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PERFECTLY GOOD FOOD

Irene Li Margaret Li

A Totally Achievable Zero Waste Approach to Home Cooking

How to cook flexibly and fight food waste, with 80 recipes and 150 ideas to use up what you have.
You're standing in front of your refrigerator, a week after your last trip to the supermarket. You've got a bunch of random veggies, some wrinkly fruit, near-expired milk, and those pricey fresh herbs you bought for that one recipe and don't know how to use up. For a split second you picture yourself opening a trash bag, throwing everything away, and ordering takeout. We've all been there. But instead... you pick up this cookbook. In no time you've prepared a Make-It-Your-Own Stir-Fry and How-You-Like-It Savory Pancakes, plus a Mix-and-Match Fruit Galette that you'll have for dessert. Time to celebrate - you're saving food, shrinking that grocery bill, and learning some key skills for making the most of what you have. It's exciting to be able to create new dishes and waste less food, and most importantly - a delicious dinner is on the table! Perfectly Good Food is a book for those moments everyone has, whether you cook for one or a whole household - moments standing before an overfull pantry or near-empty fridge, not sure what to do with an abundance of summer tomatoes or the last of the droopy spinach. Chock-full of ingenious use-it-up tips, smart storage ideas, and infinitely adaptable recipes, this book will teach you - why smoothies are your secret weapon; - how to freeze (almost) anything; - why using your senses in the kitchen (including common sense!) is more important than so-called shelf-life. Written by the chef-sisters behind Boston's acclaimed Mei Mei Dumplings, this cookbook/field guide is a crucial resource for the thrifty chef, the environmentally mindful cook, and anyone looking to make the most of their ingredients. Margaret Li is coauthor of the award-winning cookbook Double Awesome Chinese Food. She is the founder of Food Waste Feast and lives in Glasgow, Scotland. Irene Li is coauthor of the award-winning cookbook Double Awesome Chinese Food. She is a 2022 James Beard Leadership Award winner and lives in Boston, supporting the Mei Mei Dumplings team.
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Published 2023-06-20 by W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. - New York (USA)

Comments

One of the best things about Perfectly Good Food is its desire to help readers depend less on instructions and more on their own confidence in the kitchen, the trickle-down effect of which is less food waste. If you have the confidence and creativity to make something tasty out of that wilted lettuce, you're much less likely to throw it in the trash... [that] confidence is liberating. Read more...

feature/interview with Dana Goodyear: "[Perfectly Good Food] advocates a jazzy, contingency-driven approach to household thrift." Read more...

...The Sisters...have put over a decade of professional experience into a "field guide" for transforming potential kitchen throwaways into delicious meals. ..the book provides both heavily customizable "hero recipes"...as well as ingredient-specific ideas. Read more...

...Margaret and Irene Li...want to help you become someone who knows how to turn a few spare veggies into fried rice, paella or a pot pie... The book is full of recipes and use-it-up ideas to help you eliminate food waste in your kitchen one delicious summer roll at a time. Read more...

Perfectly Good Food is an invigorating change from typical cookbooks because it's (fittingly) not really concerned with perfect, beautiful, farm-to-fridge food; rather, it's about getting down and dirty with the stuff you already have... [Perfectly Good Food] will make it fun to reconceptualize your kitchen into a mean, green, food waste-fighting machine. Read more...

feature/interview with Charlotte Druckman and recipe: "[A] field guide that prioritizes functionality and fun, while providing people with tools they can apply as they're able." Read more...

Feature: Can Cookbooks Teach Us to Waste Less Food? As two new titles demonstrate, it's less about learning specific recipes than how to shift your lifestyle... Read more...