Jerusalem: A Cookbook

Authors: Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi | Hardcover

A collection of 120 recipes exploring the flavors of Jerusalem from the New York Times bestselling author of Plenty, one of the most lauded cookbooks of 2011.

In Jerusalem, Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi explore the vibrant cuisine of their home city--with its diverse Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities. Both men were born in Jerusalem in the same year--Tamimi on the Arab east side and Ottolenghi in the Jewish west. This stunning cookbook offers 120 recipes from their unique cross-cultural perspective, from inventive vegetable dishes to sweet, rich desserts. With five bustling restaurants in London and two stellar cookbooks, Ottolenghi is one of the most respected chefs in the world; in Jerusalem, he and Tamimi have collaborated to produce their most personal cookbook yet.

Growing up in an Italian family there was a lot of emphasis on food and gathering. It was a weekly event that felt ritualistic, but in reality was the best and most unguarded time spent amongst close friends and relatives. A collection of events, conversations, and tastes that evoke some of my best memories and most nostalgic moments of being a kid, a teenager, and young adult. It was all built around food and in many ways it was a window inward to discovering parts of myself, my heritage. It is now a practiced ritual I hold dear with my young family. That is what this book is all about. It’s the dinner story bookended by a man with one half of his family from Italy and the other half from Israel. With regard to food, nothing more needs to be said. However, woven into this cookbook is their history and his memories of two cultures, two palettes together on one table. This book is the foundation of many great dinners in your home with easy-to-challenging veggie heavy recipes and it is the foundation from which Yotam Ottolenghi has built his universal culinary renown. -Dave DeLuca, bookshop owner