23 June 2015

MY NEW FAVOURITE -HONEY & CO

I’m on record as saying that too many cookbooks fall short. It might be that there are no stories, no focus and often no attribution of inspiration and heritage for the recipes. And far too often cookbooks can be a miscellany of recipes the cook truly loves; but the reality is that most of the recipes in many new books are already on my shelves in other books.

So it is really a happy occasion when I open a book to find that everything has come together and the book in my hands is so original, has so much personality and is so good that I almost rush to the kitchen to cook with little idea where to start as there are so many things crying out to be cooked.

Such a book is Honey & Co, by Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich, and published by Saltyard Books, an imprint of Hodder in London. I was urged to buy the book at the Matakana Village Bookshop when a food and wine writer friend, Fiona Beckett was visiting from the UK. She showed me a recipe, ‘feta and spring onion bouikos’ and said that alone was worth buying the book for. Fiona was right! They are amazingly moreish little cheesy nibbles that I have made on several occasions as they can be rustled up and every single one is guaranteed to be completely devoured within a half hour.

The authors have literally poured their hearts onto the pages. They met in their homeland of Israel, fell in love over food and once married, moved to London to work. Sarit, a pastry chef was charged with setting up Nopi in Soho – an elegant little restaurant that is part of Yottam Ottolenghi’s ever expanding empire. While she was busy Itamar found a suitable space for their own place and together they have made it into a café that now serves lunch and dinner to a very admiring stream of regulars who love the sunny bright flavours of the Middle Eastern food the pair offer there.

The book is not brassy or bold, but one of those lovely handsome and rather original books that British publishers are currently turning out. (My other current favourites are A Change of Appetite by Diana Henry, Smashing Plates by Maria Elia, and A Modern Way to Eat by Anna Jones.)

Every chapter in Honey & Co starts with lovely tales from the kitchen and about the staff of the restaurant, and every recipe has charming headnotes that tell the story of the inspiration, a little explanation that describes the relevance of the food to the book, or some extra guidance that will help the cook to achieve a great result at home. And even though I have a complete collection of Ottolenghi books, all of Paula Wolfert’s Middle Eastern recipes and the lovely books by Claudia Roden, this book, Honey & Co is my new favourite as it seems to be very, very original, and there is that other mysterious ingredient that’s essential in food but really hard to convey – passion!

As for the actual recipes, where do I start? The vegetable fritters are the best I have ever made, the breads are simply wonderful, the combinations of a little spice and a lots of fresh vegetables and olive oil are mouthwatering and both the ‘Cracked’ and ‘Balls and Stuff’ sections with so many divine ideas are a revelation. Perhaps my all-time favourite recipes that I have cooked so far are pomegranate molasses chicken with bulgar wheat salad; a chicken pastilla, short ribs with dates, date molasses and potatoes; and those cheesey bouikos I mentioned above. I intend to cook almost everything!

And finally, this is the true test; I read this book from cover to cover and could not put it down. And as I got to the very last paragraph of the book tears filled my eyes - the authors offer thanks every single customer, and also acknowledge the "truly lovely reviews" from almost everyone who is anyone on London’s tough reviewing scene. Yes, so generous, passionate and just lovely.