Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaung. The day this episode drops, we will be right in the heat of the holiday season. I thought I could get away with it, what with the new kid and all. But instead, we've got waves and waves of people coming over between now and the new year to, you know, Google the baby.

And the thing with hosting and having family over is, you've got to feed these people, too.

So if you're in the same boat and you're scrambling for some cooking ideas,

or if you just want to get some culinary inspiration for the new year,

all this week on the pod, we were doing some fun cookbooks from the past year.

Today, we're going to hear about the everlasting meal cookbook by Tamar Adler, which is about cooking new dishes from leftovers.

Now, you don't need me to lecture you about the amount of food waste in this country.

You know, it's a lot.

We all know that.

But she makes a point in this interview with

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly that when you throw out leftovers, you're not just wasting food. You're

also wasting your own labor. That's after the break. In the U.S., national security news can feel

far away from daily life. Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors.

On our new show, Sources and Methods.

NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,

helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.

Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Potato Peels, a mostly empty jar of peanut butter, salty crumbs at the bottom of a container of nuts.

These were among the ingredients we assembled recently in a kitchen in the Washington suburbs

for a cooking session with Tamar Adler, who has a new cookbook out.

It's called The Everlasting Meal Cookbook.

And as you may have guessed, it's a bit unusual.

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