Mm-hmm

... and stuff like that.

So we really wanted to do that, and we wanted to explore the region that we celebrate in our restaurants, and we, you know, we cook food that's inspired by everywhere in our travels.

We love to travel around kind of, uh, the mi- you know, the Middle East, the Levant, Greece, Turkey, and we wanted to get as many countries as we could.

We did have to start narrowing it down, and we did hit a pandemic, so we stopped [laughs] where we stopped.

Um, pandemic definitely puts a ham- you know, stops your traveling quite abruptly.

Yeah

... before the almonds are ripe, and you can just eat them like that.

How would you have done that lamb, for example? Ooh.

It's a very interesting question.

I started in Michelin star kitchens as a young chef.

This is how I kind of trained, and I trained in a very regime, you know, uniforms regime, 16-hour day shift.

It's very kind of crazy, and I loved it.

It was really like...

Amazing.

Is there one policy change that would make a difference we could lobby our MPs

they were totally green.

So that's a pistachio that hasn't actually ripened.

So you know how that shell, you could just crack it open, 'cause it's already cracked.

So those have reached full maturity, and the shell starts to crack, and that's when they start to go to, like, this kind of off color.

The really bright green ones are ones that have been picked before that shell cracks open, and they need to be plied open with these, like, crazy pliers.

So where do you get your pistachios from?

Mostly Turkey.

Uh, some are Californian when Turkey gets a bit of shortages or sadly when war affects trade paths and stuff like that.

And

also I think the restaurants in London, especially that first one, which kind of became very famous and was the start of everything...

Felt a bit like being on holiday within a city.

And I think a lot of people connected to that a lot.

And then when you're kind of coming to a foreign city and you're in hotels and you just want a place that makes you feel comfortable, you know, and and.

And casual, but it's going to be delicious, and maybe you'll taste something that you don't get to taste back home.

And so we started getting quite a lot of Americans coming, and French people, because, you know, they cross in the Eurostar, they get to King's Cross.

And that has, I think in our world, as we become more and more digital and online, has more and more... weight as more and more important value and i think

Mm

... um, for a bit, and Itamar stayed working, and you were at Oxo Tower.

So when I had come back from Israel, um, he told them, "Oh, my wife's coming back soon.

Maybe you have something." And I joined and joined as a pastry chef, uh, to the Oxo Tower, and then a friend told him about Ottolenghi, and then he moved to Ottolenghi after a couple of years, and then he did the same to your tam, and he said like, "Oh, my wife's a pastry chef.

Maybe you wanna meet her." So he keeps, like, um-

[laughs]

You said that.

No, no, no, no, I'm just joking.

... around a kitchen like psychopaths.

No, but I think, uh, in the context of this book, but yes, we, we do sort of prance around like, like a pair of psychopaths.

But this book and our sort of latest place, Honey & Co.

Daily, came from the dark days of COVID, which were, you know, for all of us, really horrible time.

But actually, at these times, you know, what is the place that we go to for joy, for happiness, for succor? And that was of, of course, in our kitchen, you know, cooking and feeding people and each other.

And this is the sort of origin of, of this place, Honey & Co.

Daily, and this book.

Hm.

Yeah, it's kind of like, and, and the family-

No, so the deal was if I can kind of save m- so I worked as a PA for a, kind of a director of a company.

I earned enough money to just come here and get the first six weeks.

It was an NVQ system back then, NVQ 1, NVQ 2.

Uh, so I did it.

I only had money for the NVQ 1, which was, like, £3,000, which was a lot of money for me, and, like, to try and sort myself s- with, uh, rent and stuff.

And then they luckily just sponsored me for the rest of the NVQ 2, the full sponsorship plus a stipend.

Only males.