“Sometimes I think I’m a victim of my own success,” he laughs over coffee prior to an appearance at Barbara-Jo’s Books To Cooks in Vancouver. “If I publish something like pea soup for instance, I get all these emails saying ‘that can’t be Ottolenghi – it’s too boring!’” “I’m not on a mission to change people’s diets,” emphasizes Ottolenghi, who is not vegetarian and enjoys eating meat – especially lamb and chicken. “But I really believe that if people say ‘I hate Brussels sprouts,’ for example, it’s because they’ve never had them cooked properly in the first place!” Though thoroughly trained in the art of French cooking basics, he delights in big-hearted chunks of ingredients; handfuls of cilantro and mint, pungent spices like harissa, zatar, cumin plus lots of garlic and lemon juice – the complete antithesis of French cuisine.
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ABOVE London's NOPI restaurant. Anyone who has dined in the Middle East knows that portions are large – nouvelle cuisine would cause a riot. But don’t think that ingredients are dispatched willy-nilly. Ottolenghi will painstakingly test recipes 10 times to get them just right. Technique, he says, is of the utmost importance. That’s why Plenty More emphasizes method: simmered, roasted, grilled, and mashed to name a few. “When it comes to vegetarian cooking,” he explains, “people never talk about technique. Restaurants never ask ‘How would you like your cauliflower cooked – medium or well-done?’ ” The father of two-year-old son, Max, Ottolenghi wrote a very candid column in the Guardian in 2013 on how he longed to be a father and the obstacles he and his partner Karl overcame in order to do so. He also tries to squeeze in Pilates workouts to relax. “I was a workaholic before Max was born,” he admits. “Now I work about seven hours a day and come home. It’s so much more enjoyable now.” h