20. An Everlasting Meal | Tamar Adler
I first read about this book via this wonderful lady, then a friend mentioned her and so I knew I needed to get myself a copy. You can get one here.
Friends,
I’ve found myself cooking at home lot more over the last two pandemic years. Time is most certainly a factor, I no longer waste 2.5 hours of my life on trains commuting into a job that I can do from the luxury of my home right next to my kitchen.
So many of the articles and cookbooks I am devouring have led me to Tamar and I am so glad they did! If this is your first introduction, I recommend this article, and this one to get to know her better.
This nugget of great advice I found in one of her interviews which I could not agree with more:
How do you show up and care for yourself?
I am strict about sleep. Unbelievably strict. I shoot for 8-9 hours every night.I actually try to set myself up for 9 because I almost always wake up during the night, and often take a while to fall asleep. So 9 means 8, and 8 would mean 7, and sleep is my medicine and my Achilles heel. When I'm tired, everything seems difficult, insurmountable, stressful, unjust. When I'm rested, everything seems doable.
Some wonderful quotes and a recipe I’ve highlighted:
“All ingredients need salt. The noodle or tender spring pea would be narcissistic to imagine it already contained within its cell walls all the perfection it would ever need. We seem, too, to fear that we are failures at being tender and springy if we need to be seasoned. It’s not so: it doesn’t reflect badly on pea or person that either needs help to be most itself.”
“There is great value in being able to say "yes" when people ask if there is anything they can do. By letting people pick herbs or slice bread instead of bringing a salad, you make your kitchen a universe in which you can give completely and ask for help. The more environments with that atmospheric makeup we can find or create, the better.”
“Cooking is both simpler and more necessary than we imagine.”
“Food is what I love, and how I communicate love, and how I calm myself.”
“Unless you are an aspiring laser beam, your microwave won’t teach you anything. Use yours as a bookshelf, or to store gadgets you don’t use.”
🙂
And an apt recipe for our lives right now:
A Salad For A Natural Disaster
1 can bamboo shoots, well drained & cut into rounds
1 can artichoke hearts, well drained and quartered
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
1 1/2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon jarred horseradish, drained
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt to taste
Mix well and hope for the best.
