An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace Paperback – June 19, 2012

I'm sent countless advanced proofs of books asking for "blurbs," words of praise that the publisher can use to entice book buyers. I get so many, in fact, that they can feel more a burden than a pleasure. An Everlasting Meal by a writer I didn't know was one such book, so it was all but accidental that it came with me on a July trip to the beaches of the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where I opened it, reclined on a towel on a gorgeous stretch of sand. By the time I was half finished, I'd already contacted the editor to say I'd happily write something on behalf of this book, because I love it. It's smart, graceful and strangely, beautifully reassuring.

Tamar Adler, a writer and cook who has logged serious time behind the line in actual restaurants, sets out to model her book on How to Cook a Wolf by the doyenne of literary food writing, M.F.K. Fisher--an audacious, incredibly presumptuous intent. Adler does neither Fisher nor herself a disservice in the comparison. The essays in this book are truly fine, formed from both thought-provoking ideas and practical advice about food, cooking and eating. I've read few books that ask us to think about food with this kind of elegance, whether discoursing on how to cook an egg or how to set a table. I always looked forward to picking this book up, and I always felt an ease and comfort while reading. It's hard to imagine a more elegant book of essays on the subject.

A worthy companion to Fisher, highly recommended. --Michael Ruhlman

“An Everlasting Meal is beautifully intimate, approaching cooking as a narrative that begins not with a list of ingredients or a tutorial on cutting an onion, but with a way of thinking…. Tamar is one of the great writers I know—her prose is exquisitely crafted, beautiful and clear-eyed and open, in the thoughtful spirit of M.F.K. Fisher. This is a book to sink into and read deeply.” —Alice Waters, from the Foreword

"It can be tricky, in this age of ethically charged supermarket choices, to remember that eating is an act of celebration. Tamar Adler's terrific book wisely presents itself as a series of how to’s—How To Boil Water, How to Have Balance, How to Live Well—with the suggestion that it's not only possible to do all these things, but in fact a pleasure. An Everlasting Meal provides the very best kind of lesson (reminding us we enjoy being taught), that there is real joy to be had in eating, and eating well." --Dan Barber, Chef/Co-Owner of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns

“Tamar Adler understands a simple truth that seems to evade a lot of cookbook writers and self-proclaimed ‘foodies’: cooking well isn't about special equipment or exotic condiments or over-tested recipes (and it sure isn't about ‘quickfire challenges’ or kicking it up a notch). It's about learning some basics, respecting the ingredients, and developing a little culinary intuition, or maybe just plain common sense. A book can’t necessarily teach you how to do that, but An Everlasting Meal will almost certainly inspire you to teach yourself.” --Colman Andrews, author of The Country Cooking of Italy and Editorial Director of TheDailyMeal.com

“In this beautiful book, Tamar Adler explores the difference between frugal and resourceful cooking. Few people can turn the act of boiling water into poetry. Adler does. By the time you savor the last page, your kitchen will have transformed into a playground, a boudoir and a wide open field. An Everlasting Meal deserves to be an instant and everlasting culinary classic.” –Raj Patel, author of The Value of Nothing and Stuffed and Starved

"An Everlasting Meal is a great thrill to read. Anyone who cooks is engaged in a re-creation of the Enlightenment Age--beginning with alchemy and mystery, always grasping towards chemistry and a tasty supper. With this book, Tamar Adler has chronicled our epic. Her tone manages to make the reader almost feel like he is thinking out loud. A marvelous accomplishment." –Jack Hitt, contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine

“Lessons so right and so eloquent that I think of them as homilies." --Corby Kummer, The New York Times Book Review

“Reads less like a cookbook than like a recipe for a delicious life.” --New York Magazine

"Reading [An Everlasting Meal] is like having a cooking teacher whispering suggestions in your ear.... Mindfulness, I’m discovering through this terrific book, can be delicious."
--Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City

“Tamar Adler has written the best book on ‘cooking with economy and grace’ that I have read since MFK Fisher.”
--Michael Pollan

"What it really is is a book about how to live a good life: take the long view, give to others, learn from everything you do, and always, always, always mindfully enjoy what you are doing and what you’ve done. The fact you’ll learn to be a great cook is just a bonus." --Forbes.com

"Adler proves herself an adept essayist in this discourse on instinctive home cooking. Though highly personal, it’s much less a food memoir than a kind of cooking tao." --The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Simultaneously meditative and practical, about how to appreciate and use what you have and how to prepare it appropriately with a minimum of fuss, space, equipment, or waste." --The Austin Chronicle

The perfect synthesis of literature and self-help. I really think it’s a profound book. (Sheila Heti The Believer)