A little Christmas treat from us to you! Something to get your teeth stuck into while you're wrapping your presents, stuffing your turkey or out for a walk.

You may know that we're OG Yotam Ottolenghi superfans, having both worked at Ottolenghi before we set up our own place, so we've been dying to get him on the podcast since we started. If you don't know the Ottolenghi brand, then you've probably been living under a rock for the last 20 years: they have amazing delis and restaurants in London, era defining cookbook, a weekly recipe column in the Saturday Guardian and regularly contribute to the New York Times.

Today we're joined by Yotam Ottolenghi, Noor Murad and Verena Lochmuller from the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen, another exciting part of the Ottolenghi empire! The Ottolenghi Test Kitchen was founded by Yotam and is headed by Noor Murad alongside a collaborative team of chefs, writers, doers and thinkers. Together they cook, taste, converse and put into writing all the recipes they truly hope will make it onto your tables. We talked about how OTK came into being, what it's like to work in such a collaborative, creative environment, and of course we drooled over their latest cookbook, Extra Good Things.

Pick up a copy of OTK Extra Good Things and OTK Shelf Love for Christmas! Available where all good books are sold.

With thanks to our guests Yotam Ottolenghi, Noor Murad and Verena Lochmuller.

Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast if you've not already, and check out our back catalogue if you're new to the podcast, there are lots of juicy morsels to enjoy.

With thanks to everyone who helps make this podcast happen:

Producer: Miranda Hinkley

Audio Engineers: John Scott

Theme Tune: Daniel Winshall

Head of Comms: Louisa Cornford

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Honey & Co is 10 years old! We couldn't think of a better way to kick off our birthday celebrations than a special episode of Honey & Co: The Food Sessions. Coming atcha.

Join us, Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich, at home as we rustle up a classic Honey & Co dish, talk about how the restaurant was born, catch up with our team, guests and friends about their memories of the last 10 years. You will laugh, you will cry, you will be amazed! We loved reminiscing and it was so special to read and listen to all the memories submitted by our customers from over the years.

Thank you to everyone who sent us a voice message or a dm, an email or a story. We're so sorry we couldn't feature them all, we read every single one, we love them, it's been very special for us to read them and to help us remember and enjoy what we've done over the last 10 years.

News! While some of you may know that we will be closing Honey & Co on Warren Street at the end of April, we are so happy to announce today that we will be moving to Lamb's Conduit Street this Spring. We're not closing, just moving!

Follow the new location build @HoneyAndCoBloomsbury on instagram.

If you want early access to bookings you will need to be on our mailing list – sign up to our mailing list.

With thanks to our guests Mirko D'Angelo, Rachael Gibbon, David Loyd and Lara Hamilton.

Thanks to Laura Bartram-Pope, Hannah Geller, Briana Lebold and Sunny Kang for their audio messages, and to everyone who sent us a voice message, a dm or an email.

Producer: Miranda Hinkley

Audio Engineers: Paul Brogden & John Scott

Theme tune: Daniel Winshall

Head of Comms: Louisa Cornford

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Coming soon! This year we're celebrating 10 years of Honey & Co and we're going to kick off celebrations with a special episode of Honey & Co: The Food Sessions. We will hear from staff, guests, friends and lots of you, too! We will laugh, we will cry and we will share some very exciting news. Tune in next week for our 10 Years of Honey & Co Special episode!

With thanks to:

Producer: Miranda Hinkley Audio Engineers: Paul Brogden & John Scott Theme tune: Daniel Winshall Head of Comms: Louisa Cornford

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today on Honey & Co: The Food Sessions we're joined by queen of sugar, Ravneet Gill.

Ravneet has many strings to her bow - she's a pastry chef and cookbook author, a judge on Junior Bake Off and founder of chefs' collective Countertalk. We're huge fans of everything Ravneet does. We talked to Rav about her route into the world of food, her experiences working in kitchens across London (including ours) and how she came to write her pastry books, get into TV and set up Contertalk. We also (of course) talked everything sugar, cakes and pastries, and sent our love to Biji! 

Follow Ravneet on instagram: @ravneeteats Get a signed copy of Sugar I Love You

With thanks to:

Producer: Miranda Hinkley Audio Engineers: Paul Brogden & John Scott Theme tune: Daniel Winshall  Head of Comms: Louisa Cornford 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today on Honey & Co: The Food Sessions we have Caroline Eden joining us! A journalist, food writer and cookbook author, Caroline's latest cookbook Red Sands, Reportage and Recipes through Central Asia, from Hinterland to Heartland, the follow-up to  Black Sea, is a reimagining of traditional travel writing using food as the jumping-off point to explore Central Asia. Red Sands came out in 2020, and won all of the awards - The Financial Times, The Sunday Times and The New Yorker all selected it as their book of the year for 2020. We talked to Caroline about how her obsession with Central Asia began, the  practicalities of travelling in the region, and the incredible people she met on the way, as well as demystifying plov, the environmental disaster of the Aral Sea, and the soviet-era sanatoriums of Tajikistan. It was an absolute joy to talk to Caroline! 

Follow Caroline on instagram: @edentravels Get a copy of Red Sands

With thanks to:

Producer: Miranda Hinkley Audio Engineers: Paul Brogden & John Scott Theme tune: Daniel Winshall  Head of Comms: Louisa Cornford 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today on Honey & Co: The Food Sessions we have Chetna Makan. Chetna is a baker, cookbook author and YouTube star. She worked as a fashion designer in Mumbai before moving to the UK and entering the Great British Bake Off in 2014 when she absolutely stole our hearts! Since then Chetna has written several bestseller cookbooks, including her latest book Chetna's 30-Minute Indian, and has become known for her creative flavour twists with a love of simple Indian home cooking. We were so excited to catch up with Chetna on everything she's been up to since we last saw her.  We talked about roping in children to film content during lockdown, the process of creating simple delicious food available in 30 mins, and we asked 'what even is sour dough??'

Follow Chetna on instagram: @chetnamakan Get a copy of Chetna's 30-Minute Indian 

With thanks to:

Producer: Miranda Hinkley Audio Engineers: Paul Brogden & John Scott Theme tune: Daniel Winshall  Head of Comms: Louisa Cornford 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today on Honey & Co: The Food Sessions we have the most exciting guests, Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley, co-authors of Falastin, a celebration of Palestinian food. They’re both from the powerhouse of Ottolenghi, Sami was a partner from the outset, and Tara joined the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen 10 years ago, where she has been developing and testing recipes ever since. We talked about their very different routes into the food world, our memories of working together at Ottolenghi, and how they came to write Falastin. We were fascinated to hear their experiences visiting Palestine together – we compared Tara’s spreadsheet to Sami’s relaxed approach to travel, heard how they spent days tracking down a group of yogurt makers, and they told us about the generosity of all the people whose kitchens they visited. And of course we discussed at length the recipes that have gone wild since the book came out – Sami’s dad's famous eggs, tahini swirls, and the shawarma filo pie.

Get a copy of Falastin from our shop Honey & Spice.

Follow Sami and Tara on instagram: @tara.wigley  @sami_tamimi -

With thanks to:

Producer: Miranda Hinkley Audio Engineers: Paul Brogden & John Scott Theme tune: Daniel Winshall  Head of Comms: Louisa Cornford 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our guest this week on Honey & Co: The Food Sessions is an incredible chef and a kindred spirit of ours from Seattle, Washington.

Renee Erickson is a James Beard award-winning chef and author, she bought her first restaurant at 25 and today co-owns 6 restaurants and bars in Seattle, and that's before we count the doughnut and coffee spots. We're absolutely in awe of her energy and creativity. We talked about the responsibility of owning a restaurant, how she picks her restaurant names and we explored her new book Getaway, the perfect antidote to the last 18 months. Oh and we tried to sell her our restaurants. Spoiler, she did not take us up on the offer.

Enjoy! 

Follow Renee: @chefreneeerickson Get a copy of Getaway

---

With thanks to:

Producer: Miranda Hinkley Audio Engineers: Paul Brogden & John Scott Theme tune: Daniel Winshall  Head of Comms: Louisa Cornford 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.