Cooking is about the conversion of everyday ingredients – bags of flour, tins of tomatoes, dried pasta, spices – into something that ends up much more than the sum of its parts. I always think this when making pizza (which is always cheaper than buying it in): it’s a simple base topped with a simple tomato sauce and whatever else you have that needs using up. The same can be said of pasta bakes and curry bases, which I always […]
Yotam
“Australia is on a different scale,” says Yotam Ottolenghi, a chef who needs little introduction. A household name, to cook his recipes has almost become its own cuisine. Preparing a tour that will take him away from the British winter to large theatres and convention centres across Australia’s east coast, I ask, does he find this experience strange: taking to the stage not the kitchen? “I pinch myself all the time, I’m blue all over,” he says with genuine bemusement. […]
There’s only one month to go now, until lots of us get around lots of tables to share lots of food. My plan this Christmas is to make up for how little travel has been possible with a feast of flavours from around the globe: Italian parmesan, Japanese sake, African cassava, Greek feta, Middle Eastern date syrup, French brie and a Creole turkey, all bringing into question the whole notion of there being just one “traditional” way of doing things. […]
