Honey & Smoke

Honey & Co chefs, husband and wife team, Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich, are sitting contentedly at our kitchen table podding peas and broad beans for supper. 

They’ve spent the afternoon prepping for their guest chef course at the Ballymaloe Cookery School.  They live in Central London, run two mega successful and much loved restaurants and a deli called Honey & Smoke in Fitzrovia.

Each is jam packed with guests who absolutely love their homey Middle Eastern food. There’s something particularly welcoming, warm and comforting about Sarit and Itamar’s places and it’s the kind of food we love to eat, who isn’t addicted to scooping up dollops of hummus or baba ganoush on ashtanur flat bread or pitta. 

They both love cooking and have since they were five. They originally met in the kitchen of a posh Italian Restaurant in Israel but decided to emigrate to London, where they worked in the Orrery, it’s worth knowing that Sarit was pastry chef for Ottolenghi and executive head chef at Nopi, both sensational restaurants.

This is their third guest chef appearance at the Ballymaloe Cookery School (read about their 2015 visit here). They love coming to Ireland and their idea of heaven is being able to wander through the farm and gardens, pick the leaves and petals for the salad, dig potatoes, snip off the blossoms from the zucchini, licking their lips at the thought of how they will prepare them.  Real cooks are endlessly excited by beautiful produce and exciting new flavours.  

They have searched the highways and byways of the Middle East for the best spices, sumac, za’atar and best street food.  Their enthusiasm is infectious, even strangers sometimes share recipes with them – they endlessly try to recreate the flavours of their childhood and home country.  Honey & Spice is like a tiny Aladdin’s Cave with shelves packed with the best Middle Eastern ingredients, which I’ve discovered I can now order online to recreate their recipes from their three books.

Honey & Co, Honey & Co The Baking Book and the recently published Honey & Co At Home, which has already become many of their devotees favourite.  

The format of Honey & Co At Home is different to the two previous books and includes recipes, For Us Two, For Friends, For the Weekend, For a Crowd…at the end of the book there’s an excellent section entitled For the Kitchen, a sort of store cupboard section of spice mixes, pickles, relishes & sauces.  The book is worth the price for this one chapter alone. Their harissa, ras el hanout and tahini has certainly added zing to my dishes, I also love the pithy and the self-deprecating writing.

It’s also worth checking out the Honey & Co podcast The Food Talks available on iTunes and Spotify to download and several segments on YouTube where they are cooking favourite dishes in their inimitable way.

Honey & Co www.honeyandco.co.uk

25 Warren St., Fitzrovia, London, W1T 5LZ Tel: + 44 2073886175

Honey & Spice

52 Warren St., Kings Cross, London W1T 5NJ Tel: + 44 2073886175

Honey & Smoke

216 Great Portland Street, London W1W 5QW Tel: + 44 2073886175

Claire Ptak - Royal Wedding Baker Teaches at Ballymaloe Cookery School

Claire Ptak - baker to the Royals, as one of our current 12 Week students put it, shared her magic with us at the Ballymaloe Cookery School recently. Claire, who loves to bake, started her career at Chez Panisse in Berkley in California, baking delicious, simple pastries, cookies and galettes with beautiful ingredients. Beautiful butter, beautiful fresh eggs, beautiful, seasonal fresh currants, cherries and  organic flowers and herbs to embellish the cakes.

Image: @violetcakeslondon

In 2005, she moved to London and set up a stall in Broadway Market in Hackney selling cupcakes. There was a queue from the very first day for Claire’s beautiful but sometimes not picture perfect looking creations.

Somehow, people’s gut feeling told them that this was real and much more likely to taste delicious than the perfect looking fondant iced confections so prevalent nowadays.

Image: www.instagram.com/violetcakeslondon

Violet Café and Bakery was started and word spread fast. Both royalty and celebrities snuck in or sent along quietly for a goodie box of Claire’s treats from Violet Café. Claire never divulged their names or very personal cravings.

Her style is Anglo-American – her scones are long triangles with sugar tops and many delicious additions peach, raspberry, white chocolate...

Her buttery ‘biscuits’ which we would call scones are made with lots of sour cream and occasionally butter, are split in half and sold as breakfast ‘biscuits’ with bacon, egg and hot sauce inside.

Among the celebrities we now know who were her fans, was a fellow American girl with style, called Meghan Markle which led to Claire being asked to make ‘the wedding cake’ for Harry and Meghan’s wedding. When the story broke, Claire was suddenly catapulted onto the international stage – her Instagram followers went from 69,000 to 205,000 in a few days.

Image: @violetcakeslondon

There are now plans to open a second Violet Café next year and all because of cake….

Claire is passionate about the importance of using quality ingredients for baking delicious cakes, breads and pastries. She told us about a fast emerging trend for ‘seasonal cakes’. The wedding cake was an Amalfi lemon and elderflower perfumed cake because the wedding was in the midst of the elderflower season in May.

Claire and her daughter Frances at Ballymaloe Cookery School - Image: @violetcakeslondon

I love the idea of cakes reflecting the seasons, so easy as we come into the summer with an abundance of summer fruit, berries and currants around the corner. Claire also used lots of spelt, sorghum, kamut, rice and rye, khorasan flour and soft cane sugars for her cakes and has many gluten free and accidentally vegan confections – something for everyone to enjoy.

Guest Chef: Merlin Lebron Johnston

A couple of weeks ago the Summer 12 week Certificate Course students had a special treat, when Merlin Lebron Johnston from Portland Restaurant in London came as guest chef to The Ballymaloe Cookery School. This gentle young man is the youngest Michelin-starred chef in the UK.

His back story is intriguing. Merlin had a distinctly, rocky relationship with school, eventually he was fortunate to be sent to Ashbourne, a progressive school in Devon, where the students in conjunction with the teachers made the decision that going to lessons was not compulsory on the assumption that if they did turn up to class, they would be interested and give it their all. This worked brilliantly for 95% of the students, but Merlin was not interested in any class so he hung around for a bit…The secretary, a lady called Joanna doubled up as a cook and produced school dinner every day.

Three courses - vegetarian, organic and delicious. The students could either have packed lunches or school dinners but the latter was expensive so Merlin would plead with Joanna to give him some food, “She made rice pudding and crumbles, crème brûlée, great salads, pasta. I would beg her for some. We made a deal. If you want to cook you need to wash up, fine with me and seeing how I wasn’t that busy. I started helping her cook and after a bit she got busier and eventually I started to cook for my school at 15….” When exam time came the teachers said, “Well you seem to love cooking, we think you should be a chef”, so Merlin left and got a job. “Once I found cooking I became pretty obsessed and became totally focused on working in the best restaurants”.

For the next five years Merlin worked in top restaurants in the UK, Switzerland, France and Belgium, both classic and experimental, including In De Wulf in Belgium where there was a big focus on foraging and fermentation. At 23 he became sous chef there.

Meanwhile in London, Will Lander and Will Morganstern were looking out for a head chef for a new restaurant they planned to open in Great Portland Street, so at 24 he became head chef at Portland and was awarded a Michelin Star within 9 months of opening, the youngest chef in England to be awarded that accolade.

Honey & Co.

We’ve christened Itamar and Sarit from Honey & Co., the Honeys, because they are just that.

We had them here at Ballymaloe Cookery School a couple of  weekends ago (after their extremely popular session at this year's Litfest).

It’s a bountiful time in the farm and in the gardens. Itamar and Sarit were so excited by the quality of the beautiful fresh produce. We had lots of fresh peas, courgettes and their flowers, broad beans and the first tiny cucumbers. A joy to eat and cook with.

They taught two classes and charmed the audience with their easy manner and utterly delicious food. They cooked many of the favourite Middle Eastern dishes from Honey & Co., their tiny restaurant in Warren Street in Fitzrovia. It seats just 24 people and snugly at that but serves about 150 who come for breakfast, lunch and dinner from 8.00am-10.30pm.

Sarit Packer has been cooking and baking since she was five, trained at Butlers Wharf and at the Orrery under Chris Galvin, where she learned, amongst other things, to make pâte de fruits, which up to then was her sole ambition in life. In her spare time she sleeps. Itamar Srulovich born and raised in Jerusalem. Cooking since the  age of five and leaving a great mess  in the kitchen ever since, he trained on the job in various places in Tel-Aviv. He prefers eating to cooking, and sleeping to both, he is very happily married to Sarit.

Sarit tells us that “what we’re about is homemade flavours” and it just struck me that so many of the restaurants that people love nowadays in particular in London and New York are about homemade flavours. Theirs of course are Middle Eastern and there are some dishes that they simply can’t take off the menu including falafel and their cherry pistachio cake. The Observer Food magazine awarded Honey & Co. "Best Newcomer of the Year" in 2013.

They have just celebrated their third anniversary so Pam baked them a gorgeous three tier cake embellished with roses, raspberries and spun sugar.

Somehow in the midst of it all they wrote their first cookbook - Honey & Co.: Food From the Middle East which was published by Salt Yard Book Co in 2014 to huge acclaim. Both Sunday Times and Fortnum and Mason awarded Honey & Co. Cookbook of the Year 2015 and just last month they won the UK Food Writers Guild, First Cookbook Award.

Their second cookbook launched just last week - Honey & Co.: The Baking Book.

Camilla Plum

SADLY WE HAVE HAD TO CANCEL THIS EVENT. WE HOPE TO RESCHEDULE IT IN THE AUTUMN.

Our next East Cork Slow Food event takes place next week! Camilla Plum from Fuglebjerggaard Organic Farm, Denmark will give a short demonstration on the theme, Danish Family Cooking.

She was a speaker at our inaugral Kerrygold Ballymaloe Literary Festival of Food and Wine. We are delighted to be welcoming her back.

Camilla is one of the most beautiful cooks I know. I love her food and it's always a joy for me to cook with her and to be invited to join her table. Whenever she comes to stay with me, she dons an apron, twists a scarf around her head, and disappears off into the garden. She returns with her apron full of fruits, vegetables, fresh herbs and foraged goodies ready to cook a yummy supper. So she's my dream house-guest.

In the last number of years Copenhagen has become centre of the gastronomic world. The Nordic food revolution it spawned has inspired people all over the world. But the food that restaurants like Noma serve - although sublime - is quite different to the wholesome and delicious seasonal Danish home cooking that people are less familiar with.

A little more about Camilla

She published her first cookbook of healthy organic food in 1983. She worked as an organic cook whilst also writing about food for Politiken until 1987. In 1991 she founded the organic food company Den Rene Vare (‘The Real Thing’). The company’s work included the conversion of public institutions to organic food, door-to-door deliveries of organic food, cookbooks for organic kindergartens and organic catering.

In 1992 Camilla opened Denmark’s first organic restaurant, Cap Horn, and was recognised by the Danish Gastronomic Academy for her ‘Achievements in Organic Gastronomy’.

Over the course of her career she has published 17 books and worked on numerous TV series featuring such topics as gardening, slow food and baking.

Date & Time: Wednesday July 8th at 7pm
Venue: Ballymaloe Cookery School
Cost: Slow Food Members €8.00 | Non Slow Food Members €10.00
Bookings: +353 (0)21 464 6785 | email: slowfoodeastcork@gmail.com 

Proceeds go to the East Cork Slow Food Educational Project.  We would love to see you - tell your family and friends.....

Culinary Superstars at LitFest 2015

Here at the Ballymaloe Cookery School LitFest HQ is hopping. There's just one month until the third Kerrygold Ballymaloe Literary Festival of Food and Wine kicks off. Becks, Rory and Evelyn are working away behind the scenes like whirling dervishes. We've had lots of great publicity - including a five page spread in the Wall Street Journal magazine which has had a terrific reaction.

I just want to take a moment to flag up the culinary superstars giving cookery demonstrations during the LitFest this year. How about this for a line-up? April Bloomfield, Sam and Sam Clark of Moro, Allegra McEvedy, Fuchsia Dunlop, A Girl Called Jack, Hugo Arnold & Leylie Hayes of Avoca Cafe and Christian Puglisi. A once in a life-time opportunity perhaps to learn from some more of my favourite chefs and cooks... and taste their food.

What to do? I've just had someone on the phone who wanted to book onto all seven, but could only choose two. An unbearable choice! So here's a little background on each one - and there's lots more information on the LitFest.ie website. Tickets are selling out fast, with a bare handful of places left on some... so don't say I didn't warn you!

April Bloomfield is considered by many to be the best woman chef in America and this is a rare opportunity to see her cook.

April burst on to the New York culinary scene with her cooking at The Spotted Pig gastro-pub in the West Village. Her food is a fusion of the comforting food she remembers from her childhood in Birmingham in England and the Italian influences she picked up cooking at the River Café in London and further influences gleaned at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California.

You can expect fabulous, seasonal, stylish, cool and above all, delicious food from the “queen” of New York cooking.

Sam & Sam Clark of 'Moro' 

Moro and Morito have a cult following: cool, convivial, trendy surroundings with an atmosphere “that hits you like a wall of joy”. Then of course there is the food with a deliciousness that can only have been created by cooks who love the straight between the two eyes approach to flavour. Lucky for us that the two Sams took off in a camper van before opening Moro, to explore and learn the secrets to the true flavour of the great foods of Spain, Morocco and the Sahara. 

Allegra McEvedy, described by The Independent as "a caterer with conscience" is a chef and author of six books and number of television programs. Allegra has won a whole host of loyal fans for her fresh, quirky dishes made with the freshest, ethically sourced produce - all with a twist. The co-founder of the Leon restaurant group, she has worked in many of London’s best restaurants: Green’s Restaurant & Oyster Bar, The Belvedere in Holland Park, The Groucho Club and The River Café. She got her first Head Chef position at Tom Conran’s The Cow in Notting Hill, at the age of 24. 

Expect a hugely entertaining as well as informative class, with delicious tastings at the end.

Fuchsia Dunlop has been described by the Sunday Telegraph as “the best writer in the west on Chinese food” and by Observer Food Monthly as “a world authority on Chinese cooking”.
The London Independent ranked her alongside the great literary food writers Elizabeth David and Claudia Roden and Heston Blumenthal.

This is a unique opportunity to watch, listen, learn and taste some of the foods of China from one of the world’s greatest experts on the subject.

Leylie Hayes & Hugo Arnold 

Devotees of the Avoca Cafés will know that apart from the wonderful interiors that await, the next and immediate visual experience is the generous array of colourful food – bejewelled salads of all descriptions, savoury tarts, luscious soups packed with exotic ingredients, relishes, great baskets overflowing with breads, cakes, buns, bracks, ices, sweet tarts, meringues and so much more.

Leylie and Hugo will recreate some of that magic during this demonstration. Expect the sort of generous, modern, stylish, health giving food that has kept the Avoca Cafés rocking with very happy and well fed customers for the last three decades.

Jack Monroe 

Jack is “a breath of fresh air in the cooking world” – so said Nigel Slater and I quite agree.

Jack started writing her blog, A Girl Called Jack, in February 2012, in response to a local councillor who claimed that ‘druggies, drunks and single mums are ruining the High Street.’ What started as a local politics blog developed into budget food and recipes, which were picked up with interest by the national press as she detailed living with her son on a food budget of just £10 a week.

She will demonstrate recipes that were recorded on her blog and subsequently in her book also called A Girl Called Jack.

This will be an interactive event, so parents are invited to bring along one of the younger members of the household (8-12 years of age) to attend the demonstration for free and Jack will call on some of the enthusiastic juniors to join her at the demonstration counter for practical cooking fun (if they would like!)

Christian Puglisi 

Copenhagen has been the "go to" city in the world for the last few years for those in search of the most interesting, cutting edge and forward thinking food. The Nordic Food Revolution is now well documented and Christian Puglisi has been part of that movement of chefs who have made the whole world sit up and listen and look on in awe as they created a new style of cooking that can leave the diner breathless by the sheer wizardry of their creations.

From this cookery demonstration you can expect sensational dishes created by one of the new masters of world cuisine – dishes that will make you look again at food in a way that you may not have done for a long time. Don't miss this!

LitFest 2015 - The New York Launch

Great excitement here - we're packing our bags and heading off to the US this weekend to launch the third Kerrygold Ballymaloe Literary Festival of Food and Wine in New York. We want to tell the whole world - we're aiming to make it the 'Sundance' of Literary festivals! 

The festival team of Rebecca Cronin, Rory O'Connell and I are honoured to be joined for the launch by Paschal Donohoe, Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland and Jeanne Kelly of Kerrygold, our festival sponsors. I'm personally looking forward to tasting the new big thing, which is taking the US by storm - American coffee with a blob of Kerrygold butter.

This year's Kerrygold Ballymaloe Litfest runs from the 15th-17th May. We hope we can tempt you to join us. 

We've got another incredible line up of chefs, foragers, wine and drink experts, gardeners, critics, publishers, food historians, TV presenters, bloggers, journalists... 

International chefs joining us include: Alice Waters from Chez Panisse; Christian Puglisi from Relae in Copenhagen;  Sam and Sam Clark; April Bloomfield; David Tanis; Fuchsia Dunlop; Allegra McEvedy;  Itamar and Sarit from Honey & Co and many, many more... 

There's also some seriously impressive homegrown talent including: Stephen Toman and Alain Kerloc'h from Ox in Belfast (whose pop up dinner has already sold out), Arun Kapil, Kevin Thornton, JP McMahon, and of course our very own Rachel Allen and Rory O'Connell...

Our speakers on food issues this year include: Patrick Holden of the Sustainable Food Trust and John McKenna.

And this year's top food bloggers include David Lebovitz, Jack Monroe - A Girl Called Jack and Caroline Hennessy founder of Irish Food Bloggers.

Colm McCann has also put together an incredible line up for the drinks theatre including: Desmond Payne - the world renowned gin distiller; Jancis Robinson; master of wine, Mary Dowey; Garrett Oliver of The Brooklyn Brewery; and wine writers Leslie Williams, Tom Doorley, John Wilson...

Head over to the website to check out this year's full line up.

Tickets went on sale in a flurry of excitement on 7th of January, some things booked out in a matter of minutes,  but there is still availability for many events, so you might want to browse the website ASAP.

The Kerrygold Ballymaloe LitFest is the only festival of its kind in Ireland. And those of you who came last year or the year before will know that it is a weekend filled with fascinating facts, inspirational stories, intriguing discussions, incredible knowledge, fantastic music and of course, lots of delicious food and drinks.

Don't miss it, it's a blast!

http://www.litfest.ie/

Noma Pops Up in Shanagarry

On Saturday night in the autumn, two young chefs, both of whom had worked at Noma for several years created a wonderful menu in the spirit of Rene Redzepi's inspirational restaurant in Copenhagen.

Yannik and Louise Bannon arrived several days early with a totally open mind on what they would cook. As soon as they arrived they donned their wellies and headed out to the farm and gardens and into the greenhouses to find what tempting produce was still about available.

Next it was over to Ballycotton to have a chat with a local fisherman to check out the likelihood of spanking fresh fish, then they were off over to Ballynamona and Shanagarry strand to forage for seashore plants and seaweeds at low tide.

When they had checked all that out they were off to forage in the woods like a pair of excited kids in Hamleys at Christmas. It's not a great year for wild mushrooms but they found a few yellow legs, lots of wood sorrel and some myrtle berries.

Here's the magic menu they created.....

Louise is the baker, she made all the sourdough breads for dinner, in little individual timber "bread tins". We served it with virgin butter freshly churned from the cream of our three Jersey cows.

Cured pollack with sea lettuce and sea oak pods.

Plating up...

Popping a fresh myrtle berry onto the top of each Malt Puff, before they were coated in chocolate.