When Yotam Ottolenghi was growing up in Jerusalem, he was often the most popular kid at school.
“I was really lucky in that there were not a lot of kids from Italian-Jewish background,” he told a sold-out Kanbar Hall crowd at the JCC of San Francisco, where he was interviewed Oct. 24 by Peter Stein in one of several Bay Area appearances last weekend. “At school sometimes, we would have a day where we would bring food from our diaspora, and so all the kids would come with their gefilte fish and they would want my pizza. Can you imagine how popular I was?”
Ottolenghi was here to promote his fourth cookbook, just published by Ten Speed Press. “Plenty More” is a vegetarian odyssey that ventures into Persian, Indian and Southeast Asian cuisine.
While the Israeli-born, London-based restaurateur and cookbook author has become one of the most popular chefs in the world (judging by his sold-out appearances everywhere he goes; he travels to Australia next), Bay Area fans may not be aware that in 1977, the young Ottolenghi spent a year in Mill Valley, where his chemist father and educator mother took sabbaticals.
It was a memorable year for Ottolenghi, 10 at the time. “I was delighted to see color TV for the first time in my life,” he said, noting that coming from Israel then was like traveling from the Third World. He also remembers Mill Valley fondly as the place where he learned English, and where he was rewarded with ice cream when he completed his multiplication tables, something he said would never happen in Israel. A major culinary highlight was going to Fisherman’s Wharf to eat fried shrimp from a paper cone.
“You couldn’t get seafood in Israel when I was growing up, so this was really special and definitely not kosher,” he said.
As Ottolenghi’s followers know, the chef definitely isn’t kosher either, as the bestselling “Jerusalem: A Cookbook” has several recipes featuring shellfish. Speaking of nonkosher delights, Ottolenghi shared a hilarious story of how his mother — whose family was from Germany — loves ham, though when he was a kid in the 1970s it was quite hard to come by in Israel.
“Her German side shaped me in one way, and that was we were very bad Jews,” he said, to great laughter. “My mom completely corrupted me to the extent that she bought ham under the counter in Jerusalem because you couldn’t buy it openly then. It wasn’t illegal, but the Orthodox would come and stone the butcher, so he gave it to her in a wrapped package under the counter.”
She would use it to make sandwiches for school lunches, he said, advising her children, “Tell the other kids it’s turkey.”
“For years I took these sandwiches, and told the other kids it was turkey and no one believed me, but it made my mom feel better that I don’t impose this on others,” he said.
In discussing the evolution of Israeli cuisine, Ottolenghi said given that Israel is still such a young country, it wasn’t until 20 years ago — around the time he left for London — that it really came into its own.
“It’s survival of the fittest, in which the best food of each community rises to the top and becomes part of the pantheon of Israeli cuisine,” he said, for example babka, “the best thing Polish Jews ever produced.” He said he and his Palestinian co-author and business partner, Sami Tamimi, did not include much Ashkenazi food in “Jerusalem” simply because they don’t like it very much.
As Ottolenghi’s brand has grown to include four restaurants and four cookbooks with more in the works, he and Tamimi are in charge of different parts of the operation. Ottolenghi heads the tasting kitchen, where he develops recipes for future book projects and the newspaper column he still writes for the Guardian. Tamimi is in charge of the restaurants (there are three take-out/eat-in shops and one fine-dining restaurant, all in London), training new chefs and making sure the food is up to their exacting standards.
“He and I meet once or twice a week,” he said, “which allows a lot of creativity to be going in different directions.” Ottolenghi works with two other chefs in the test kitchen, “which is a great way to create, as we bounce ideas off of each other. We get into a robust discussion about whether we should add 1⁄8 of a teaspoon of something to make sure it really works. We turn [recipes] on their heads a million times before we publish them.”
That is how the recipes all work so well, even when it seems they might not because of the unusual combinations of ingredients. As Jourdan Abel, coordinator of the JCC’s Arts & Ideas program, said so well in her introduction, you may think the recipe won’t work, “but then you end up with something so spectacular and unexpected, it’s like a party in your mouth.”
SMALL BITES: Oakland bagel enthusiast Lori Leiber is holding a Bake Your Own Bagel workshop, with $10 from each participant’s fee going to the Alameda County Community Food Bank. It’s at 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 2. Visit www.bakeyourownamazingbagels.com … Congregation Sha’ar Zahav is holding its second annual kugel contest, the “Kugel Nosh Down,” starting at 3 p.m. Dec. 14. Learn more or buy tickets at http://noshdown.brownpapertickets.com. Note: If you’re thinking of entering, you must preregister your kugel.
Alix Wall is a personal chef in the East Bay and beyond. You can find her website at www.theorganicepicure.com. Please send story ideas to her at [email protected].