never throwing away well-intentioned vegetables again.
Doesn't this book look appetizing?
A Recipe for Simplifying Life: Ditch All the Recipes
By TARA PARKER-POPE
What’s the first step toward cooking and eating better this year? Perhaps you should start by learning how to boil water.
While
that may not sound like much of a cooking technique, you will gain a
new appreciation for the hidden potential of boiled food after reading
the new book “An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace,”
by the chef and food writer Tamar Adler. Placing a pot of water on a
hot burner allows us to “do more good cooking than we know,” she writes.
Ms.
Adler waits for a rapid boil and adds surprisingly large handfuls of
salt, tasting until it’s reminiscent of ocean water. (People concerned
about sodium can use less.) From that simple starting point, several
meals can be created, from pasta adorned with gently cooked vegetables
to a chicken, simmered and skimmed, cut up and served with a fresh salsa
verde. The chicken leaves behind yet another flavorful dish: richly
flavored broth, to be eaten hot with vegetables or added to other dishes
the rest of the week.
To listen to Ms. Adler talk about cooking
is to be drawn into a rhythmic dance where each step — from washing and
chopping vegetables to cooking and seasoning the meal — flows
effortlessly into the next, guided by the food itself, as well as by our
own basic instincts about what tastes good.
A chapter called “How
to Have Balance” focuses on bread; “How to Live Well” is devoted to
beans. Her message is that cooking does not have to be complicated, and
all anyone needs are a few basics to get started. In instructing readers
on the art of intuitive cooking, Ms. Adler offers not just cooking
lessons, but a recipe for simplifying life.
“There
is this sense that to cook well means to be struck with inspiration,”
said Ms. Adler, 34, whose credentials include stints at the restaurants
Prune, in New York, and Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, Calif. “We think
everything is supposed to be extraordinary.
“But in European and
Asian food culture, food is simply supposed to be good and nourishing
and enjoyable” — and, she added, far less stressful.
Why are so
many of us intimidated by cooking? It may be that this convenience-food
generation never got to see our mothers and grandmothers boiling and
roasting meals without a recipe, turning the leftovers into hash or
stew. Instead we are guided by cooking shows that celebrate the
elaborate preparations and techniques that Ms. Adler calls “high-wire
acts.”
“Anybody who grew up with a lot of home cooking around them
knows that you can have eggs for dinner or that lentils can become
pancakes tomorrow,” she said. “But sometimes we just don’t know that we
can do that because they don’t do that on TV.”
One of her most
important lessons is that we need to spend less time thinking about food
and more time just enjoying it. Her suggestions about how to prepare
vegetables contradict much of what we have been taught, or think we
have.
For instance, while most of us stock our crispers with fresh
vegetables and then spend the rest of the week racing to eat them
before they turn brown, Ms. Adler buys up basketfuls of whatever
vegetables are in season, and as soon as she gets home she scrubs off
the dirt, trims the leaves, chops and peels, and then cooks and prepares
all the vegetables at once — washing and separating lettuce leaves;
drizzling cauliflower, beets and carrots with olive oil and roasting
them in separate pans. Beet greens are sautéed, and chopped stems and
leaves are transformed into pesto.
Many people, myself included,
have long believed that vegetables are best if they are cooked just
before they are served. But cooking vegetables as soon as you buy them
essentially turns them into a convenience food, allowing them to keep
longer and creating a starting point for a week’s worth of meals.
“We’re
told that things need to be fresh,” Ms. Adler said, but too often “we
all end up watching our food go bad, and then it doesn’t matter if it
was fresh, because we didn’t get to eat it.”
Watching Ms. Adler cook vegetables is inspiring. (You can see her routine in two videos titled “How to Stride Ahead” on her Web site, tamareadler.com.)
Roasted vegetables can be enjoyed immediately, but most will be
refrigerated in jars for later in the week. Warmed to room temperature
and drizzled with vinaigrette, they make a savory, earthy salad; or
blended with broth and a splash of cream, they can be a hearty soup.
For
another meal, the cooked vegetables might be used in a frittata or a
warm sandwich. Cooked greens can be turned into a bubbling gratin,
roasted vegetables are added to risotto, and everything left over can
become an end-of-the-week vegetable curry.
The comforting lesson
from “An Everlasting Meal” is that we already know plenty about feeding
ourselves, and we don’t need to complicate things by trying to create
something extraordinary every time we cook.
“I feel like people
are being hit from all sides by a lot of confusing messages, and they
are feeling like eating well is really hard,” Ms. Adler said. “This is
not a question of expertise. Other than being an expert eater, which we
all are by the time we start cooking, we’re already experts at knowing
when things are done or whether they need more seasoning.”
via {nytimes}
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