Tamar Adler's An Everlasting Meal

If there is one cookbook that changed my life more than any other, it is Tamar Adler's 2011 book, An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace.

Tamar unequivocally says that An Everlasting Meal is not a cookbook but rather "a book about eating affordably, responsibly, and well."

It is a book of essays much like M. F. K. Fisher's classic How to Cook a Wolf, and Adler models her book after Fisher's. In the chapter called "How to Catch Your Tail" she taught me that even though I frugally save the roasted chicken carcass to make my own chicken broth, and meat scraps to make beef broth, I had not even thought about saving "tails." 

Tails, the intensely flavored drippings in the bottom of the pan that can be saved to flavor rice. Other tails: the oils left from dried tomatoes or anchovies, the stems of any fresh herb, shrimp shells, fish bones, citrus peels, so many things I threw away that have many uses to enhance food flavors.

Her chapter on How to Feel Powerful? How to Make Peace, How to Live Well, How to Light a Room, How to Weather a Storm. All amazing chapters!

But my very favorite chapter of the entire book, one that alone was worth the price of the book, is titled: 

"How to Build a Ship"

How do you build a ship? Adler lets Antoine de Saint-Exupery answer this question:

"If you want to build a ship,

don't drum up people to collect wood,

and don't assign them tasks and work,

but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."

And dear friends, those of you who sometimes wonder how you're going to get excited about cooking one more meal…

How do you fall in love with cooking again?

How does Tamar Adler answer this question? She says:

"My answer is to anchor food to somewhere deep inside you,

or deep in your past,

or deep in the wonders of what you love."

After reading this chapter I reached far back in my memory and wondered…

What foods or meals tasted better than anything?

My mother's cold coconut cake!

And I do not have her recipe, do not. I tried this one, Coconut-Cream Cake from LUNA in Spokane, Washington. I had clipped it from Bon Appetit magazine (but could not find it in their archives to link to it for you).  It was an all day deal for slowpoke me with a Coconut-Custard Filling to make and chill for 3 hours, the Buttercream frosting to make the base for and chill for 2 hours before completing the steps when ready to frost the cake--and I should have doubled the frosting--and the cake itself to be baked, cooled, split in halves, and then frozen, yes frozen, for 1 hour before assembling the cake.

And it was not like my mother's. Hers must have had a whipped cream frosting. This cake was, still is, delicious, but not as swooningly marvelous as my mother's coconut cake.

So what next? My next memory of the best tasting meal I ever had as a child was eaten once a year. Not Thanksgiving Day meal. It was eaten at Lee's Inlet Kitchen in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina. We vacationed each summer while I was growing up in Myrtle Beach, SC, rented a cottage, and Mama, along with any aunts visiting that year, cooked all our meals.

But one night each year we always drove to Murrells Inlet and ate at Lee's Kitchen. I remember the big platters of seafood my father and uncle always ordered but I can still taste the fried shrimp plate I always ordered, year after year. 

I found out that Lee's Inlet Kitchen is still there, still owned by the same family since 1948. Here's a link to it in case you ever are near. I can still remember sitting there with sunburned arms and biting through the crispy crust to that juicy South Carolina shrimp!

I have 52 other things on my How to Build a Ship list of memorable delicious foods now to consult when I want to cry at the thought of cooking one more meal, but I think good fried shrimp has got to come soon.

[Spode's Albion Ships pattern. I only have 3 of them.]

Tell me now, please,

what is one of the most memorable

meals or dish that you would love to eat soon?