October 23, 2024 • 42 mins
Yotam Ottolenghi, like many of us, is looking for comfort now more than ever. The influential London-based chef joins Martha today to talk about his newest cookbook: Ottolenghi Comfort. These passionate cooks talk about the simple foods that comfort them and tips about the ingredients they use for them, from pomegranates to phyllo dough. Yotam also shares his insights on the how the Israeli cuisine he grew up around came to be blended from the many diasporas of Jewish people. This charming conversation will leave you hungry for more!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I mean, this book really is not so much a
cookbook about comfort food per se. It's not about Dodge
and mac and cheese and pizza. It's really more about
the notion of comfort as an emotion, as an emotional
reaction to food.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yo Autolangi is a chef and a best selling author
whose name has become synonymous with the region that inspires
his cooking. He began building his empire of beautiful, upscale
food shops in London two decades ago. He now has
seven auto lanky shops and two fine dining establishments. He
is here in New York today at the Newsstands Studios,
(00:41):
our favorite tiny little studio in Rockefeller Center, to celebrate
his new book, Comfort, his eleventh cookbook. Welcome to my.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Podcast, Yo, Tom, Thank you. It's so good to be here,
so nice to see you again.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I haven't seen you for quite a few years. I
don't think I've been to London since before COVID COD.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
It's all before or after COVID BC or so.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I remember we do, we do, and and we have
a picture together from Nope and it pops up with
my phone as a memory once a.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Nice Well you have a new cookbook called comfort. Almost
every single cookbook author that I know ultimately comes out
with a book called comfort, comfort food. Why now, why Comfort?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
I will do my best to make it stand out
amongst all the comfort recip books that you talk about.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
After after reading through every recipe, it stands out very nice.
And your recipes make my mouth water, and they always
have ever since your very very first book. And after
I visited all the delis and why did they call
them delis? I can't. I did British deli.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
It's really not like an American high end take out
take away shop.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yes, yeah, but they're so good and I and I
always take snack food out of every single one, So
you should, And why not in New York? I can't
remember you said you might do something in New York.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
I know I always overpromise and underdeliver. I mean, not
on the book front, but on the opening internationally front.
It's just it's so difficult to run restaurants and cafes
these days. I find these everything is so much more expensive.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Cost of food.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Cost of food has gone through the root.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Rageous chocolate went up more than one hundred percent in
a very short amount of time. But I'll answer your
question why comfort and why now? So, I mean, this
book really is not so much a cookbook about comfort
food per se. So it's not about you know, stodge
and mac and cheese and pizza. There are those things
here more or less, but it's really more about the
(02:45):
notion of comfort as an emotion, as an emotional reaction
to food. And I've got three co authors on this book,
and each and every one of us has got Helen,
Tara and Verena. We cover quite a lot of ground
in terms of the places we've been to, the places
we've traveled where what we started. Helen is of Malaysia
Australian origin, Verena is from a Swiss and a Swiss
(03:08):
and Scottish background, and myself from Israel, and Tara is
British but traveled a lot extensively in the Middle East.
And we really bring stories that are about our connection
to recipes. You know, when you travel, when you immigrate,
you can't take hardly anything with you, but the food
memories and the cooking is something that you take. And
(03:29):
this book is all about our food memories and things
that make us feel sense of comfort, a sense of ease,
and especially today with the way the world is and
how awful it is, the sort of things that are
unraveling in the Middle East and really give me a
lot of pain. And I think about it every single day,
every single hour. There is something about food that just
(03:50):
allows you to alleviate that pain just a bit. It's
that kind of sense of comfort that comes through doing
an age old tradition of cooking, and that's very prominent.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
And did these recipes take you home to Jerusalem?
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Many of them do? Many of them do take me
home to Jerusalem.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
How often do you get to go back there?
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I go.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
My mother is a liar, my dad passed away, So
I go see her at least three or four times
a year.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
And she's still there.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
She's still there.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
And she come to London and stay with you for
a little while until this nonsense is over.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
I don't think she would want to, and I think
she's she's quite a steadfast person and she I think
she wants to stay where she is. She's okay, she's safe,
unlike a lot of other people around the region that
are not. So I feel very grateful for that. But
the flavors do the flavors do take me back and
I'm just looking here at a meatloaf that that is
(04:43):
in the book. It's just I just happen to be
on this book and it's goes to shawarma spices.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
And tell our listener, what is sara?
Speaker 3 (04:50):
I love that name Suarma is? Is? Is it kind
of spicy?
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Shuarma has got me different meanings, but it's often referred
to as a particular way of spicing meat, lamb, chicken.
And often you buy shawarma on a spit like meat
on a spit. But this the seasoning is very much
about sweet spices. So it's got all spice, it's got cumin,
(05:19):
it's got paprika and garlic, and those kind of flavors
are the flavors of this meat loaf.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
And you know, meat floafs can be Look.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
What kind of meat.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
So in this particular one, we use lamb, but you
can use beef if you like. And the really nice
thing about this, first of all, we cook it in
a skillet, which means it doesn't look like that kind
of block meat balls. Meat loaves can look quite blocky
and very mundane, but this one looks a bit more
festive because it cooks.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
It's cooked like a cake.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
And it's got caramelized onions on top that have pomegrand
molasses in them, so you've got like sweet onions on
top of that kind of savory meaty.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
And fresh pomegranate seeds and fresh pomegranate seeds.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Very timely recipe for right now, because the pomegranates are
just getting into the marketplace exactly. This is the I
eat a pomegranate a day.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
I also eat pomegranates every day, and I think they're wonderful.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Every day. There is just so much potassium, so much
vitamin sea. We take all the seeds out of a
pomegranate and put them in a bowl and they're covered
in the refrigerator for me. And every day I eat
them with a spoon.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
I know, I eat them with the ygar.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
I just eat them plain, and my mouth is puckered
by the time I'm finished with one.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
The most incredible. They are the most incredible.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
But they're so good for you. I mean, why eat
a banana when you can eat a bowl full of
pomegranate seeds. That's what I think.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
I'm with you.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
And more and more potassium too. But Middle Eastern cooking
uses a lot of pomegranates.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Yeah, the pomegranate in the juice is a wonderful thing.
To concentrate the juice. It's like the Middle East and
equivalent of palsamic vinegar. It's sharp and the cidic at
the same time, it's very sweet.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
So is that the extractor the molasses?
Speaker 1 (06:59):
The the molasses is effectively what it is is like
boiled down juice of pomegranates, the real proper molasses.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
That's all it is. Yeah, because there's such.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
A high sugar level when you boil it down and
get that kind of syrupy texture.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
That so.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
But I also get from my friend Linda Resnik. Did
you ever meet missus Resnick in California?
Speaker 3 (07:17):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Oh, she started, she and her husband started the Franklin
Mint and she now really is the proprietress of most
of the pomegranate groves in California. So she started a
company called Palm Wonderful and for her best friends, and
somehow I got on the list for her best friend.
She sends us the extract of pomegranate juice once a month.
(07:42):
I get six. I think there are like six quarts
of pomegranate extract, So you just add that to hot
water like a tea, or you add it to a
pomegranate margarita. It's the best thing in the whole and
so healthy.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
I mean addicted.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I am. No, I'm addicted to pomegranate. So this recipe.
Guess what it's on my next week's menu.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Car, I highly recommend.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah, it's really really nice. You've talked about this book
as featuring foods you eat when nobody else is around.
What you eat when nobody else is around? Well, what
do you eat? What do you snack on? What do
you eat for breakfast? No?
Speaker 3 (08:18):
What do I eat for breakfast?
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Do you eat breakfast?
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Not every day, but most days I eat. You mentioned
pommegrand It's funny. I tend to eat yogurt and pomegranate
sees berries if they're in season, and.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
You swallow the whole seed. Oh yeah, oh you do.
I see I spit out the I spit out the pith.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
There's a lot of work.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
No, you just chew it and get all that nice
juice and then I spit it out, and then I
chew it and then I spit it out. I love eat.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
I wouldn't be able to.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
But you just have a contrast with myself of how
to get every seed out of a pomegranate in a
white linen bed.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Try that.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
I'll tell you it's a funny story. When I was
growing up in Jerusalem, my mother used to send my
younger brother and I to the garden, to our little
courtyard outside to eat the pomegran It's naked without our
clothes on, because she'd say, do not mess. You know,
the stains don't come off, doesn't come off, So she
(09:11):
we would go out to the garden just in our underwear.
I eat the pomegranate's peel them, bash them, eat the thing,
and then come back to that.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
So great, But they are a confection for me. They're
a confection. So you so what do you eat? What's
your favorite thing?
Speaker 3 (09:25):
For me?
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Comfort food is meat bowls, it's rice, it's pasta, it's potato.
But it could also be something it It can also
be cake. I think there's something about there's like it
depends on the time of the day, like what do
I feel like? So there isn't such such a thing
for me as ultimate comfort food. Comfort comes it reflects
(09:46):
reflects or of what of the question of what what
it is that I feel like eating.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
We eat a bowl of plain rice.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
I not only that because you were asked me what
I eat when nobody's looking. So I boil a pot
of rice, and kind of I have smiley rice, long
grain rice. I wash it, I cook it quickly absorption method,
and I put and I grate in some fresh parmesan
or pecorino and black pepper, and.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
And that's what I have.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
You know, that's like it's like it's just like pure
delicious cheesiness.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Butter as well. Yeah, the butter as well. Butter as well,
you forgot that. I forgot the butter.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
I've been I've been eating Japanese the highest quality Japanese
sushi rice just steamed in the Japanese steamer, and and
it's like almost translucent. And then I add a little
bit of Japanese rice wine seasoned vinegar on top of
that and just eat that. No, I don't even so
(10:45):
it's so delicious.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
It's the rice rice, well rice. I think it has
got magical qualities. When you boil rice. The smell it
brings into the house so good. It's just got that
that kind of it permeates the whole latmosphere for me,
Like my comfort food is a tray of baked rice,
either almost on its own or I start adding things.
(11:07):
I've got a recipe here for cheese ball rice. So
I cooked rice the same method that I describe to
you in the oven. But I make these balls of
cheese with feta, ricotta and cheddar, and I kind of
deposit them in the rice and as it steams, I
covered really well.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Put in the avenue and melts and spread slightly.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
I'm going to try that.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Yes, that's what I make for my kids, and they
absolutely love it.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Well, this is book number eleven, And how is your
book writing process? I'm very interested in and how people
write their cookbooks because I have a new book coming
out this fall.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Also your book? Is it? Book number I was twenty hundred,
so funny, got a way to go.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
It is so funny. That's in forty two years. You've
only eve been writing for how many years?
Speaker 3 (11:50):
But fifteen fifteen?
Speaker 2 (11:51):
So just wait, that's in forty two years. But I
wrote a page in the book towards the end about
how I write a cookbook, and it was so nice
to write it, and my grandchildren read that. That was
the first page they read in this book. They're twelve
and thirteen, and they got really excited about maybe they
could write a cookbook because I made it easy. But
it's not easy. It's a very hard process. But it's
(12:15):
a fun process and a thoughtful process. So how do you.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Write it's a fun for I'm going to give you
two answers. The first answer has to do with the
process of writing cookbooks, and as it always happens, and
that's true to every cookbook that I've ever published, and
that is that, first of all, comes a collection of
recipes that you really want to tell the.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
World about me.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
I've got to a thirty or forty recipes that are
the beginning of the process, which really and I don't
even know what the book is yet about It could
be anything. I mean, I have a vague idea if
maybe it's a vegetable book, or maybe it's a book
about home cooking like this one, but I don't know
what the message that I'm going to get. And then
I start building layers. So I've got a bit of that,
and I say, okay, let's have a bit more of that.
If I've got a few recipes with roasted vegetables. I said,
(12:59):
let's try to see where we go in that direction.
If I've got a couple of interesting desserts or delicious desserts,
I go in that direction as well. And then the
recipes kind of swell, and then I look at it.
When I'm at like number eighty or ninety is close
to you know, the most recipe.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Books about one hundred hundred recipes.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
So when I get to the seventy eighty stage, I
go I look at it again, and I say, Okay, well,
now now I'm going to see what the book is
telling me. And once I know what the book is
telling me, I can kind of finish it off and
listen to it and write the narrative. And the other
answer I wanted to give, which is really important, is
that people that have followed me know that I don't
really write my books on my own anymore. I work
(13:38):
with a particular person or of two other people on
every book.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Two and the co author is.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Really important because most of my books are collaborations and
we work really really closely together, so I kind of
bring someone in with me to the process. So here
I've got helen with recipes from Malaysia from China, and
I've got Verena with recipes from German recipe and one
Scottish recipes and those those collaborations are really crucial because
(14:05):
we have the best conversations. You know, things kind of
influence each other. I've got a recipe for shikuka here
with like tamarind and and star and nies uh and
and and it's just like, what is that all about.
It's not a proper chixchuka, but it is. After I've
spoken to Helen for half an hour, that's where we
end up.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Nice. I'm going to make this weekend Dutch baby with
oven roasted tomatoes. I have a lot of cherry tomatoes
in my garden still, you know, it's not the garden's
not over yet, and I have a giant garden, and
(14:44):
I was I've been picking these deliciously sweet cherry tomatoes,
all different colors, and I have just been roasting them
in the oven with olive oil and a little bit
of salt and pepper, and they're so good roasted like that.
So this and those you just put on top of
the Dutch baby. What's different about this Dutch baby?
Speaker 3 (15:01):
So this Dutch baby also has bacon in it, it
has mustard powder.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
It has mustard powder. And to the audience, they don't
know what a Dutch baby is. A big puffy pancakes
cooked in.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
A pan, the pan in the oven.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
It's almost like Yorkshire pudding, the.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Yorkshire pudding exactly.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
It's like a Yorkshire pudding, but a bit flatter, so
it's a bit wider.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
And I make it a lost for my kids. You know,
there are nine and eleven. They like, you know, a
pancake for the weekend.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
So I make a big Dutch Baby and I fill
it up with berries. And then the best way I
found to divide the Dutch baby is using scissors.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Yeah, Like I cut it.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Like a you slide it another pan.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
I took it, I take it into a chopping board
and I cut it like wedges with scissors, and I
think it's the best way to serve it.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Tried that this weekend, so I think that I've never
had it. Savory.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Yorkshire pudding is the is the single most important culinary
contribution that Britain made.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
The Britain made to this.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Is from that, right, don't you think the Dutch baby.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
I'm sure the Dutch but it's called Dutch, baby.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Maybe the Dutch no, you know, Dutches is a bastardization
of the word Deutsch, which is German. So someone heard Deutsche,
they call it Dutch, but actually it's of German origins.
But you know, as all these things, with these things,
they kind of develop all over the world at different times,
so I'm not sure what the origin really is.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
So testing the recipes that goes on in your restaurants
or no.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
I have a dedicated spased a test kitchen and there's
a team and we test recipes for different publications and
for the books.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
There's like three.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
So you're writing your weekly column for The Guardian, which
is such a nice call. I love that, thank you,
because a lot of introspection goes into that into that writing.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
I do that once a week, and I've got the
New York Times once a month. So there's a lot
of recipe creation going on, and there's always a book
on the go.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
So there's a team that does that.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
And we have a really lovely process or that with
the recipe development. Each team member takes a recipe from
start to finish. They own the recipe, but everybody else
has the right to comment. So you know, we get
around the dish and everybody has to comment. Then that
person goes and works on the next version and the
next version, and sometimes we're stuck with their stock. I mean,
(17:13):
it's a joy to do, but sometimes we have to
try something three, four or five six times before we
really get it.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Did those recipes also find their way into your restaurants?
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Sometimes they do, but not always. Cooking at home and
cooking in restaurants are two very different activities. You know,
restaurants is about a particular logistical nightmare because you need
to there's so many considerations. But ideas come from the
books into the restaurants, but also the other way around.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
So I feel very lucky to have people.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Around me that are professional chefs that work in restaurants
right now that bring up some really cool ideas to
the So.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
What are the hallmarks I'd like to hear from you?
What the hallmarks of your style are.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
It's very vegetable heavy.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
That would be one thing because I grew up in Jerusalem,
where vegetables are really so central to the food, to
the cooking, and also because there's so much good, great
and great fresh felt.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
There is no there was no Israeli cooking. When Israel
became Israel.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
No, there was Palestinian cooking very influential on Israeli cooking.
And then there's the cooking of the different diasporas, people
that have immigrated from Europe, from North Africa, from the
Middle East and have brought their own foods with them.
And Jerusalem has this incredible combination of food that comes
from from these diasporas combined with the local Palestinian food,
(18:32):
and that's the I think that's the essence of what
people call Israeli food these days. It's all these things
coming together.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Flavors. Flavors are unique.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
So I think when it comes to my food, it
really I wouldn't call I don't my food is not
Israeli food because I think it would if you look
at what I'm cooking or serving. It's very much influenced
by the people I work with, So there is a
there's a lot of contrast in the food. So it's
a very layered and contrastful food. So we create a
(19:02):
lot of layers of flavor and texture. Every recipe will
have to have a few layers of of of flavor
and texture. And it's very sunny so there's a lot
of color going on.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
The color.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
When I say color, I don't I don't just mean visually,
I also mean a metaphorical it's it's it's intense. There's
quite a lot of contrast there. And this is this
has become the signature of the food that I do.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
I'm just looking at a picture of polenta pancakes with
spiced corn salad. That looks really good.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
It's really really good. That's spice porn. It's got curry
leaves in it. And I love curry leaves, yeah, because
it's not always easy.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
To find, and so I can I can make this,
do you don't you.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Just love them? They are just we have a lot
of recipes for curry leaves.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
And I have so many peppers this year too.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
You had, you had a good good.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
The best pepper you're ever, the best egg plant your ever,
and the brosscas, all the brassocas I had. Really, I've
never seen such giant cabbages and stuff we have.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
But these, oh, these are Moroccan pancakes, you know, the
thousand hoole pancakes.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
I love that a bit like a crumpet, aren't you?
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Yes, they are yeah, oh, I can't wait to try.
That's every single page you want to cook the recipes
in this amazing book. Where do these these?
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Ah? My friend Kaz, she's been.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Every chapter is opens with a very modernistic painting. An unusual, unusual.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
And incredible graphic designer. She actually I share her with Nigella. Oh,
she designs my book in Nigella's book. Look at these
pages and those cover those really rhyme with the cover,
not the American cover, but with the British cover.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah, yeah, that's nice.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
And and it's quite nineteen. It's a bit mirror Meco nineteen.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
It is very very bright colors. All it looks like
a giant jigsaw puzzles.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
So, and a roasted egg plant, red bell, pepper and
tomato soup.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
This is perfect for you because you've got all everything
from your garden exactly.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
And I'm going to make that I have so many
egg plants. I don't like to eat too many egg plants,
but I love I love miso eggplant. I think I
love the roasted egg plant.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
I've just I've just demonstrated a recipe for egg plant
caesar dressing.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
So it's it's the cream cream.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah, it's the eggplant cream with anchovies and parmesan. So
you make an anchovy, parmesan and burnt eggplant sauce, quite
a thick one. It's delicious, it's got lemon juice, it's
got garbleants.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
My daughter is going to make that because she makes
caesar salads older and clients, and she loves your recipes.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
And you dip the crud de taise in sign and
it's just a wonderful. You know, it's like a bit
like it's a kind of a banya kauda, but with
the eggplant and good.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
I recommend that.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
So the the plant focus is very important to the
auto lingy recipes.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
The plants. Yeah, the plant focus we've got.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
You know, one of the things that I found out
in this book which I didn't really know beforehand.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
It's very funny.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
You're gonna get I thought I knew everything there is
to know about vegetables, but I didn't know before working
on this book, and that is that when you overcook vegetables,
when you cook them to until they're very soft, then
they become comforting. So you know this technique of kind
of steaming vegetables in their own juices. So We have
a recipe here for we call it beans on toast,
but effectively it's eurycover or French beans in a pot
(22:35):
with olive oil, quite a bit of olive oil. Slice
garlic in the futurey tomatoes. You close the lid and
you just let them sit there for half an hour,
steaming in their own in their own juices. And it's
a low heat, so it's they go soft, but they
go so wonderfully delicious. And it's very common in Turkish
cooking and the Balkans to cook vegetables like that. Yeah,
(22:57):
and most of the time I like my beans tender,
but this particular recipe there's just so good. We serve
them on a toasted sour dough bread with a bit
of fat on top, so it becomes it's.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Always or always yogurt, or always something delicious on the
top of you. No, really, that's so unique that when
I first discovered you, I just couldn't believe how how
utterly delicious every single thing I put in my mouth was.
And this is wait, this is right. I mean I
discovered you when you came out with your first book.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
I know I came to you.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
You were in Paris, weren't you in Paris.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
I came to your show, yes, to appear in your show.
I don't know how long ago, but I know I've
got kids in there eleven years old. Before that, I
want to say fifteen years ago.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
But really and truly, the it was the combination of
spice of mixed vegetables. That and the color. Everything I
noticed were in any restaurant of yours or in any
deli of yours is the color everything is brilliant.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
And you know why that is is because when we
opened our first shop, Semmy and I, we put the
food was for sale visually, so you know.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
When you go to restauran you get a menu, you
don't know what it looks like.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
So when you get it doesn't matter because it will
be delicious, and that what counts well. People buy with
their eyes a bit like in the market, and they
come to us and we created this visual language which
is which really puts a lot of how beautiful.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
That includes all your beautiful desserts.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Too, yeah, yeah, those two, and.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Also just the architecture of your of your shops and
your restaurants. I remember just going around taking pictures of
every detail in your lovely restaurant in your first restaurant
in London?
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Is it the notting Hill one, the Little one? Yeah? Yeah,
it's still there.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Oh, it's amazing. And who designed that?
Speaker 3 (24:41):
You had?
Speaker 1 (24:42):
My friend Alex Michelist is an incredible artitact and he
designs all our restaurants and I have to give him it,
really yeah, And I have to give him a lot
of credit because when he said to us when we
just started more than twenty years ago, oh, you know,
make it white, I said, like why and food?
Speaker 3 (24:58):
That doesn't really work.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Color because your food is the color.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
And that's exactly what it said to me.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Your food will bring the color and the white background
is what you want for the rest of you.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
And it was modern and it still is modern, and
it still is just a delightful atmosphere.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Yeah, yeah, really great. And why did you leave Israel
and end up in London? That's your home now?
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Yeah, I've been living in London for twenty five years
or more.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Well, I left London.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
I left Israel to just explore the world and I
lived in Amsterdam for two years. Hence there's a Dutch
apple cake in the book. Just had to say that
because I love Dutch apple cakes, and there's one there
that is inspired by my time in Amsterdam. But I
moved to London because in the late nineteen nineties, because
I went to study at the courdon Bleue to.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
How to this is after studying philhilosophy and phrenomology whatever
that is. And and you gave up You got your PhD?
Speaker 3 (26:07):
No, no, I got a master's.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Did you write your thesis?
Speaker 1 (26:10):
I was, yeah, I wrote my thesis. I got my master's,
but I was, I was. I wanted to start a PhD.
But I gave it up and went and.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Went to Courdroon Blue. Were your parents horrified.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Or yeah, terrified? Terrified?
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Horrified academics The parents are academics and uh and there
you are going to the Courdron Blue.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
In London, and I just I just found I found
food such a relief from that the slavery of the mind,
you know that kind of when you go to university,
there's always like you know, I found it exhausting, and
kitchen work is physically exhausting, but mentally it's quite relaxing
because you effectively have you go into the kitchen. I
(26:48):
don't know if you did have that Martha, but don't
do Do you find cooking like like meditation?
Speaker 3 (26:52):
I still feel that way.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yesterday I had so much butternut squash and I was
reading your book, and I thought, what am I going
to do with all this butternut squash? And I have
a lot of people that work on my farm, you know,
the guys who were the guys who were planting, and
the guys who take care of the horses, and and
I thought, I'm going to use I'm going to I'm
going to give them butternut squash for lunch. So I
didn't use a recipe. I just I just cut them off,
hollowed them out, and put them skin side up in
(27:15):
the oven and steam them a little bit. Then I
put in chili flakes and chili powder and butter and
a little olive oil and salt and pepper coarse sea salt.
It was the most delicious wash, so good. And that's
what they got for lunch. And they love it. They
love when when they're eating something that comes from the farm.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Who doesn't mean it's the best.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
But I want to make your squash stew.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Yeah, there's squashed to coconut.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
And I didn't have I didn't have any coconut milk salt,
couldn't you.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
I recommend that one. It's really really delicious.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
But just going back to this sense of cooking being
something that isn't I.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Didn't have time to do that, yesty. I didn't have time,
but I did it.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
I make time because you and and I.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Was also pickling my Vacchino peppers, you know those tiny
little peppers, bread and yellow. I made my own pickling
brine and I there there are now just brining away
and they're so cool. Everybody wants them because they do
and they take a long time to pick out of
the garden. But that's what I do that just to
(28:20):
get my mind straight on.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
And that day thing.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
I know, this is why going back to question why
comfort and why now, I feel that something that really
occurred to me while we were working on the book
is that ten or fifteen or twenty years ago, people
cooked really from a different place. They wanted to impress.
You know, there was all these big dinner parties and
people wanted to create these kind of very lavish fish
(28:45):
feasts and dishes, something that nobody's ever tried before. And
that's quite stressful. And I think since COVID, but even
before that. People cook for different reasons. They cook to recenter,
they cook to feel comfort, They cooked, and they go
and cook old recipes, not necessarily things that are out there.
And this book, for me, it was really important to
do things that are familiar, like a soup or a
(29:05):
pasta or a roast chicken, which is everybody can relate
to that. Maybe I added different spice, but everybody can relate.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
To your roast chicken looks delicious.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
In here, the roast chicken has the roast chicken.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
So the roast chicken has a duca under the buttered
douca under the skin. So we make a duca. But
the duca, you know duca, and the listeners who don't know,
it's an Egyptian nut and spice makes It's got hazel
nuts and coriander and cumin and it's all ground into
a powder and that seasons a lot of dishes in Egypt.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
But it's just a wonderful thing to make.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
So we make this stuca, and we also had fried
curry leaves to it and we blitz it together, so
it's got a curry flavor and we mix it with
butter and put it under the skin off the chicken,
so when you eat the chicken, you almost have like
a little nuts roast under the skin.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
I often do that with different kinds of stuffings. You
do that under the skin, Yeah, I always have. I
started when I was catering. I used to do a
chicken breast with a beautiful green spinach and parsonally under
the skin of the chicken breast, which made it unique,
you know, different.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
And it's really nice because, like favors, if you cut
through it, you see that layer of something delicious going
on and it just feels it feels special.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
So, how much of your culinary education stems from your parents,
your family versus your culinary studies?
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Don't I can answer that. I think most of what
I cook today is based on the last twenty or
thirty years since I started my or twenty years since
I started my business. I've been surrounded by cooks and chefs,
and I've been absorbing, you know, I've been absorbing being ideas,
I've been going and traveling. So most of it is that.
But there are certain fundamental aspects to food, and I
(30:50):
think this is one of those things that you never
put behind that comes that come from my childhood, and
that we have a recipe here for a breakas like
a circular brecas breck Turkish or you know a Balkan. Yeah,
and it's got it's like a span of copita, but
in a in a circular form or snail form. And
(31:10):
this takes them back right back to my child because
you'd go with have dedicated shops that would sell them
where they were cheesy, mushroom, you know, potato, even the
stuffing and would go and there was always they would
always be served with a hard boiled eggs, so you'd
get the egg, you crack it and peel it and
eat the break at the same time. It's a wonderful
thing to have together, especially if you have some tiny
(31:31):
sauce or greater tomato.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
To go with.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
There's always something else. Every single way be prepared because
these recipes are not three ingredients. These have more than
three ingredients. And but that's what makes them so delicious.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
They have more than three ingredients, but.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
There's a flavor. They're not they're not hard to make.
You just have to have your pantry in order to
get get through this book. And I like that. I
like I like having my pantry in.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
Order trying to find that picture of the breakast to show.
I just think it's so special here.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Yeah, you know, you got a hard boiled egg and
got some olives and you've got the greater tomato Sauceiny,
that's a wonderful brunch.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
That is so good looking. I love that. And you
is that fought filo?
Speaker 1 (32:16):
So you know, you know, and I don't know if
you ever tell your readers when you when you have
bought Filo. It's very little work. You spread the sheet,
the brush butter on top of it.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
It's very tasty.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
It's baking one on one, you know.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
I get mine Poseidon though here in New York homemade.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
It's very good. You're lucky.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Yeah, we're lucky that we have a shop right.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
Near boy Go and buy it.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Oh yeah, I buy the Filo.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
There's nothing like it.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, and it's very chasty. And then make sure you
make all your buckle vaugh and everything else at the
same time. I keep it in the freezer. It's so good.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Yeah, you should freeze it.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
So you you move to London, you go to the
court and blue. Did you work in restaurants?
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Yeah, I worked in restaurants.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
It was your first restaurant.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
And my first restaurant was called The Capitol. It was
a French influenced British restaurant in Knightsbridge. It had a
Michelin star. It was a nightmare. It was an absolute nightmare.
I lasted for three or four months. I found it
so difficult, but also I found it really crushed my
spirit because it was very technical and I didn't this
(33:18):
food just didn't speak to me.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
I found it.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
I spent so much time on doing things and the
results were so tiny and unsatisfying, you know, processing the
vegetables to these ridiculously small pieces, and.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
I just wanted out of there. And then I moved on.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
I worked for a chef called Roly Lee, a wonderful
British chef that has had a restaurant called Kensington Place.
I'm sure you're aware of that around the street from
Sally Clark, and they're off that generation in the eighties
and nineties in London. That kind of brought in the
kind of slightly the Californian European vibe to London. And
I ended up working for these people, and after that
(33:55):
I realized that you can work in restaurants and actually
have fun. It doesn't need to be this crazy, you know,
regimented micheline environment, and the food is also much more
delicious and when you cook it properly like people cook
at home or in the street.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
So who are your Who are your favorite chefs that
you whose food you have eaten and loved? And here
in New York.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Too, In New York, Oh, Mike Solomonov I have.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
I love his food. We've I've met him a few times.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
And he's got Laser Wolf in Brooklyn, which I think
is a wonderful restaurant.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
I've beaten there, you have, Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Too much food.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
It has a lot of food, so much food.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
It's so good. So I love him. I've been when
my parents really have. As we've established, I had a big,
big influence with me in terms of food writing. I
think that Jederal loss And really influenced me and how
much she made writing about food so much part of
the of the recipe making.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
And I love the thoughts she gives.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
And she also had a lot of allusions to other
things in her recipes, which I loved a lot of stories.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Yeah, and I do I like I like the people
that have come from California in the eighties and nine,
and like Debrahmatis and I think she's her books are
great and are so good with vegetables.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
I learned a lot from her.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
As well, So there's a I like those books that
take the subject matter very seriously, but don't take themselves
too seriously. And I think it's a very different kind
of perspective.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
So food shopping in London easy hard.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
It's it's I have I have our surprises the listeners
and say that food shopping in London is very easy.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
It's wonderful ingredients.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
We've got great British and European ingredients, and we have
a lot of food shops that are run by immigrants,
whether it's a Turkish, Vietnamese, Chinese, Lebanese, Palestinians. You get
those wonderful shops that really give you everything that you and.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
They import all this stuff.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
The import and I'd love you know.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
I think one of the reasons a bit like very
much like New York, why we have such rich food
culture is because all these immigrant foods have infiltrated into
the mainstream and made the food culture so much richer
than it has been.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
As your restaurant empire and your book projects have grown
in scope. How do you balance your time between them?
How much time do you spend in the restaurants?
Speaker 1 (36:14):
The restaurants. I go to a restaurant more or less
every day or every other day. The restaurants are not
we have it's a bigger company now, so we have
various locations. I spend my day in the test kitchen
supervising the recipe development, and then the afternoon I go
and try the food, talk to the chefs. And but
I'm not I'm not a workaholic. I don't spend all
(36:35):
my time at work. I've got I like to spend
time with My kids are still young. As long as
they want me, I'm very happy.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Are they athletic? Are they studious?
Speaker 1 (36:45):
They are more They are more studious than athletic. They
like music and we love you know. Everybody said, how
what do you do to wind down? I go out,
you know, I go down to their playroom after they've
done their homework, and after we had dinner, and we
watch a Big Bang Theory to together.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Then we laugh so much.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
And for me, that's the best wine down that I
can that I can imagine possible. Because spending time with
your kids best things.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
I just have two grandchildren who I try to spend
as much time as possible with. And the girl I
spend all the time going to concerts with her. She
she loves concerts. Yeah, so we're going to see Billie
Eilish and we're going to jingle Ball and she just
went to Sabrina Carpentrina. They're they're into it. They're into
it so nice, and the lavish performances she likes. But
(37:33):
the kid, the boy, oh, my gosh, sports sports, sports books.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
But it's isn't it just amazing to talk to kids.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
And you learn so much from kids.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
So much, and also you learn about food. So I
have my kids are like, they don't really cook that much.
My little one loves to make eggs and omelets in that.
But but they are such harsh critics, you know, because
they have no filter. They go or they say, ah,
you knowimes, I have to stop myself from laughing or screaming.
They go like, oh, you know, this is not as
good as you made it last time. They're like, what
(38:03):
do you know?
Speaker 2 (38:04):
They they know a lot. Their taste buds are pure
and they think that that's what they know. And I'd
love to go out with mine. I take them to
every single great restaurant and they do their critiques. And
I think that's a very good thing for you as
an expert to do with your kids because because they
learn everything, they taste the wine too, just little SIPs,
but they know what a good wine is and what
(38:25):
a bad wine is.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
A Really, it's really important to allow them to express
what they think is good because they start it's like
learning the alphabet. You get the sensibilities and then you
become better at it. And I'm so happy that they're
exposed to good food because we really know. I cannot
fop them off with a bad peach. You know, they
go like this is just a bad peach. They won't
touch you, you know, like that's so finnicky.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
I entertained my granddaughter's friends. They like five or six
of them will come to the farm for a weekend,
and there's always the menu is already printed out. She
knows what she wants me to make. Oh yeah, oh
got demanding, very demanding. But it's fun.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
Are you happy to do?
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yes, I'm very happy to do. It's exhausting, but fun,
And I am going to make some delicious things out
of this book for the next weekend. In two weeks,
we pick apples and make cider and then we're going
to make the apple but I will make yours. Okay,
I'll make your apple pie out of the apples.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
And then you make the rice with the cheese bowl.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
They're going to love that.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
You know what thing the secret ingredients in this tomato.
It's out of the cheese. So it's really delicious.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
That's so English.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
It's so good.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Mommy, yes, and it's mommy, Yes, it's a it's a
It is like the essence of like beef stock and
what else yef? Yeah, deal, beef whatever. I have friends
who eat it on toast.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
You do the UK.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
I have my I have milk and my tea and
I do the toast.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Look at this a Bohemian fresh pie.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
Fish pie, fish pie. It's a delicious fish pie.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Oh my gosh, I have to see this apple tart,
white chocolate and macadamia cookies. I bet I think I've
had those in Europe.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Jelly, They're very good. Was this the apples? Apple? That's
that's cake? That looks so I used to go there.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
There was a particular coffee shop in Amsterdam on one
of the canals, and I used to cycle there every
weekend and sit around and around two o'clock and have that
apple cake with a whipped.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Dutch apple cake. Okay, I am going to make that. Yes,
And when they then they have to take something home
to their parents, so they get the cider to take
home and maybe they can each make a small Dutch
apple cake to take home.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
Oh and you have the energy to supervise all that.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
To do it all. I set up I set up
stations for each girl to make make the thing. But
I am going to tell them about this book because
this is this, This will appeal to them. This, all
of this will appeal to that. Thanks to them, but
also to every one of your fans all over the world. Tom,
you are like the consummate go to for this kind
of tasty, unusually good fresh food. I love it. I
(41:16):
love your food and I can't wait to come back
to England and come to your restaurants. I still have,
I still have, my godchild still lives there. You have
lots of friends, I do, lots of friends, yep, And
I can't wait to come back and see all of that.
But best of luck on this book tour, and we
look forward to really using this book and to using
(41:36):
your next books, your former books, because we do. Thank you,
and I hope you have a lovely time here in
the United States.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
Congratulations on hundred.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Oh well that's another story. Thank you. Maybe I'll come
to England with my books. Yes, that would be fun,
that would okay, Well, thank you, have a good trip.
You've been listening to Martha Stewart's podcast with Otto Lingy,
the great chef and cookbook author and his newest book
is Ottelangi Comfort
I mean, this book really is not so much a
cookbook about comfort food per se. It's not about Dodge
and mac and cheese and pizza. It's really more about
the notion of comfort as an emotion, as an emotional
reaction to food.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yo Autolangi is a chef and a best selling author
whose name has become synonymous with the region that inspires
his cooking. He began building his empire of beautiful, upscale
food shops in London two decades ago. He now has
seven auto lanky shops and two fine dining establishments. He
is here in New York today at the Newsstands Studios,
(00:41):
our favorite tiny little studio in Rockefeller Center, to celebrate
his new book, Comfort, his eleventh cookbook. Welcome to my.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Podcast, Yo, Tom, Thank you. It's so good to be here,
so nice to see you again.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I haven't seen you for quite a few years. I
don't think I've been to London since before COVID COD.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
It's all before or after COVID BC or so.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I remember we do, we do, and and we have
a picture together from Nope and it pops up with
my phone as a memory once a.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Nice Well you have a new cookbook called comfort. Almost
every single cookbook author that I know ultimately comes out
with a book called comfort, comfort food. Why now, why Comfort?
Speaker 1 (01:29):
I will do my best to make it stand out
amongst all the comfort recip books that you talk about.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
After after reading through every recipe, it stands out very nice.
And your recipes make my mouth water, and they always
have ever since your very very first book. And after
I visited all the delis and why did they call
them delis? I can't. I did British deli.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
It's really not like an American high end take out
take away shop.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yes, yeah, but they're so good and I and I
always take snack food out of every single one, So
you should, And why not in New York? I can't
remember you said you might do something in New York.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
I know I always overpromise and underdeliver. I mean, not
on the book front, but on the opening internationally front.
It's just it's so difficult to run restaurants and cafes
these days. I find these everything is so much more expensive.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Cost of food.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Cost of food has gone through the root.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Rageous chocolate went up more than one hundred percent in
a very short amount of time. But I'll answer your
question why comfort and why now? So, I mean, this
book really is not so much a cookbook about comfort
food per se. So it's not about you know, stodge
and mac and cheese and pizza. There are those things
here more or less, but it's really more about the
(02:45):
notion of comfort as an emotion, as an emotional reaction
to food. And I've got three co authors on this book,
and each and every one of us has got Helen,
Tara and Verena. We cover quite a lot of ground
in terms of the places we've been to, the places
we've traveled where what we started. Helen is of Malaysia
Australian origin, Verena is from a Swiss and a Swiss
(03:08):
and Scottish background, and myself from Israel, and Tara is
British but traveled a lot extensively in the Middle East.
And we really bring stories that are about our connection
to recipes. You know, when you travel, when you immigrate,
you can't take hardly anything with you, but the food
memories and the cooking is something that you take. And
(03:29):
this book is all about our food memories and things
that make us feel sense of comfort, a sense of ease,
and especially today with the way the world is and
how awful it is, the sort of things that are
unraveling in the Middle East and really give me a
lot of pain. And I think about it every single day,
every single hour. There is something about food that just
(03:50):
allows you to alleviate that pain just a bit. It's
that kind of sense of comfort that comes through doing
an age old tradition of cooking, and that's very prominent.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
And did these recipes take you home to Jerusalem?
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Many of them do? Many of them do take me
home to Jerusalem.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
How often do you get to go back there?
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I go.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
My mother is a liar, my dad passed away, So
I go see her at least three or four times
a year.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
And she's still there.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
She's still there.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
And she come to London and stay with you for
a little while until this nonsense is over.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
I don't think she would want to, and I think
she's she's quite a steadfast person and she I think
she wants to stay where she is. She's okay, she's safe,
unlike a lot of other people around the region that
are not. So I feel very grateful for that. But
the flavors do the flavors do take me back and
I'm just looking here at a meatloaf that that is
(04:43):
in the book. It's just I just happen to be
on this book and it's goes to shawarma spices.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
And tell our listener, what is sara?
Speaker 3 (04:50):
I love that name Suarma is? Is? Is it kind
of spicy?
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Shuarma has got me different meanings, but it's often referred
to as a particular way of spicing meat, lamb, chicken.
And often you buy shawarma on a spit like meat
on a spit. But this the seasoning is very much
about sweet spices. So it's got all spice, it's got cumin,
(05:19):
it's got paprika and garlic, and those kind of flavors
are the flavors of this meat loaf.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
And you know, meat floafs can be Look.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
What kind of meat.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
So in this particular one, we use lamb, but you
can use beef if you like. And the really nice
thing about this, first of all, we cook it in
a skillet, which means it doesn't look like that kind
of block meat balls. Meat loaves can look quite blocky
and very mundane, but this one looks a bit more
festive because it cooks.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
It's cooked like a cake.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
And it's got caramelized onions on top that have pomegrand
molasses in them, so you've got like sweet onions on
top of that kind of savory meaty.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
And fresh pomegranate seeds and fresh pomegranate seeds.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Very timely recipe for right now, because the pomegranates are
just getting into the marketplace exactly. This is the I
eat a pomegranate a day.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
I also eat pomegranates every day, and I think they're wonderful.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Every day. There is just so much potassium, so much
vitamin sea. We take all the seeds out of a
pomegranate and put them in a bowl and they're covered
in the refrigerator for me. And every day I eat
them with a spoon.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
I know, I eat them with the ygar.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
I just eat them plain, and my mouth is puckered
by the time I'm finished with one.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
The most incredible. They are the most incredible.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
But they're so good for you. I mean, why eat
a banana when you can eat a bowl full of
pomegranate seeds. That's what I think.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
I'm with you.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
And more and more potassium too. But Middle Eastern cooking
uses a lot of pomegranates.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Yeah, the pomegranate in the juice is a wonderful thing.
To concentrate the juice. It's like the Middle East and
equivalent of palsamic vinegar. It's sharp and the cidic at
the same time, it's very sweet.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
So is that the extractor the molasses?
Speaker 1 (06:59):
The the molasses is effectively what it is is like
boiled down juice of pomegranates, the real proper molasses.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
That's all it is. Yeah, because there's such.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
A high sugar level when you boil it down and
get that kind of syrupy texture.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
That so.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
But I also get from my friend Linda Resnik. Did
you ever meet missus Resnick in California?
Speaker 3 (07:17):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Oh, she started, she and her husband started the Franklin
Mint and she now really is the proprietress of most
of the pomegranate groves in California. So she started a
company called Palm Wonderful and for her best friends, and
somehow I got on the list for her best friend.
She sends us the extract of pomegranate juice once a month.
(07:42):
I get six. I think there are like six quarts
of pomegranate extract, So you just add that to hot
water like a tea, or you add it to a
pomegranate margarita. It's the best thing in the whole and
so healthy.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
I mean addicted.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I am. No, I'm addicted to pomegranate. So this recipe.
Guess what it's on my next week's menu.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
Car, I highly recommend.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah, it's really really nice. You've talked about this book
as featuring foods you eat when nobody else is around.
What you eat when nobody else is around? Well, what
do you eat? What do you snack on? What do
you eat for breakfast? No?
Speaker 3 (08:18):
What do I eat for breakfast?
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Do you eat breakfast?
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Not every day, but most days I eat. You mentioned
pommegrand It's funny. I tend to eat yogurt and pomegranate
sees berries if they're in season, and.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
You swallow the whole seed. Oh yeah, oh you do.
I see I spit out the I spit out the pith.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
There's a lot of work.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
No, you just chew it and get all that nice
juice and then I spit it out, and then I
chew it and then I spit it out. I love eat.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
I wouldn't be able to.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
But you just have a contrast with myself of how
to get every seed out of a pomegranate in a
white linen bed.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Try that.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
I'll tell you it's a funny story. When I was
growing up in Jerusalem, my mother used to send my
younger brother and I to the garden, to our little
courtyard outside to eat the pomegran It's naked without our
clothes on, because she'd say, do not mess. You know,
the stains don't come off, doesn't come off, So she
(09:11):
we would go out to the garden just in our underwear.
I eat the pomegranate's peel them, bash them, eat the thing,
and then come back to that.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
So great, But they are a confection for me. They're
a confection. So you so what do you eat? What's
your favorite thing?
Speaker 3 (09:25):
For me?
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Comfort food is meat bowls, it's rice, it's pasta, it's potato.
But it could also be something it It can also
be cake. I think there's something about there's like it
depends on the time of the day, like what do
I feel like? So there isn't such such a thing
for me as ultimate comfort food. Comfort comes it reflects
(09:46):
reflects or of what of the question of what what
it is that I feel like eating.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
We eat a bowl of plain rice.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
I not only that because you were asked me what
I eat when nobody's looking. So I boil a pot
of rice, and kind of I have smiley rice, long
grain rice. I wash it, I cook it quickly absorption method,
and I put and I grate in some fresh parmesan
or pecorino and black pepper, and.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
And that's what I have.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
You know, that's like it's like it's just like pure
delicious cheesiness.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
Butter as well. Yeah, the butter as well. Butter as well,
you forgot that. I forgot the butter.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
I've been I've been eating Japanese the highest quality Japanese
sushi rice just steamed in the Japanese steamer, and and
it's like almost translucent. And then I add a little
bit of Japanese rice wine seasoned vinegar on top of
that and just eat that. No, I don't even so
(10:45):
it's so delicious.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
It's the rice rice, well rice. I think it has
got magical qualities. When you boil rice. The smell it
brings into the house so good. It's just got that
that kind of it permeates the whole latmosphere for me,
Like my comfort food is a tray of baked rice,
either almost on its own or I start adding things.
(11:07):
I've got a recipe here for cheese ball rice. So
I cooked rice the same method that I describe to
you in the oven. But I make these balls of
cheese with feta, ricotta and cheddar, and I kind of
deposit them in the rice and as it steams, I
covered really well.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Put in the avenue and melts and spread slightly.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
I'm going to try that.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Yes, that's what I make for my kids, and they
absolutely love it.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Well, this is book number eleven, And how is your
book writing process? I'm very interested in and how people
write their cookbooks because I have a new book coming
out this fall.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Also your book? Is it? Book number I was twenty hundred,
so funny, got a way to go.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
It is so funny. That's in forty two years. You've
only eve been writing for how many years?
Speaker 3 (11:50):
But fifteen fifteen?
Speaker 2 (11:51):
So just wait, that's in forty two years. But I
wrote a page in the book towards the end about
how I write a cookbook, and it was so nice
to write it, and my grandchildren read that. That was
the first page they read in this book. They're twelve
and thirteen, and they got really excited about maybe they
could write a cookbook because I made it easy. But
it's not easy. It's a very hard process. But it's
(12:15):
a fun process and a thoughtful process. So how do you.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Write it's a fun for I'm going to give you
two answers. The first answer has to do with the
process of writing cookbooks, and as it always happens, and
that's true to every cookbook that I've ever published, and
that is that, first of all, comes a collection of
recipes that you really want to tell the.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
World about me.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
I've got to a thirty or forty recipes that are
the beginning of the process, which really and I don't
even know what the book is yet about It could
be anything. I mean, I have a vague idea if
maybe it's a vegetable book, or maybe it's a book
about home cooking like this one, but I don't know
what the message that I'm going to get. And then
I start building layers. So I've got a bit of that,
and I say, okay, let's have a bit more of that.
If I've got a few recipes with roasted vegetables. I said,
(12:59):
let's try to see where we go in that direction.
If I've got a couple of interesting desserts or delicious desserts,
I go in that direction as well. And then the
recipes kind of swell, and then I look at it.
When I'm at like number eighty or ninety is close
to you know, the most recipe.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Books about one hundred hundred recipes.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
So when I get to the seventy eighty stage, I
go I look at it again, and I say, Okay, well,
now now I'm going to see what the book is
telling me. And once I know what the book is
telling me, I can kind of finish it off and
listen to it and write the narrative. And the other
answer I wanted to give, which is really important, is
that people that have followed me know that I don't
really write my books on my own anymore. I work
(13:38):
with a particular person or of two other people on
every book.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Two and the co author is.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Really important because most of my books are collaborations and
we work really really closely together, so I kind of
bring someone in with me to the process. So here
I've got helen with recipes from Malaysia from China, and
I've got Verena with recipes from German recipe and one
Scottish recipes and those those collaborations are really crucial because
(14:05):
we have the best conversations. You know, things kind of
influence each other. I've got a recipe for shikuka here
with like tamarind and and star and nies uh and
and and it's just like, what is that all about.
It's not a proper chixchuka, but it is. After I've
spoken to Helen for half an hour, that's where we
end up.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Nice. I'm going to make this weekend Dutch baby with
oven roasted tomatoes. I have a lot of cherry tomatoes
in my garden still, you know, it's not the garden's
not over yet, and I have a giant garden, and
(14:44):
I was I've been picking these deliciously sweet cherry tomatoes,
all different colors, and I have just been roasting them
in the oven with olive oil and a little bit
of salt and pepper, and they're so good roasted like that.
So this and those you just put on top of
the Dutch baby. What's different about this Dutch baby?
Speaker 3 (15:01):
So this Dutch baby also has bacon in it, it
has mustard powder.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
It has mustard powder. And to the audience, they don't
know what a Dutch baby is. A big puffy pancakes
cooked in.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
A pan, the pan in the oven.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
It's almost like Yorkshire pudding, the.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Yorkshire pudding exactly.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
It's like a Yorkshire pudding, but a bit flatter, so
it's a bit wider.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
And I make it a lost for my kids. You know,
there are nine and eleven. They like, you know, a
pancake for the weekend.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
So I make a big Dutch Baby and I fill
it up with berries. And then the best way I
found to divide the Dutch baby is using scissors.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Yeah, Like I cut it.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Like a you slide it another pan.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
I took it, I take it into a chopping board
and I cut it like wedges with scissors, and I
think it's the best way to serve it.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Tried that this weekend, so I think that I've never
had it. Savory.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Yorkshire pudding is the is the single most important culinary
contribution that Britain made.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
The Britain made to this.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Is from that, right, don't you think the Dutch baby.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
I'm sure the Dutch but it's called Dutch, baby.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Maybe the Dutch no, you know, Dutches is a bastardization
of the word Deutsch, which is German. So someone heard Deutsche,
they call it Dutch, but actually it's of German origins.
But you know, as all these things, with these things,
they kind of develop all over the world at different times,
so I'm not sure what the origin really is.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
So testing the recipes that goes on in your restaurants
or no.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
I have a dedicated spased a test kitchen and there's
a team and we test recipes for different publications and
for the books.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
There's like three.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
So you're writing your weekly column for The Guardian, which
is such a nice call. I love that, thank you,
because a lot of introspection goes into that into that writing.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
I do that once a week, and I've got the
New York Times once a month. So there's a lot
of recipe creation going on, and there's always a book
on the go.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
So there's a team that does that.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
And we have a really lovely process or that with
the recipe development. Each team member takes a recipe from
start to finish. They own the recipe, but everybody else
has the right to comment. So you know, we get
around the dish and everybody has to comment. Then that
person goes and works on the next version and the
next version, and sometimes we're stuck with their stock. I mean,
(17:13):
it's a joy to do, but sometimes we have to
try something three, four or five six times before we
really get it.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Did those recipes also find their way into your restaurants?
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Sometimes they do, but not always. Cooking at home and
cooking in restaurants are two very different activities. You know,
restaurants is about a particular logistical nightmare because you need
to there's so many considerations. But ideas come from the
books into the restaurants, but also the other way around.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
So I feel very lucky to have people.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Around me that are professional chefs that work in restaurants
right now that bring up some really cool ideas to
the So.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
What are the hallmarks I'd like to hear from you?
What the hallmarks of your style are.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
It's very vegetable heavy.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
That would be one thing because I grew up in Jerusalem,
where vegetables are really so central to the food, to
the cooking, and also because there's so much good, great
and great fresh felt.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
There is no there was no Israeli cooking. When Israel
became Israel.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
No, there was Palestinian cooking very influential on Israeli cooking.
And then there's the cooking of the different diasporas, people
that have immigrated from Europe, from North Africa, from the
Middle East and have brought their own foods with them.
And Jerusalem has this incredible combination of food that comes
from from these diasporas combined with the local Palestinian food,
(18:32):
and that's the I think that's the essence of what
people call Israeli food these days. It's all these things
coming together.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Flavors. Flavors are unique.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
So I think when it comes to my food, it
really I wouldn't call I don't my food is not
Israeli food because I think it would if you look
at what I'm cooking or serving. It's very much influenced
by the people I work with, So there is a
there's a lot of contrast in the food. So it's
a very layered and contrastful food. So we create a
(19:02):
lot of layers of flavor and texture. Every recipe will
have to have a few layers of of of flavor
and texture. And it's very sunny so there's a lot
of color going on.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
The color.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
When I say color, I don't I don't just mean visually,
I also mean a metaphorical it's it's it's intense. There's
quite a lot of contrast there. And this is this
has become the signature of the food that I do.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
I'm just looking at a picture of polenta pancakes with
spiced corn salad. That looks really good.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
It's really really good. That's spice porn. It's got curry
leaves in it. And I love curry leaves, yeah, because
it's not always easy.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
To find, and so I can I can make this,
do you don't you.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Just love them? They are just we have a lot
of recipes for curry leaves.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
And I have so many peppers this year too.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
You had, you had a good good.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
The best pepper you're ever, the best egg plant your ever,
and the brosscas, all the brassocas I had. Really, I've
never seen such giant cabbages and stuff we have.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
But these, oh, these are Moroccan pancakes, you know, the
thousand hoole pancakes.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
I love that a bit like a crumpet, aren't you?
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Yes, they are yeah, oh, I can't wait to try.
That's every single page you want to cook the recipes
in this amazing book. Where do these these?
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Ah? My friend Kaz, she's been.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Every chapter is opens with a very modernistic painting. An unusual, unusual.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
And incredible graphic designer. She actually I share her with Nigella. Oh,
she designs my book in Nigella's book. Look at these
pages and those cover those really rhyme with the cover,
not the American cover, but with the British cover.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah, yeah, that's nice.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
And and it's quite nineteen. It's a bit mirror Meco nineteen.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
It is very very bright colors. All it looks like
a giant jigsaw puzzles.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
So, and a roasted egg plant, red bell, pepper and
tomato soup.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
This is perfect for you because you've got all everything
from your garden exactly.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
And I'm going to make that I have so many
egg plants. I don't like to eat too many egg plants,
but I love I love miso eggplant. I think I
love the roasted egg plant.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
I've just I've just demonstrated a recipe for egg plant
caesar dressing.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
So it's it's the cream cream.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah, it's the eggplant cream with anchovies and parmesan. So
you make an anchovy, parmesan and burnt eggplant sauce, quite
a thick one. It's delicious, it's got lemon juice, it's
got garbleants.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
My daughter is going to make that because she makes
caesar salads older and clients, and she loves your recipes.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
And you dip the crud de taise in sign and
it's just a wonderful. You know, it's like a bit
like it's a kind of a banya kauda, but with
the eggplant and good.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
I recommend that.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
So the the plant focus is very important to the
auto lingy recipes.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
The plants. Yeah, the plant focus we've got.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
You know, one of the things that I found out
in this book which I didn't really know beforehand.
Speaker 3 (22:11):
It's very funny.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
You're gonna get I thought I knew everything there is
to know about vegetables, but I didn't know before working
on this book, and that is that when you overcook vegetables,
when you cook them to until they're very soft, then
they become comforting. So you know this technique of kind
of steaming vegetables in their own juices. So We have
a recipe here for we call it beans on toast,
but effectively it's eurycover or French beans in a pot
(22:35):
with olive oil, quite a bit of olive oil. Slice
garlic in the futurey tomatoes. You close the lid and
you just let them sit there for half an hour,
steaming in their own in their own juices. And it's
a low heat, so it's they go soft, but they
go so wonderfully delicious. And it's very common in Turkish
cooking and the Balkans to cook vegetables like that. Yeah,
(22:57):
and most of the time I like my beans tender,
but this particular recipe there's just so good. We serve
them on a toasted sour dough bread with a bit
of fat on top, so it becomes it's.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Always or always yogurt, or always something delicious on the
top of you. No, really, that's so unique that when
I first discovered you, I just couldn't believe how how
utterly delicious every single thing I put in my mouth was.
And this is wait, this is right. I mean I
discovered you when you came out with your first book.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
I know I came to you.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
You were in Paris, weren't you in Paris.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
I came to your show, yes, to appear in your show.
I don't know how long ago, but I know I've
got kids in there eleven years old. Before that, I
want to say fifteen years ago.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
But really and truly, the it was the combination of
spice of mixed vegetables. That and the color. Everything I
noticed were in any restaurant of yours or in any
deli of yours is the color everything is brilliant.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
And you know why that is is because when we
opened our first shop, Semmy and I, we put the
food was for sale visually, so you know.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
When you go to restauran you get a menu, you
don't know what it looks like.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
So when you get it doesn't matter because it will
be delicious, and that what counts well. People buy with
their eyes a bit like in the market, and they
come to us and we created this visual language which
is which really puts a lot of how beautiful.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
That includes all your beautiful desserts.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Too, yeah, yeah, those two, and.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Also just the architecture of your of your shops and
your restaurants. I remember just going around taking pictures of
every detail in your lovely restaurant in your first restaurant
in London?
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Is it the notting Hill one, the Little one? Yeah? Yeah,
it's still there.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Oh, it's amazing. And who designed that?
Speaker 3 (24:41):
You had?
Speaker 1 (24:42):
My friend Alex Michelist is an incredible artitact and he
designs all our restaurants and I have to give him it,
really yeah, And I have to give him a lot
of credit because when he said to us when we
just started more than twenty years ago, oh, you know,
make it white, I said, like why and food?
Speaker 3 (24:58):
That doesn't really work.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Color because your food is the color.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
And that's exactly what it said to me.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Your food will bring the color and the white background
is what you want for the rest of you.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
And it was modern and it still is modern, and
it still is just a delightful atmosphere.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Yeah, yeah, really great. And why did you leave Israel
and end up in London? That's your home now?
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Yeah, I've been living in London for twenty five years
or more.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Well, I left London.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
I left Israel to just explore the world and I
lived in Amsterdam for two years. Hence there's a Dutch
apple cake in the book. Just had to say that
because I love Dutch apple cakes, and there's one there
that is inspired by my time in Amsterdam. But I
moved to London because in the late nineteen nineties, because
I went to study at the courdon Bleue to.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
How to this is after studying philhilosophy and phrenomology whatever
that is. And and you gave up You got your PhD?
Speaker 3 (26:07):
No, no, I got a master's.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Did you write your thesis?
Speaker 1 (26:10):
I was, yeah, I wrote my thesis. I got my master's,
but I was, I was. I wanted to start a PhD.
But I gave it up and went and.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Went to Courdroon Blue. Were your parents horrified.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Or yeah, terrified? Terrified?
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Horrified academics The parents are academics and uh and there
you are going to the Courdron Blue.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
In London, and I just I just found I found
food such a relief from that the slavery of the mind,
you know that kind of when you go to university,
there's always like you know, I found it exhausting, and
kitchen work is physically exhausting, but mentally it's quite relaxing
because you effectively have you go into the kitchen. I
(26:48):
don't know if you did have that Martha, but don't
do Do you find cooking like like meditation?
Speaker 3 (26:52):
I still feel that way.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yesterday I had so much butternut squash and I was
reading your book, and I thought, what am I going
to do with all this butternut squash? And I have
a lot of people that work on my farm, you know,
the guys who were the guys who were planting, and
the guys who take care of the horses, and and
I thought, I'm going to use I'm going to I'm
going to give them butternut squash for lunch. So I
didn't use a recipe. I just I just cut them off,
hollowed them out, and put them skin side up in
(27:15):
the oven and steam them a little bit. Then I
put in chili flakes and chili powder and butter and
a little olive oil and salt and pepper coarse sea salt.
It was the most delicious wash, so good. And that's
what they got for lunch. And they love it. They
love when when they're eating something that comes from the farm.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Who doesn't mean it's the best.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
But I want to make your squash stew.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Yeah, there's squashed to coconut.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
And I didn't have I didn't have any coconut milk salt,
couldn't you.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
I recommend that one. It's really really delicious.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
But just going back to this sense of cooking being
something that isn't I.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Didn't have time to do that, yesty. I didn't have time,
but I did it.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
I make time because you and and I.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Was also pickling my Vacchino peppers, you know those tiny
little peppers, bread and yellow. I made my own pickling
brine and I there there are now just brining away
and they're so cool. Everybody wants them because they do
and they take a long time to pick out of
the garden. But that's what I do that just to
(28:20):
get my mind straight on.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
And that day thing.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
I know, this is why going back to question why
comfort and why now, I feel that something that really
occurred to me while we were working on the book
is that ten or fifteen or twenty years ago, people
cooked really from a different place. They wanted to impress.
You know, there was all these big dinner parties and
people wanted to create these kind of very lavish fish
(28:45):
feasts and dishes, something that nobody's ever tried before. And
that's quite stressful. And I think since COVID, but even
before that. People cook for different reasons. They cook to recenter,
they cook to feel comfort, They cooked, and they go
and cook old recipes, not necessarily things that are out there.
And this book, for me, it was really important to
do things that are familiar, like a soup or a
(29:05):
pasta or a roast chicken, which is everybody can relate
to that. Maybe I added different spice, but everybody can relate.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
To your roast chicken looks delicious.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
In here, the roast chicken has the roast chicken.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
So the roast chicken has a duca under the buttered
douca under the skin. So we make a duca. But
the duca, you know duca, and the listeners who don't know,
it's an Egyptian nut and spice makes It's got hazel
nuts and coriander and cumin and it's all ground into
a powder and that seasons a lot of dishes in Egypt.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
But it's just a wonderful thing to make.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
So we make this stuca, and we also had fried
curry leaves to it and we blitz it together, so
it's got a curry flavor and we mix it with
butter and put it under the skin off the chicken,
so when you eat the chicken, you almost have like
a little nuts roast under the skin.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
I often do that with different kinds of stuffings. You
do that under the skin, Yeah, I always have. I
started when I was catering. I used to do a
chicken breast with a beautiful green spinach and parsonally under
the skin of the chicken breast, which made it unique,
you know, different.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
And it's really nice because, like favors, if you cut
through it, you see that layer of something delicious going
on and it just feels it feels special.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
So, how much of your culinary education stems from your parents,
your family versus your culinary studies?
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Don't I can answer that. I think most of what
I cook today is based on the last twenty or
thirty years since I started my or twenty years since
I started my business. I've been surrounded by cooks and chefs,
and I've been absorbing, you know, I've been absorbing being ideas,
I've been going and traveling. So most of it is that.
But there are certain fundamental aspects to food, and I
(30:50):
think this is one of those things that you never
put behind that comes that come from my childhood, and
that we have a recipe here for a breakas like
a circular brecas breck Turkish or you know a Balkan. Yeah,
and it's got it's like a span of copita, but
in a in a circular form or snail form. And
(31:10):
this takes them back right back to my child because
you'd go with have dedicated shops that would sell them
where they were cheesy, mushroom, you know, potato, even the
stuffing and would go and there was always they would
always be served with a hard boiled eggs, so you'd
get the egg, you crack it and peel it and
eat the break at the same time. It's a wonderful
thing to have together, especially if you have some tiny
(31:31):
sauce or greater tomato.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
To go with.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
There's always something else. Every single way be prepared because
these recipes are not three ingredients. These have more than
three ingredients. And but that's what makes them so delicious.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
They have more than three ingredients, but.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
There's a flavor. They're not they're not hard to make.
You just have to have your pantry in order to
get get through this book. And I like that. I
like I like having my pantry in.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
Order trying to find that picture of the breakast to show.
I just think it's so special here.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Yeah, you know, you got a hard boiled egg and
got some olives and you've got the greater tomato Sauceiny,
that's a wonderful brunch.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
That is so good looking. I love that. And you
is that fought filo?
Speaker 1 (32:16):
So you know, you know, and I don't know if
you ever tell your readers when you when you have
bought Filo. It's very little work. You spread the sheet,
the brush butter on top of it.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
It's very tasty.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
It's baking one on one, you know.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
I get mine Poseidon though here in New York homemade.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
It's very good. You're lucky.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Yeah, we're lucky that we have a shop right.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
Near boy Go and buy it.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Oh yeah, I buy the Filo.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
There's nothing like it.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, and it's very chasty. And then make sure you
make all your buckle vaugh and everything else at the
same time. I keep it in the freezer. It's so good.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Yeah, you should freeze it.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
So you you move to London, you go to the
court and blue. Did you work in restaurants?
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Yeah, I worked in restaurants.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
It was your first restaurant.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
And my first restaurant was called The Capitol. It was
a French influenced British restaurant in Knightsbridge. It had a
Michelin star. It was a nightmare. It was an absolute nightmare.
I lasted for three or four months. I found it
so difficult, but also I found it really crushed my
spirit because it was very technical and I didn't this
(33:18):
food just didn't speak to me.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
I found it.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
I spent so much time on doing things and the
results were so tiny and unsatisfying, you know, processing the
vegetables to these ridiculously small pieces, and.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
I just wanted out of there. And then I moved on.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
I worked for a chef called Roly Lee, a wonderful
British chef that has had a restaurant called Kensington Place.
I'm sure you're aware of that around the street from
Sally Clark, and they're off that generation in the eighties
and nineties in London. That kind of brought in the
kind of slightly the Californian European vibe to London. And
I ended up working for these people, and after that
(33:55):
I realized that you can work in restaurants and actually
have fun. It doesn't need to be this crazy, you know,
regimented micheline environment, and the food is also much more
delicious and when you cook it properly like people cook
at home or in the street.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
So who are your Who are your favorite chefs that
you whose food you have eaten and loved? And here
in New York.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Too, In New York, Oh, Mike Solomonov I have.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
I love his food. We've I've met him a few times.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
And he's got Laser Wolf in Brooklyn, which I think
is a wonderful restaurant.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
I've beaten there, you have, Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Too much food.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
It has a lot of food, so much food.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
It's so good. So I love him. I've been when
my parents really have. As we've established, I had a big,
big influence with me in terms of food writing. I
think that Jederal loss And really influenced me and how
much she made writing about food so much part of
the of the recipe making.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
And I love the thoughts she gives.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
And she also had a lot of allusions to other
things in her recipes, which I loved a lot of stories.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Yeah, and I do I like I like the people
that have come from California in the eighties and nine,
and like Debrahmatis and I think she's her books are
great and are so good with vegetables.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
I learned a lot from her.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
As well, So there's a I like those books that
take the subject matter very seriously, but don't take themselves
too seriously. And I think it's a very different kind
of perspective.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
So food shopping in London easy hard.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
It's it's I have I have our surprises the listeners
and say that food shopping in London is very easy.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
It's wonderful ingredients.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
We've got great British and European ingredients, and we have
a lot of food shops that are run by immigrants,
whether it's a Turkish, Vietnamese, Chinese, Lebanese, Palestinians. You get
those wonderful shops that really give you everything that you and.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
They import all this stuff.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
The import and I'd love you know.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
I think one of the reasons a bit like very
much like New York, why we have such rich food
culture is because all these immigrant foods have infiltrated into
the mainstream and made the food culture so much richer
than it has been.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
As your restaurant empire and your book projects have grown
in scope. How do you balance your time between them?
How much time do you spend in the restaurants?
Speaker 1 (36:14):
The restaurants. I go to a restaurant more or less
every day or every other day. The restaurants are not
we have it's a bigger company now, so we have
various locations. I spend my day in the test kitchen
supervising the recipe development, and then the afternoon I go
and try the food, talk to the chefs. And but
I'm not I'm not a workaholic. I don't spend all
(36:35):
my time at work. I've got I like to spend
time with My kids are still young. As long as
they want me, I'm very happy.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Are they athletic? Are they studious?
Speaker 1 (36:45):
They are more They are more studious than athletic. They
like music and we love you know. Everybody said, how
what do you do to wind down? I go out,
you know, I go down to their playroom after they've
done their homework, and after we had dinner, and we
watch a Big Bang Theory to together.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Then we laugh so much.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
And for me, that's the best wine down that I
can that I can imagine possible. Because spending time with
your kids best things.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
I just have two grandchildren who I try to spend
as much time as possible with. And the girl I
spend all the time going to concerts with her. She
she loves concerts. Yeah, so we're going to see Billie
Eilish and we're going to jingle Ball and she just
went to Sabrina Carpentrina. They're they're into it. They're into
it so nice, and the lavish performances she likes. But
(37:33):
the kid, the boy, oh, my gosh, sports sports, sports books.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
But it's isn't it just amazing to talk to kids.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
And you learn so much from kids.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
So much, and also you learn about food. So I
have my kids are like, they don't really cook that much.
My little one loves to make eggs and omelets in that.
But but they are such harsh critics, you know, because
they have no filter. They go or they say, ah,
you knowimes, I have to stop myself from laughing or screaming.
They go like, oh, you know, this is not as
good as you made it last time. They're like, what
(38:03):
do you know?
Speaker 2 (38:04):
They they know a lot. Their taste buds are pure
and they think that that's what they know. And I'd
love to go out with mine. I take them to
every single great restaurant and they do their critiques. And
I think that's a very good thing for you as
an expert to do with your kids because because they
learn everything, they taste the wine too, just little SIPs,
but they know what a good wine is and what
(38:25):
a bad wine is.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
A Really, it's really important to allow them to express
what they think is good because they start it's like
learning the alphabet. You get the sensibilities and then you
become better at it. And I'm so happy that they're
exposed to good food because we really know. I cannot
fop them off with a bad peach. You know, they
go like this is just a bad peach. They won't
touch you, you know, like that's so finnicky.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
I entertained my granddaughter's friends. They like five or six
of them will come to the farm for a weekend,
and there's always the menu is already printed out. She
knows what she wants me to make. Oh yeah, oh
got demanding, very demanding. But it's fun.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
Are you happy to do?
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yes, I'm very happy to do. It's exhausting, but fun,
And I am going to make some delicious things out
of this book for the next weekend. In two weeks,
we pick apples and make cider and then we're going
to make the apple but I will make yours. Okay,
I'll make your apple pie out of the apples.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
And then you make the rice with the cheese bowl.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
They're going to love that.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
You know what thing the secret ingredients in this tomato.
It's out of the cheese. So it's really delicious.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
That's so English.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
It's so good.
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Mommy, yes, and it's mommy, Yes, it's a it's a
It is like the essence of like beef stock and
what else yef? Yeah, deal, beef whatever. I have friends
who eat it on toast.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
You do the UK.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
I have my I have milk and my tea and
I do the toast.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Look at this a Bohemian fresh pie.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
Fish pie, fish pie. It's a delicious fish pie.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Oh my gosh, I have to see this apple tart,
white chocolate and macadamia cookies. I bet I think I've
had those in Europe.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Jelly, They're very good. Was this the apples? Apple? That's
that's cake? That looks so I used to go there.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
There was a particular coffee shop in Amsterdam on one
of the canals, and I used to cycle there every
weekend and sit around and around two o'clock and have that
apple cake with a whipped.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Dutch apple cake. Okay, I am going to make that. Yes,
And when they then they have to take something home
to their parents, so they get the cider to take
home and maybe they can each make a small Dutch
apple cake to take home.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
Oh and you have the energy to supervise all that.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
To do it all. I set up I set up
stations for each girl to make make the thing. But
I am going to tell them about this book because
this is this, This will appeal to them. This, all
of this will appeal to that. Thanks to them, but
also to every one of your fans all over the world. Tom,
you are like the consummate go to for this kind
of tasty, unusually good fresh food. I love it. I
(41:16):
love your food and I can't wait to come back
to England and come to your restaurants. I still have,
I still have, my godchild still lives there. You have
lots of friends, I do, lots of friends, yep, And
I can't wait to come back and see all of that.
But best of luck on this book tour, and we
look forward to really using this book and to using
(41:36):
your next books, your former books, because we do. Thank you,
and I hope you have a lovely time here in
the United States.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
Congratulations on hundred.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Oh well that's another story. Thank you. Maybe I'll come
to England with my books. Yes, that would be fun,
that would okay, Well, thank you, have a good trip.
You've been listening to Martha Stewart's podcast with Otto Lingy,
the great chef and cookbook author and his newest book
is Ottelangi Comfort
Host
Martha Stewart
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