Chasing Smoke: Cooking Over Fire Around The Levant

Even if you didn’t know Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich, you’d have to be intrigued by this title Chasing Smoke, and its bright orange cover. There are many cookbooks these days so it’s difficult to stand out from the crowd but this one certainly does.

It’s a third book from the ‘Honeys’ who own the much loved London restaurants, Honey & Co, Honey & Smoke and Honey & Spice.

Where there is smoke, there is fire and this irrepressible couple have been following the trail of smoke all their lives. They tell me that where there’s fire, food, friendships and memories are made.

Sarit and Itamar at our kitchen table

Their own fires burn brightly at their grillhouse Honey and Smoke at the northern end of Great Portland Street in London. The irresistible smell of aubergines, onions, courgettes and squash charring over coal and wood smoke wafts out onto the street to tempt the passers-by to follow the trail to the source of the delicious smells.

This book takes us across the Levant as Sarit and Itamar visit their favourite cities in Alexandrea, Egypt, Amman, Jordan, Acre, Israel, Adana, Turkey and Thessaloniki in Greece. They’ve really get a knack for ferreting out the most delicious simple, flavour packed dishes – could be a meal for two or a mouth-watering joyful feast for your family and a few friends. Perfect timing…exactly the sort of food I want to eat now that we can have a little get together outdoors, lots of fresh air and tantalizing smells.

Sarit and Itamar really are masters of cooking over fire. I love how they pass on many of the tips and tricks they’ve learned over decades of grilling both at home and in their restaurants - there’s even some rainy day advice. In Chasing Smoke, they’ve put together a beautiful collection of recipes from all over the Middle East from the most famous grill houses to the humblest roadside kebab houses, even cooking over a circle of stones on the sea shore.

I also learned about balcony cooking, the reality for so many in high-rise apartments but it doesn’t matter where you live, one can cook safely over a little grill and reawaken the hunter gatherer within us all.