A wonderfully unique book for food lovers and economical cooks that will change the way you cook! This book walks you through the underrated ways to enjance your food through love, patience and some simple cooking techniques that may have been lost in the modern convenience world. There are some wonderful tips in the book that will definitely excite your meal planning and cooking with quality ingredients from scratch for less!

I enjoy reading cookery books, especially the ones that talk about food more than providing actual recipes, so I thought I'd enjoy this. I didn't. It took me a long time to read. I kept going back, reading a bit, getting bored, then trying again. I skipped bits. It's very US-oriented in terms of ingredients and recipes. If you are an experienced cook, you're probably already quite good at finding things to do with the ingredients you have to hand: if this is the case, there's not much to learn or much inspiration in this book. If you're into healthy cooking, you probably don't have a lot of these ingredients just lying around (canned green beans? eugh)

The author raves about roasting vegetables. I wonder when someone will point out that roasting vegetables is not very environmentally friendly - you use a hell of a lot more energy to roast vegetables for 30 or 40 minutes than to steam them quickly in a pressure cooker. In terms of being healthy, I would guess that quick steaming means you retain more nutrients too, especially if you can retain the steaming water and use it in a sauce, for example.

Cooking with common sense

Tamar takes you through making the most of the food you buy by using everything from peelings in stock through to using left overs to make more meals. This is the common sense way most people had to cook in the past to make the most of the food they had. Sharing this knowledge and approach now enables us all to waste less food and energy, think about new taste combinations and extend our culinary skills all at the same time - what’s not to love?

I think this approach would take a while to get used to but would be well worth it. I read the book on my kindle, there’s a good index at the back of the book but I think a hard copy would be better for use in the kitchen.

I was given this book from the author via netgalley only for the pleasure of reading and leaving an honest review should I choose to.

I collect old cooking book and I liked this one that made reminded me of some that were published in the first half of XX century.
Well written, easy to follow, full of interesting ideas.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

The amount of love for food I found in this book made it one of the best on the topic that I have ever read. There's also such a love for others who write about food in a way that's deeper and more personal than merely providing instructions and facts. I'm so happy I went out on a limb to try something different, and picked up this fantastic read. I feel inspired to eat, I feel inspired to play with food, and I feel inspired to appreciate the entire process around meals.

Lovely - my kind of cookery book. If you like precise recipes this is not for you. This book is more about learning to use what you have, with some batch cooking and inspiration for putting together meals both simple and fancy. The language is quite flowery at times, but overall it's charming, and has certainly provided me with some inspiration.
Thanks to the publisher for a review copy.

I love this book, especially when everyone is trying to make food and money to further than ever. A very comforting and encouraging book. I plan to buy this as gifts for friends when it appears on the shelves.

This book by Tamar Adler is an interesting read and a good pick for any foodie who is concerned about sustainability. The author gives great tips on how to reuse scraps of leftovers and make them into a new or everlasting meal, paying respect to each part of the vegetable/fresh produce. There are many excellent ideas on how to save time on cooking, yet make sure you can eat fresh vegetables every day without the hassle of cooking them immediately. I also appreciate the advice on storing and best practices, which help preserve the food so you can reuse it.

I would have appreciated some more detailed insights into why it's better to prepare a certain food in a certain way. The author shows a creative and thoughtful approach to food and cooking. I would, however, think twice before sticking my fingers into the boiling water to taste it for salt, or boiling rice for 50 minutes, adding chopped lettuce, and eating it as a soup.

Nevertheless, I got many great ideas for my own cooking experiments and would recommend this book to anyone who loves to cook and doesn't want to waste any food.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Swift Press for an advanced copy of this book.

I enjoyed reading this. It’s not an over the top superlative enjoyment nor a disdain at over-writing. It was a pleasant, empowering read. It helps to think of food a little differently, to think of the beauty and companionship of food, the simplicity of enjoying good food well cooked.

The idea of an everlasting meal where one meal feeds into the next and that the next is a beautiful idea. In an era where sustainability and food waste as at the forefront of our mind due to the cost of living crisis, tips on using up leftovers and all parts of the vegetable or ingredient are helpful but the hints suggested here by Adler are very fiddly and time consuming and it is not practical for the average person to undertake in addition to work and family commitments. There are a few recipes in the book but these are oddly not detailed.. The prose is poetic but has a tendency to be flowery and at times a bit nonsensical.

Most concerning of all is the authors suggestion that we stick our fingers in a pan of boiling water to taste it which is quite frankly incredibly dangerous and I am shocked that the publishers allowed this to be kept in when editing.

This is a wonderful book, fun, informative and easy to follow. There are great recipes, great ideas and great ways to use up nearly everything. I like that.

This is an interesting book, the authors descriptions are so tasty and she makes you want to get in and try things out. This book makes you think about your kitchen, your food, your cooking and your shopping.

Although for some the fact there are not clear and concise recipes or instructions for people like myself it is a fun way to experiment and try new ways of thinking about food.

A good fun, good food type of book.

A philosophy book as well as a book that teaches you how to cook, in the simple way, by using whatever is available. I enjoyed the writer's attitude to life. Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for giving me a copy of the book, it is highly recommended.