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Leftovers from a meal need not be dumped unceremoniously into the garbage. With some imagination, tonight’s dinner can become part of the next day’s meal, with no one the wiser. Adler (Something Old, Something New, 2018) bursts with ideas for an encyclopedia’s worth of leftovers. Leftover scrambled eggs in the fridge? Add them to an impromptu fried rice. Leftover risotto becomes crunchy, deep-fried arancini, and stale tortillas get fried to make hearty chilaquiles. Kids will love leftover chicken turned into chicken fingers. Adler’s comprehensive approach finds uses for virtually every smidgen of food left from a meal. (Though it’s hard to imagine that many cooks are likely ever to find themselves in a quandary over what to do with leftover caviar or eggs Benedict). These are not prescriptive recipes as much as a challenge to cooks to fire up their own creativity. If all else fails, or the leftovers have grown too old, Adler gently suggests they be composted to nourish a new generation of fruits and vegetables.

Library Journal
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Adler, who has won both a James Beard and an IACP award and wrote An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace, uses her cooking philosophy to create a practical guide to utilizing all the ingredients that enter one's kitchen. This encyclopedic approach to leftovers is divided by type of staple, such as beans and rice, dairy, and vegetables. Leaving nothing behind, Adler has recipes for using every leftover dreg, sprinkle, meal, scrap, and peel. Although this work has a formulaic presentation, Adler finds places to weave in her signature prose and to challenge readers to use all of their senses when executing recipes. Fans of her previous writing will love this book, and it will appeal to those who are conscious of kitchen waste. It will also appeal to home cooks who are days out from their weekly shopping trip and looking in the fridge at the odds and ends, leftovers, and wilting veggies, now with a new tool to create a beautiful meal. VERDICT Unique and practical, Adler's title encourages home cooks to achieve what seems impossible: clean out the fridge, not into the garbage but into an appealing meal.—Sarah Tansley

Publishers Weekly
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James Beard Award winner Adler presents an impressive encyclopedia of recipes for elevated but frugal and environmentally friendly eating. Building on her 2012 essay collection An Everlasting Meal, she offers more than 1,500 recipes intended to reduce food waste by giving new life to everything from wilted cucumbers and old garlic to leftover escargot. For Adler, unused ingredients and remainders are an opportunity, and her philosophy proves infectious. Cores and leaves of cabbages and cauliflowers, for example, are not to be squandered; instead prepare an “any vegetable” sabzi or minestra. Cube leftover Halloumi and fry with olives, chili flakes, and herbs. Rewarm fried oysters and add them to a Remoulade-sauced omelet. What to do with leftover guanciale ends? Make classic pasta All’Amatriciana. And for something sweet, stale cookie crumbles get a chocolate-covered makeover as “cookie clusters.” Recipes run the gamut in international flavor profiles, techniques, and sophistication, occasionally requiring some harder-to-source ingredients (fenugreek, eel, pokeberries). There are also plenty of practical, family-friendly options, and it’s this range that really sets the book apart. Adler’s thorough guide will inspire all levels of cooks to say goodbye to waste and embrace the ABCs of leftovers. Agent: Kari Stuart, CAA. (Mar.)