” is Fisher’s guide to making the most out of little. 

An Everlasting Meal takes the wonderful lessons in How to Cook a Wolf and modernizes them. Adler explains that her book is

“about eating affordably, responsibly, and well, and because doing so relies on cooking, it is mostly about that.“

I learned so much from her thought process—which is essentially what this book is–a peek into a chef’s thought process when they first open their fridge or pantry.

As though Adler is thinking out loud, she introduces you to the possibilities for every scrap of food in your kitchen.

As someone who usually relies on a recipe to give me a starting point for how to combine flavors and create meals, my perspective was really turned on its head.

“Great meals rarely start at points that look like beginnings. They usually pick up where something else leaves off…I have spare but sturdy recommendations for beginnings, and lots for picking up loose ends. Stale slices of bread should be ground into breadcrumbs, which make a delicious topping for pasta, and add crunch to a salad. Or they must be toasted and broken apart for croutons or brittle crackers, which ask to be smeared with olive paste.

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…

I have always found that recipes make food preparation seem staccato: they begin where their writers are, asking that you collect the ingredients their writers have…But cooking is best approached from wherever you find yourself when you are hungry, and should extend long past the end of the page. There should be serving, and also eating, and storing away what’s left; there should be looking at meals’ remainders with interest and imagining all the good things they will become. I have tried to include more of that and fewer teaspoons and tablespoons and cups.”

This book is like a mentor, showing you the methods and mind needed to create meals with the simplest of pantries.

After reading it, I shopped quite differently.

I went to our local weekend farmer’s market and had the freeing experience of shopping for vegetables with my eyes instead of a list. I just loaded up my wagon (yep, kids in tow) with everything that looked appealing. No plans. No recipes. With some essentials in the pantry and freezer, I brought home my haul and began applying the things I learned.

Great food happened this week, but the surprising part was that it happened just like Adler said it would.

Meals grew from hunger and creativity, and the ends that suggested beginnings.

That doesn’t mean I’ll never follow a recipe again, but it frees me from the need to always have one.

Cooking with economy is exactly what she teaches, and I have a huge appreciation for that amidst a culture of consumerism. The waste and discontent, the unquenchable thirst for the next new thing stirs up a rant in me.

I hope in the small act of extracting all the good possible from my food, I can combat the temptation to take so much for granted.

We may not need to cook “wolves” anymore, but I wonder if our stewardship of plenty will be judged and found wanting. What then?

Invite the poetry of this book into your kitchen. Your refrigerator will seem a whole lot more romantic for it, and your budget will have a bit more cushion.

Adler transformed the way I look at food forever. This isn’t just a book, it’s a guide and a friend.