Yotam Ottolenghi Says To Bake A Cake So You Eat Less Sugar (Reheat)

Yotam Ottolenghi is an Israeli-British chef famous for getting people to eat more vegetables. But now, he's making the case for sugar. On the heels of his 2017 dessert cookbook, Sweet, he discusses the personality differences between bakers and cooks.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Pashman?

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• 0:43Dan Pashman?

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• 1:23Dan Pashman?

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• 1:33Speaker 01

  Sirius XM Podcasts.

• 1:41Dan Pashman?

  Hey, everyone. Dan here with your Friday reheat. And this one begins with what might be my all-time favorite cold open of an episode. I'm not gonna say more, because you're gonna hear it in just a few seconds. But today, we are revisiting my conversation with Chef Yotam Adalengi, author of bestselling cookbooks like Plenty and Jerusalem. Now, you may know him as someone who's inspired a lot of people to eat more vegetables. But as you'll hear, Adalengi himself is actually a proponent of eating at least some sugar, too. We talk about the highs and lows of cooking with kids, why he never orders the specials at restaurants, and the pitfalls of eating for a living. And we're featuring him right now because he's got a new book out this week called Simple 2, that's T-O-O, the sequel to his hit 2018 cookbook, Simple. This new one features 135 brand-new recipes for everyday cooking.

• 2:26Dan Pashman?

  As always, if there's an episode you want us to pull out of the deep freezer and reheat, we wanna know. We take requests. Drop us a line at [email protected]. Thanks so much. Here we go. Recently, I sat down with the chef behind the hugely popular cookbooks Jerusalem, Plenty, and now, Sweet. He lives in London, but he was born and raised in Israel. And right off the bat, there was one crucial detail we had to discuss. Oh, I should ask real quick. I know that most American and English people say Yotam, but is that correct? Or do you prefer, or is it Yotam?

• 2:58Speaker 02

  Yotam, it is. But you know, there's so many ways around it, and nobody gets it quite right, because it's not, it's just not, because, so you can do whatever you like.

• 3:06Dan Pashman?

  I was gonna call my mother-in-law. She speaks Hebrew.

• 3:08Speaker 02

  Okay, well, what would she have said?

• 3:10Dan Pashman?

  Should I get her on the phone right now? Yeah, we're gonna...

• 3:12Speaker 02

  Is it her first language, though?

• 3:14Dan Pashman?

  No, but she did live in Israel for three years.

• 3:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, she won't say it right.

• 3:17Dan Pashman?

  Really?

• 3:18Speaker 02

  Three years is not enough to learn how to pronounce that name. It's complicated.

• 3:20Dan Pashman?

  Well, that sounds like, now, now, now, it's...

• 3:22Speaker 02

  You really wanna call her?

• 3:23Dan Pashman?

  Now, it's a challenge, yeah.

• 3:26Dan Pashman?

  I'm putting it on speaker.

• 3:27Speaker 02

  Good.

• 3:29Speaker 02

  You could do whatever you want on a podcast, right?

• 3:31Dan Pashman?

  I know, there's no rules.

• 3:34Dan Pashman?

  Well, she's not, she's not gonna answer. That'll be disappointing.

• 3:36Speaker 02

  I know. That's not good radio, is it, when she doesn't pick up?

• 3:39Dan Pashman?

  Yeah.

• 3:40Speaker 02

  You need to make sure she's there before...

• 3:42Dan Pashman?

  Oh, hey, Alice?

• 3:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm Dan. How you doing?

• 3:46Dan Pashman?

  Good, how are you?

• 3:47Speaker 03

  Everything okay?

• 3:48Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, yeah, everything's great. Just really a quick question for you. How, how would you pronounce the Hebrew name spelled Y-O-T-A-M?

• 3:59Speaker 03

  What? Yotam.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  Oh, that's good. That's good, yeah.

• 4:03Dan Pashman?

  She got it pretty good.

• 4:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, she did it right.

• 4:05Dan Pashman?

  Okay, all right. Now, how would you pronounce O-T-T-O-L-E-N-G-H-I?

• 4:12Dan Pashman?

  Don't worry about it. We'll have him do that one.

• 4:15Speaker 03

  Okay, well, say hello to Yotam. I'm talking to Alice Khan the other line.

• 4:20Dan Pashman?

  Okay, well, tell Alice, guys, say hello.

• 4:22Speaker 03

  I will tell her.

• 4:23Dan Pashman?

  All right, all right. Thanks, Alice, bye. All right, well, that's all the time we've got.

• 4:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, thank you. It was a pleasure. It's so nice to be on your show.

• 4:41Dan Pashman?

  Today on The Sporkful, Yotam Adalengi talks about the personality differences between cooks and bakers, why he never orders the specials in a restaurant, and what happens when a notorious perfectionist tries to cook with his kids.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  I also find it really kind of quite refreshing, because you need to kind of work against your instincts, or you're forced to just let go.

• 5:03Dan Pashman?

  Plus, I'll ask him why a chef credited with getting many people to eat healthier, decided to make a cookbook full of sweets. You talked about sugar sort of being a little bit shameful in society right now. Closet sugar lovers, does that describe you? Are you a closet sugar lover?

• 5:18Speaker 02

  No, I'm not.

• 5:22Dan Pashman?

  That's all coming up. Stick around.

• 5:34Dan Pashman?

  This is The Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. Growing up in Israel, Yotam Adalengi's parents were intellectuals. His father's a chemistry professor. His mom was in Israel's education ministry. And for a long time, he thought he'd follow in their footsteps. He studied philosophy. He wrote his master's thesis on the ontological status of the photographic image in aesthetic and analytic philosophy. You know, that old chestnut. And then, he was gonna go get his PhD. But instead, he went to culinary school. That was 20 years ago. Today, Yotam and his business partners own five restaurants and gourmet delis in London, including the flagship Adalengi.

• 6:15Dan Pashman?

  And he's the author of some of the most influential cookbooks of the past decade, including Jerusalem, which he co-wrote with his Palestinian business partner, Sami Tamimi, and the vegetarian cookbooks, Plenty and Plenty More. Now, he's got a new book of desserts out called Sweet, co-written with his pastry chef, Helen Go. And as Yotam explained to me, the process of testing all the recipes for a book like this, well, it's a process.

• 6:39Speaker 02

  So, at 11:00 AM, when you taste your first things, because I skip breakfast, I know I'm gonna get so much food later on, everything tastes wonderful. And at 4:00 PM, after you've eaten 12 things, everything tastes horrible. So, at 4:00 PM, if something tastes moderately good, it means it's amazing.

• 6:58Speaker 02

  And if at 11:00 AM, if you're not jumping up and down, then it means it's pretty rubbish. So, you know, it's, it's, you need to adjust yourself to the time of the day. And it really is true, completely. Like, I loved sushi for breakfast, right?

• 7:12Dan Pashman?

  Yes.

• 7:13Speaker 02

  So, I, yeah, I love sushi for breakfast.

• 7:14Dan Pashman?

  I'm right there with you.

• 7:15Speaker 02

  So, on the way to work, I stop somewhere. I don't even get the best sushi, because most of the good sushi places are not really open that time of the day. But that kind of saltiness, you know, with the soy and all that, it really, really, it's great for me. I love that excitement. But actually, at the end of the day, after I've tasted quite a lot of food, I don't want things that are kind of rich like that. I mean, sushi's not rich, but you know, once you add the soy and you've got the seaweed and the fish, et cetera, it's, it's a complex experience. I want something much less, like a miso soup, or maybe a glass of wine with a cheese, or just something much less kind of interesting. So, yeah, it depends on, on what, what you're after.

• 7:54Dan Pashman?

  I think kind of what I'm taking away from what you're saying is just how many different factors contribute to how something tastes at a given moment, in, on a given day, for a given person.

• 8:04Speaker 02

  Yes, I mean, that's absolutely true.

• 8:07Dan Pashman?

  How do you then write one recipe for a dish that you're gonna put into a book for all time, that everyone's gonna look at this same recipe? All these different people, in all different lives, at all different times of day, in all different parts of the world, are all gonna be looking at the same page in your book?

• 8:22Speaker 02

  No, they're not all gonna like it, and they're all not gonna react in the same way. And I never anticipate that. So, you know, there's private, people have their own tastes, they have their own baggage. So, you know, they don't, they don't, they're not necessarily gonna like what I like at, at that time of the day. So, in a sense, this is why selecting a bunch of recipes is really, it's creative. I love that bit. It's not just about trying individual recipes, it's about putting them together as a package that makes sense. So, it means you do kind of try to anticipate what different people want at different times of the day, or in different days in the week, or, you know, in all sorts of, of their daily circumstances. So, when you look at a salad, or you look at a stew, and you can say, okay, who would like to eat it and when?

• 9:07Dan Pashman?

  Yotam says, in the case of his new book, Sweet, there's another factor he had to consider.

• 9:12Speaker 02

  We're in a funny time at the moment, where sugar has just become this massively divisive thing. You know, people are like, they're like avoiding sugar like it was plague. And it's really bad, because we know what happens when you're kind of irrationally excluding something. You want it even more, and even more irrationally. So, I just think this whole attitude is, is misguided and not good, and not gonna achieve the, the purpose. I think the idea of eating or consuming less sugar is probably a right thing. The good way to go about it is not to avoid sugar at any cost. If you ask me, I think the best way to eat less sugar is to bake a cake, and to eat

• 9:55Speaker 02

  a slice, and avoid lots of snacks, and, you know, things that have got sugar in them that you haven't put in yourself, you know?

• 10:02Dan Pashman?

  Right. Eat that one slice of cake and enjoy it.

• 10:04Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 10:05Dan Pashman?

  And then, don't eat a bunch of other junk.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, don't buy those snack bars that you, you know, you get at the, when you leave the store, you know, you buy a bunch of snack bars. And even things that are considered like healthy, like, you know, a granola bar.

• 10:15Dan Pashman?

  No, that's, right, it's a candy bar.

• 10:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, or, or fruit juice, or, you know, all these things that just have sugar and none of the added value. When I say added value, I'm not mean nutrients.

• 10:24Dan Pashman?

  You mean pleasure.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  I mean pleasure. I mean making space to eat something delicious that you made yourself. I mean, it's ceremony, and being at home, and sharing. I mean, these are just such valuable things.

• 10:35Dan Pashman?

  And human.

• 10:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, superhuman.

• 10:37Dan Pashman?

  It really, I just turned 40.

• 10:39Speaker 02

  Happy birthday.

• 10:40Dan Pashman?

  Thank you. It was a few months ago. But, but I, I've noticed that more and more of the people around me are, are getting on to these different diets. I was with this person a couple weeks ago, who was sort of like stating with such pride that she had recently gone raw vegan.

• 10:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:58Dan Pashman?

  Not just vegan, but raw vegan. I don't want to get into a debate about like the merits of the science underpinning how healthy that is versus regular vegan versus whatever. And there's ethical, whatever, but it's just kind of like, it feels so extreme.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  So extreme.

• 11:11Dan Pashman?

  It's interesting because you have done so much to push people to eat more vegetables and to see the potential in vegetables and to eat more vegetarian food. And I know that you write a column in The Guardian in the UK with vegetarian recipes and ideas, but I understand that you also kind of get a backlash sometimes when you recommend a meat pairing with one of your vegetarian recipes. What do you make of that?

• 11:33Speaker 02

  Well, so I've been on a journey because when I started writing for The Guardian, that's over a decade ago, I did write a vegetarian column, but I wasn't a vegetarian. And I think 10 years ago, it was funny, it was a bit like old school meat eaters versus vegetarians, and then there was no communication going on. You'd either belong to us or you didn't, and there was no happy middle.

• 11:55Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 11:56Speaker 02

  And I think something happened in the last 10, 15 years in which more and more meat eaters have wanted to convert some of their diet to more of a plant-based diet, you know, to just introduce more vegetables to their food. And I think that's a great thing. And I hope I had something to do with it. And now we're going back to extremes in which people are, again, like getting this to camps, you know, like your friend who's a raw vegan or someone who is completely excludes sugars. And it creates this kind of separation. It's a kind of a cultish way of eating. So you are not being really in conversation with the rest of the food eating world, only within your group. And so you're avoiding all sorts of wonderful things. It feels really taking a step back to go into all these kind of camps and rivalries, et cetera.

• 12:40Dan Pashman?

  And like the amount of mental energy that is expended on withholding pleasure.

• 12:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 12:48Dan Pashman?

  Is like, it's almost disturbing to me. It's upsetting to me. It's like, there's so many other things that people, that we could be expending mental energy and effort on.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  It's almost like one on the, at the expense of the other, you know, like rather than enjoying the food, I'll talk about it until the cows come home, you know? Rather than just having a great meal.

• 13:10Dan Pashman?

  Yeah.

• 13:11Speaker 02

  I'm gonna, and really enjoying a meal, just like having a great conversation about something else and having, oh, that's a great, I'm gonna spend like hours, you know, debating whether it's right or wrong, what I've got on this plate. And it's really, for me, it just spoils the experience, really spoils it.

• 13:26Dan Pashman?

  I'm also someone who is, I eat less meat than I used to, and I'm more aware of where the food comes from, and I eat more vegetables, and I love your recipes. And so like, I think, but it's just like all things in moderation. And it becomes, it becomes an identity.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, it becomes an identity, it becomes a religion.

• 13:42Dan Pashman?

  I'm trying to think if there's a good, because I know that you studied philosophy years ago, there's a good sort of like philosophical analogy or explanation for this. I keep thinking about Kant and reason and reason and morality, like that morality must be derived from reason, right? But this doesn't, I don't know, maybe.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're challenging me here because I'm so rusty on my philosophy. So I haven't touched the book in about 30 years.

• 14:05Dan Pashman?

  You don't stay up late at night, you know, revising your Kant?

• 14:07Speaker 02

  No.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  I really, really, really want to, but you know, I kind of fall asleep with my children all over me, and it's not gonna happen for a little while.

• 14:27Dan Pashman?

  Coming up, my conversation with Yotam Adalengi continues. He admits he's a perfectionist in the kitchen. He likes to know that a dish is gonna turn out well. So what happens when a person like that starts raising kids? Plus, I'll ask him for his take on one of my own culinary creations, and he'll explain why, when he goes out to eat, he never orders the specials. Stick around.

• 15:08Speaker 04

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• 17:53Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back to another Sporkful Reheat. I'm Dan Pashman. A lot of times, people want to ask me like, oh, what are you cooking? What restaurants are you going to? They ask, am I in Andres' and the whole Sporkful team the same questions? Well, it turns out, we provide a listener service to you that includes that information. It's our newsletter. We don't send it out all the time, we're not gonna spam you, we're just gonna send you useful information, recipes, restaurant information, links to articles that we're reading, shows that we're watching. And guess what else? You'll be automatically entered into giveaways for cookbooks featured on the show, as long as you live in the US or Canada. That's also where I'll email you to tell you about like, special sales happening on this Folini website, by discounts on pasta and stuff. So there are a lot of benefits, and you can sign up right now, while you're listening. Head on over to sporkful.com/newsletter to sign up today.

• 18:36Dan Pashman?

  Again, that's sporkful.com/newsletter. Thanks. Now, back to Yotam Adalengi. Like I said, as a young man, he was on his way to becoming a philosophy professor before he switched paths and became a chef. So as our conversation progressed, I decided to get philosophical. I have this theory, Yotam, that I want to run by you, tell me what you think.

• 18:58Speaker 02

  Good pronunciation of my name, by the way.

• 19:00Dan Pashman?

  Thank you, thank you. I was practicing beforehand, even before I talked to my mother-in-law.

• 19:06Dan Pashman?

  So I feel like there are two kinds of people in the world, people who prefer to cook and people who prefer to bake.

• 19:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's kind of an accurate understanding.

• 19:16Dan Pashman?

  And I know, and earlier in your career, you were better known for cooking for savory things, even though I know that, that early on in your career as a chef, you started in pastry. Which type of person are you? At your core, do you feel, are you a cook or a baker?

• 19:32Speaker 02

  You know, I'm not gonna give you a straight answer, right?

• 19:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, I started my professional life in a kitchen, really being a pastry chef. And I've had much more training as a pastry chef. I worked longer in pastry. I think there's a lot of cooks that are scared of baking for all the wrong reasons. I think baking is intimidating only because people think that there is this chemistry that they have to understand or a science that they have to be aware of to get it right. But actually, I think baking is much easier than people think because baking recipes are very detailed. And you know, you know, the size of your pan, you know, how many minutes the cake is going to go into the oven at one temperature, what are you going to do when you take it out, et cetera. Normally savory recipes are not that prescriptive.

• 20:21Speaker 02

  You know, a fish is very easy to overcook. And even if someone tells you to cook it for 10 minutes, it might easily be 12 or eight because of the size of the fish or the nature of the fish, et cetera. So I think a lot of people that find baking intimidating shouldn't be intimidated.

• 20:36Dan Pashman?

  But isn't it, I think that that division is indicative of a difference in people's personalities, which is that some people find comfort in being told like, you must follow these steps exactly. And some people don't like that. Some people like to be able to say, I'm going to open the fridge and see what's in here. I'm going to throw all these things in together. I'm going to take a little bit of this recipe and a little bit of that recipe and I'm going to chuck it all together and I have at least a basic understanding. And you strike me as the kind of guy who maybe more likes, you like that specific list.

• 21:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're absolutely right. I don't like to get things wrong when I cook.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  I like predictability. And I think, you know what, whenever I go to a restaurant, they always say, go, these are the specials of the day. And I never order a special because I go, I say to myself, when did they test this recipe? You know, it's like the fish arrived this morning, the chef said, I'll make this salsa and I'm going to put it on the table and I'm sure it's going to be right. But what if it didn't? They're not going to serve it, right? They're not going to just throw the fish out. And the dishes that are on the menu, they've been tested, customers have been giving their, you know, opinions and feedbacks, et cetera, et cetera. And so I always go for not the specials. And I think you're absolutely right in thinking that I am the one, the sort of person that loves the predictable. I love to know that it's going to work and not risk it.

• 21:58Dan Pashman?

  So what does that say about you?

• 22:01Speaker 02

  Well, you tell me.

• 22:04Dan Pashman?

  Well.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  This is like a second.

• 22:06Dan Pashman?

  I know, right, right.

• 22:07Speaker 02

  This is a session.

• 22:08Dan Pashman?

  I never, ever follow recipes to a T. I guess for me, it's about like ownership. You know, I had took piano lessons when I was a little kid and like from the second that I knew three notes, I wanted to write my own songs.

• 22:20Speaker 02

  I see.

• 22:21Dan Pashman?

  That was my personality, you know, like, and other people, though, I understand other people, like, they like being, like, people think that they want more choices in life, but a lot of people don't want more choices. Choices stress people out.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  No, I, so you and I are really different. Like, so like completely different. I like to have tested a recipe a few times and know that it works really well before I cook. Like when I have people over or even when I cook for the family, I don't experiment really normally. I mean, of course, I can make a quick stir fry with from whatever I've got in the fridge and that would probably work and taste good. But I don't like that that much. I love to make sure that what I've tested is really good. And there is a sense of perfectionism, which it would really bug me if it didn't taste really good, like as good as it could be if I tested it before or tried it before.

• 23:08Dan Pashman?

  So you like predictability.

• 23:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:11Dan Pashman?

  You like, you're a perfectionist. You like to know that things are going to turn out really well.

• 23:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:18Dan Pashman?

  To some sense, like developing a recipe is kind of like raising a kid. You're starting off with these raw materials and eventually you're hoping you're going to have a beautiful cake. But this cake has free will. I would think that for a person who likes predictability and likes to know how things are going to turn out, it can be stressful to work on a cake that has free will.

• 23:45Speaker 02

  I know. Well, now we're getting really philosophical.

• 23:47Dan Pashman?

  Yeah.

• 23:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, this is challenging. Kids are challenging. I find it hard often with, it depends which one, you know, they've got different personalities. But the one with a more free will is challenging. And I find it, sometimes I want to tear my hair out because I like to be in control and I like to kind of, you know, I like to chop up the old ingredients before they go in the pan. But kids, they just want to do things in a different way and in different orders. But I also find it really kind of quite refreshing because you need to kind of work against your instincts or you're forced to just let go.

• 24:26Dan Pashman?

  I totally get, I mean, I, my kids are seven and four. And so, I mean, I get it. And when I cook with them, it is like you have, it sort of forces you to relinquish some control, like, yeah, there may be some egg shells in this batter, you know, but we're just going to have to power through and like surrender on this small detail in order to have this larger experience of like cooking with my kids.

• 24:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm with you. Yeah, completely.

• 24:48Dan Pashman?

  And that's really fun and special. And like, yes, the kitchen's going to get messy and the kids are going to get messy and the food hopefully will turn out okay.

• 24:55Speaker 02

  But normally cooking with kids is not about getting a perfect result. It's more about the, you know, especially when they're younger, it's about like just letting them muck about.

• 25:03Dan Pashman?

  But if you're a person who holds yourself to a high standard and expects perfect results, then it can be hard when you're dealing with, when you're getting pulled in both directions.

• 25:11Speaker 02

  You create that space where they pretend to cook and then you go and cook the meal.

• 25:15Dan Pashman?

  Right, right, right, right. You get made the cookies, now you go play, I'm going to make the real food.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  Just kind of, that's how it works.

• 25:25Dan Pashman?

  Coming up, your Tom and I talk about what it means to autolengify something. Stick around.

• 25:33Speaker 05

  It's time to open up a can of advertisements.

• 25:40Speaker 06

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• 26:24Speaker 06

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• 27:23Dan Pashman?

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• 27:42Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back. Let's return now to my conversation with your Tom Autolengi.

• 27:48Dan Pashman?

  Your name has become a verb in the food world. Autolengify something. How do you define that term?

• 27:54Speaker 02

  What it means, I guess, in people's minds is something that has something a bit unpredictable in it, a surprise. So maybe if it's a stew, it might have a handful of barberries through, which are kind of little sweet and sour berries that kind of pop up once in a while and go, oh, it's not just something that is a stew and is uniformly samey. It's got these little surprises in it.

• 28:19Dan Pashman?

  I wonder, I mean, on one hand, it's a great testament to your work that you, you know, it's great to have something that is like a signature that people know you for and to the point that they associate your name with it. On the other hand, I wonder if on a creative level, if after a certain period of time, people expecting you to do a certain thing, and especially when the thing they expect you to do is to surprise them. Like by definition, it's hard, it's hard when you are expected to surprise because surprise requires subverting expectation.

• 28:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:49Dan Pashman?

  And so is that something that you worry about over time?

• 28:53Speaker 02

  Well, it creates a bigger challenge for me because I cannot, for instance, in the test kitchen that I run, that there's a couple of people cooking and we try things all the time. And often what we say, we taste and we say, that's not Autolengi enough. And by that, we mean that is not going to satisfy the set of criteria that people would expect if they were to cook an Autolengi recipe. We had this delicious pea soup that we cooked a while back. It was just perfection, you know, it was, it kept the color, the green color very beautifully because of the way we cooked the peas and it had a bit of basil, it's got beautiful texture. We all loved it. But then we thought like, but what is the value? I mean, who, what would people think? Why do they need a really good pea soup from Autolengi?

• 29:37Speaker 02

  I mean, there's a lot of other recipes there. And so, you know, we went back to the drawing board and we created this crouton, which was bread spread up, spread with goat's cheese that was rolled and deep fried and then cut into slices like a roulade and put into it and looked really beautiful and kind of added a whole different dimension to the pea soup. And we had to do it. And I mean, I mean, probably other chefs don't need to do that. So I, I have sometimes to think like that. And I also get quite annoyed when I love something and just think, oh, that's just not going to work because of those reasons. So yeah, it's a problem. When you do a book, there's more room to play. So for instance, in Sweet,

• 30:18Speaker 02

  in the book I've co-authored with Helen, we have some really simple bakes, really beautiful, delicious things that are not very Ottolenghi. There is a beautiful poppy seed and lemon loaf, you know, essentially a drizzle cake, which is a very British thing to have. And there's nothing particularly different about it, but it's just good. And within a context of the whole book, you can afford to have that.

• 30:44Dan Pashman?

  So there's this pizza that I make sometimes at home. It's not fancy, but we, we, we'll go to the local pizzeria and we'll get raw pizza dough because we're too lazy to make it ourselves.

• 30:55Speaker 02

  It's a great idea.

• 30:56Dan Pashman?

  Thank you. And my kids just do like tomato sauce and cheese, but I have started, I'll take my portion of the dough, stretch it out, a large amount of olive oil, salt, pepper and za'atar.

• 31:07Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 31:08Dan Pashman?

  Bake it for a bit. That's mostly done. And then I add crumbled feta cheese and artichoke hearts, chopped artichoke hearts.

• 31:16Speaker 02

  Okay, the artichoke hearts left of field. Yeah.

• 31:19Dan Pashman?

  Oh, is that, is that already? Did I already Ottolenghi this pizza?

• 31:22Speaker 02

  No, I mean, because the, what you described before is a very, sort of the olive oil on a pizza dough with za'atar is a very Palestinian dish called manaishe, I think. And it's, and even the feta would could be worked there because they do put white cheese on it on occasion. But the artichokes were.

• 31:39Dan Pashman?

  Oh, that, that was a curve ball.

• 31:40Speaker 02

  Well, that was just, doesn't happen, not in that particular, but it doesn't bother me. I think, I think it tastes delicious.

• 31:46Dan Pashman?

  Well, I mean, it's already very good. So maybe it's good. But I was wondering if there's, if there's something I can add to Ottolenghi this pizza.

• 31:52Speaker 02

  It's so Ottolenghi already. What do you mean?

• 32:08Dan Pashman?

  That's Chef Yotam Ottolenghi. His new cookbook of desserts is called Sweet. It's out now. This show is produced by Anne Sannie and me. Editing help from Margaret Kelly. Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher. Our executive producers are Chris Bannon and Jenny Radelit. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 32:24Speaker 07

  And I'm Gretchen in Amsterdam, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.

• 32:46Dan Pashman?

  This reheat was produced by

• 32:48Speaker 06

  Gianna Palmer.

• 32:49Dan Pashman?

  The team that produces The Sporkful today includes me along with managing producer

• 32:53Speaker 06

  Emma Morgenstern.

• 32:54Dan Pashman?

  And senior producer

• 32:55Speaker 05

  Andres O'Hara.

• 32:56Dan Pashman?

  Our engineer is Jared O'Connell. Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of Sirius XM Podcasts. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. And hey, if you want to hear new episodes of The Sporkful ad free, subscribe to Sirius XM Podcasts Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit siriusxm.com/podcastsplus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 33:26Speaker 01

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• 33:55Speaker 06

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• 34:37Speaker 06

  this information. Read it carefully. While Active ETFs offer the potential to outperform an index, these products may more significantly trail an index as compared with passive ETFs. ETFs are subject to market fluctuation and the risks of their underlying investments. ETFs are subject to management fees and other expenses. Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC, member NYSE, SIPC.