The real housewives (and husbands) of Ottolenghi
Real people making real food in real life – meet the London-based Israeli who has launched a cooking club inspired by a Facebook group
Louisa Walters is Features Editor at the Jewish News and specialises in food and travel writing
Yotam Ottolenghi is currently on tour in the UK, regaling thousands of fans at venues across the country with stories of his childhood and his travels, and talking about the inspiration for his latest recipe book, Comfort. A day earlier, in a quiet corner of north London, there was a celebration of Ottolenghi on a much smaller scale with the launch of the London Ottolenghi Cooking Club.
As any Ottolenghi fan will know, there has long been a Facebook group dedicated to the man, his restaurants and, most of all, his recipes. The Yotam Ottolenghi-inspired Cooking Housewives is a community of 45,000 people eager to share their makes and bakes, to swap recipe tips and to play the books off against each other.
Doron Bar-Gil, an Israeli man (clearly not a housewife!) based in London, decided to take things one step further and establish a local cooking club.
Doron, 42, who lives in Whetstone with his husband Yam Bloom (36, also Israeli), and their two children, Ariel, 5 and Nathan, 1, came to London 15 years ago to do a master’s degree. To help finance his studies he worked at Carmelli bakery in Golders Green.
“This is where I got to start on a journey of passion and love for cooking and baking and creating things that are meaningful for people, and using that as a way to bring people together,” he says. To this day Doron is a master challah baker.
He soon realised that as much as he enjoyed the cooking, he needed an extra layer to it. “I need to understand the story behind what I cook. I need to understand the experiences people have shared which led them to cook whatever they cook. Those stories and connections are what I enjoy most, even more than the actual cooking itself. And I think Ottolenghi, through his books and the community that has emerged, allows that to happen. It goes way beyond the food itself, into the connections, into the stories, into the life experiences, which I really enjoy.”
When Doron discovered a Facebook group of people sharing and posting stuff related to Ottolenghi recipes he felt encouraged to jump on and ask questions and share the recipes that he’s made. “And then when I started going back and forth onto that Facebook group and seeing what other people are cooking and getting so much inspiration, I thought why don’t we take it one step further and leverage this connection to meet in person, to share our passion and our excitement.”
A few months ago he posted on the group asked to ask if anyone would be interested in a meetup and people from all over the world commented, “and I started seeing people arranging get-togethers in Australia, in the States, in Canada. This got me more excited and I felt I needed to get this going in London”.
Doron set up a WhatsApp group, posted the link on the Facebook group, and invited north Londoners to join. I was one of them. He shared a few date options, and once we all settled on one, he assigned food categories (mains, sides, veggies, desserts, etc). Everyone picked a category and shared the dishes they planned to make. To keep it simple, we didn’t stick to one specific cookbook for this first meetup and agreed on mostly veggie-only dishes. I proffered two desserts – a rolled pavlova and tahini and halva chocolate brownies, both from Sweet.
“As an immigrant I felt that this was an opportunity for me to create meaningful get togethers and socialise in other ways. I was very excited to be able to find commonalities and common passions, to feel as if I’m in a family. It’s one more step towards making me feel more inclusive, and to call this place my home,” Says Doron.
Odile Wittemans, who was born in Belgium but now lives in London, made toasted cauliflower and hazelnut salad from Jerusalem and spice nuts from Flavour. “I loved the initiative. It’s amazing how food can bring a very diverse group of people together and create an instant bond. I have a stressful job and in general cooking is how I relax. I love all the YO flavours,” she says.
Doron, who made two different types of challah, a butternut, orange and sage galette from Plenty, and a butternut, tamarind and coconut stew from Comfort, says that cooking Israeli food is a way of bringing some of his family memories and his background into his life here in London. “I also give things a twist – I change stuff, I explore different ingredients. I experiment with combinations of different flavours. And I think this is essentially the uniqueness of living in London, where I am surrounded by lots of Israeli and Jewish friends, but I’m also exposed to the wider society. I’m taking the flavours that I grew up with and adding different spices from different parts of the world, and seeing what happens. And that blend is what I enjoy the most.”
Most attendees and those showing interest in the London Ottolenghi Cooking Club are Jewish. “I wasn’t necessarily expecting that,” says Doron. “On the Facebook group there are many people who have no connection to Judaism or to Israel whatsoever. But as we started building the London Cooking Club, it became very clear that on top of our love for cooking and for sharing recipes there is the Jewish connection. I actually really like that – I think it gives it another perspective. Maybe this is a time when we all feel like we need to come together.”
Anthea Mond, who was born in Vietnam, attended with her Israeli husband Omer and their two young children. She made a slow-cooked chicken from Simple and roasted baby potatoes with aioli and buttered pine nuts from Shelf Love. “It was such a great event – all the food ensured that – but it was also so great to meet such lovely people! It’s just a reminder that connecting in person and over food is a gift and it’s so much better than over text and the internet.”
Nadia Benaim, from Hampstead, who made green pancakes with lime butter from Plenty, says: “What a special group of foodies of different ages and stages of life, uniting through a common thread – love of cooking and eating with Ottolenghi as our inspiration. A really wonderful afternoon spent! Doron’s organisation and dedication to the success of the lunch was awe-inspiring. And the fact that we each got one of his challot to take home was the icing on the cake.”
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