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<\/p>\nYotam Ottolenghi, the celebrated restaurateur and food writer considered one of the most influential chefs of the 21st century, has a new cookbook, Simple Too, which will be released in the U.S. on October 6.<\/p>\n
He\u2019ll appear in Montclair next month with celebrity chef Ina Garten, where they\u2019ll discuss his new cookbook and more. Ottolenghi, 57, is an Israeli-born British chef with more than 3 million followers on Instagram and the chef\/owner of the Ottolenghi restaurant group, with 8 UK-based dining spots including NOPI. He\u2019s the author of 11 bestselling cookbooks and received the National Book Award and James Beard Awards for his cookbooks Jerusalem and NOPI.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s a regular contributor to The New York Times and lives in London with his family. Ottolenghi will appear in Montclair on October 6, thanks to Watchung Booksellers. Tickets are available here. <\/p>\n
Everyone\u2019s excited to have you appear in Montclair soon. \u00a0I was just at a restaurant in town and mentioned to the chef that you were coming and she said, \u201cI\u2019m buying a ticket right now!\u201d<\/p>\n
Aw, that is so nice. I\u2019m really excited to come.<\/p>\n
I was interested to learn about your story. So, you actually started as a journalist in Israel?<\/p>\n
Yes, I worked as a journalist in Israel for a couple of years. Then I moved to Amsterdam and spent a few years there. In 1997, I moved to London and I started my career in food. So, it\u2019s only quite late that I started cooking.<\/p>\n
What made you want to get into cooking? <\/p>\n
I always loved cooking at home; I cooked for my friends and for my family, and I never took it very seriously. It was just something that I did. When I graduated from university, I thought, I\u2019m going to and try and cook professionally for a few years, see what that looks like. When I started working, I really enjoyed working in the kitchens, and the creativity. Everybody loves to eat, and that\u2019s what brought me into the kitchen.<\/p>\n
Tell me about the food you grew up eating in Israel\u2014how did it inspire your style of cooking? And you had Italian grandparents?<\/p>\n
I had Italian grandparents, and I grew up in Jerusalem, which has the food of all the Jewish diaspora and also Palestinian food. So we had a little bit of everything. And that was a really good thing for me because I was exposed to many cuisines. At home, my parents liked to cook; my dad was a great cook in Italian food, and my mom was also a wonderful cook and just had a lot of delicious things growing up. We\u2019d go to the market and find all these Middle Eastern ingredients and wonderful vegetables and pulses and herbs, and everything was so fresh. So, I ended up enjoying some really good ingredients throughout my childhood.<\/p>\n
That also meant that I didn\u2019t have just one cuisine in my background\u2014 I was exposed to many ways of eating and that really informed my cooking. I don\u2019t see myself now as cooking one type of food; I get my influence from Asia, from Southern Asia, from North Africa, from different parts of the world where I could find great ingredients and great ideas. So, it\u2019s not just one kind of cuisine and that does have a lot to do with my background.<\/p>\n
You revolutionized home cooking with what\u2019s now called the Ottolenghi Effect, which is centered around using vibrant vegetables and fresh ingredients. Do you think American cooks have embraced that?<\/p>\n
Yes, definitely. America is incredible in the sense that there are people coming from everywhere. It\u2019s an immigrant country and it\u2019s a young nation, so you already have that mashup of different cultures by definition. It\u2019s made up of a lot of different cuisines, from Europe to South America to Southeast Asia and East Asia. I think Americans have become really open to different ways of eating and are quite open-minded.<\/p>\n
Our magazine recently did an issue on eating around the world in New Jersey, since our state is so diverse. You can find anything you want to eat here.<\/p>\n
I find it so exciting to go to a place and eat with the immigrant community because quite often when they cook their cuisine, they adjust it to the local ingredients and what people like locally. And you can get some really interesting combinations, such as Italian American and Chinese American; every culture does a little bit of that, don\u2019t they? When they come, they adjust and then you get these incredible hybrids.<\/p>\n
People say that your cookbooks changed the way people cook and shop and helped make some of these harder-to find ingredients available now. Do you agree?<\/p>\n
Yes, definitely. If you go to a supermarket in different parts of the world\u2014definitely in America\u2014you find the most incredible selection of ingredients, spices, cooking oils and vinegars. I love pomegranate molasses and I use it a lot in my cooking. I also like date syrup, preserved lemons and different, and tahini. There are a lot of things that I\u2019ve been cooking with over the years and really enjoying that are more available now. And people are just more knowledgeable. They know what to do with those ingredients.<\/p>\n
As a writer first, do you feel like you tell stories through your cooking and your cookbooks?<\/p>\n
I always think recipes are one thing, but they\u2019re so much better if they come with a story, because we\u2019re surrounded by so many recipes, right? We have an infinite number of recipes online, but you don\u2019t really get the story behind the dishes. So I love telling the stories of how and where it was created. If it\u2019s something new, I like to tell the story of how it came to be, how I created it for myself and my team. I just find it so interesting to learn about people\u2019s stories through their food.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Can you talk about your new cookbook, Simple Too, and how it\u2019s different from your previous ones and how you\u2019re hoping it will help home cooks?<\/p>\n
With Simple Too, my cowriter and I like to think about how we get people into the kitchen and get them to cook. I realized what has happened in the last few years is that people are always on their screens looking at food but not always cooking. They get their food fix from their screens and then they go and order food, also on their screens. (He laughs.) And they really miss out on the joy of cooking. They miss out on going into the kitchen, putting your phone down and really immersing yourself in the process of cooking, which is really such a grounding thing to do. And, but I also realized that people are on their screens because sometimes they think that cooking can be really hard and complicated and it will take half a day. So they shut down and say, \u201cOkay, well, I\u2019m just going to get takeout or I\u2019m just going to buy something in the supermarket and warm it up.\u201d<\/p>\n
We wanted to take down the level of cooking and allow people to cook with spice mixes or pre-cooked sauces that they can buy. The message is don\u2019t give up on cooking just because you think you\u2019re going to have to spend half an hour chopping onion and garlic. When in fact, you can buy a mix that has already done that for you and then you just need to sear the fish or roast your vegetables.<\/p>\n
We tried to pare down the process of making some of these dishes. This book tries to lower the bar for cooking and really get people into the kitchen. A lot of the dishes are cooked in one pan. For example, there\u2019s a recipe for tomato sauce. Sometimes when people make tomato sauce, they spend so much time chopping up things. But for this recipe, everything goes into the tray\u2014cherry tomatoes chopped up really roughly, all your herbs, three whole garlic heads, olive oil, and you just cook them in the pan. In the end, you whisk it. And the garlic does something quite clever. When you squeeze it out of the garlic heads, it goes really soft and sweet. And when you whisk it into the sauce, it thickens it and emulsifies it.. And you get this really delicious tomato sauce that I use for everything now. I use it for pasta, I use it for like meatballs; I use it for everything. I like that all you do is just put it in the oven and forget about it. And so we have a lot of recipes like that.<\/p>\n
That sounds great. I want to make your sweet potato fritters\u2014they look amazing.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re so good. My kids never ate sweet potatoes and now all they want is these fritters.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m trying to get my son, who is a vegetarian, to eat more vegetables. I love vegetables, which is one reason why I love your cooking and your cookbooks.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re so incredible. I have a recipe in the cookbook for a cauliflower souffle bake; you roast cauliflower and onions in the pan with olive oil. And when they\u2019re really nice and soft, you add some cherry tomatoes. You create this mix, which I call a souffle, but actually it\u2019s just mixed-up eggs and some cottage cheese and some fresh basil leaves and all that goes on top. So it creates this cauliflower souffle and it\u2019s so delicious.<\/p>\n
How old are your kids, and what do they like to eat?<\/p>\n
My kids are 11, 11 and 13. They like chicken, pasta and schnitzels. They eat vegetables, but it\u2019s not their first choice. In this cookbook, we also have recipes for cakes and desserts, and there\u2019s this amazing chocolate cake that I made for my son on his birthday the other day. It\u2019s so easy, you just mix it all up in one bowl. And he absolutely loved it.<\/p>\n
What are some of your favorite quick meals when you\u2019re cooking at home?<\/p>\n
Many of my quick meals involve rice. I like basmati rice because of how it soaks up the flavor of a dish. I may fry a fish and put some beans in the oven to roast and serve it with rice, and that\u2019s a delicious meal. My cupboard is so full of condiments, like harissa sauce, pesto sauces, different kinds of marinades. So often I don\u2019t really even have to make that. I just give the fish a little fry and then it\u2019s ready. It\u2019s a really quick way of cooking.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve talked about how important it is to have a stocked pantry for a home cook.<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t need to go crazy stocking your pantry; you just need some staple ingredients, such as tahini, a good olive oil, garlic, ginger and onions and some spices and herbs, like cumin, coriander seeds and paprika. There are around 12 spices that you\u2019ll use on rotation. It also depends on what you love cooking, but I think a stocked pantry is really important for people, because it means you don\u2019t need to go and buy everything every time you want to cook. If you have a relatively well-stocked pantry, you just buy the core ingredients, like the vegetable or the meat and then you\u2019re good.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ll be speaking with Ina Garten. Are you a fan of hers?<\/p>\n
Yes, I love her so much. We\u2019ve met a few times in the past and I think she is, first of all, charming and, and like her style. I like the fact that she is quite easygoing and relaxed. Sometimes, people who cook takes themselves very seriously, such as, it has to be done this way or that way. I feel that she has a quite relaxed vibe about her. I\u2019m excited that she agreed to speak with me on stage. I find it to be an incredible honor. She\u2019s done so much in her life and her books are like bibles in people\u2019s kitchens.<\/p>\n
I feel like your books are like that, too!<\/p>\n
[Laughs] Not quite as much, but thank you.<\/p>\n
One of my friends loves your cooking and I asked if she was coming to your talk. She said, \u201cI can\u2019t, I have a work event and I\u2019m devastated!\u201d [Laughs] Why do you think your cooking and your restaurants are so popular?<\/p>\n
I think a lot of people want to cook vegetables and don\u2019t know exactly what to do with them. I always try to find really interesting things to do with vegetables\u2014they take a little more effort. A lot of people know how to roast a chicken or fry a steak, but a cauliflower or an eggplant or, or zucchini are a little bit trickier. So you just need to know a little bit better what to do. I feel like I educate people about how to get the most out of their vegetables.<\/p>\n
I also think people like surprises in their food and I\u2019ve always tried to find interesting ways into dishes, such as interesting combinations that people may not have thought about before. I also like to mix up ingredients of cuisines from different parts of the world, mixing sweet and salty. \u00a0Also, it\u2019s accessible food. They don\u2019t take a massive technical skill to cook these dishes well. I think that\u2019s what people like\u2014my recipes are quite informal, and easy, but they delivers on flavors.<\/p>\n
And beautiful to look at.<\/p>\n
So this is the question everybody is asking. Are you planning to open any restaurants in New York anytime soon?<\/p>\n
Well, perhaps one day. I mean, there isn\u2019t really a plan at the moment, but I would love at some point to do something in America. We\u2019ll see what happens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yotam Ottolenghi, the celebrated restaurateur and food writer considered one of the most influential chefs of the 21st century, has a new cookbook, Simple Too, which will be released in the U.S. on October 6. He\u2019ll appear in Montclair next month with celebrity chef Ina Garten, where they\u2019ll discuss his new cookbook and more. Ottolenghi,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[9556,362,222,3138,3136,3134,3137,3135],"class_list":["post-9971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-jersey","tag-books","tag-chefs","tag-dining","tag-new-jersey","tag-new-jersey-dining","tag-new-jersey-food","tag-new-jersey-grocery-stores","tag-new-jersey-restaurants"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dc\/117271887228744517","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}