SERVICE

PR campaign and Book Tour

CLIENT

Ebury Press

PUBLICATION DATE

5th September

CAMPAIGN STATUS

Current

This is comfort food, Ottolenghi-style.

Penguin Random House is thrilled to announce Yotam Ottolenghi’s first brand-new global cookbook since the era-defining Ottolenghi SIMPLE and Ottolenghi FLAVOUR.

With over 100 recipes, including classic new takes on pasta and potatoes, traybakes, noodles, curries, soups and sweet things, Ottolenghi COMFORT is full of dishes that feel both nostalgic and novel, familiar yet fresh – this is at the heart of the Ottolenghi interpretation of comfort.
This is comfort taken to a new level; a bowl of pasta becomes Caramelised onion orecchiette with hazelnuts and crispy sage, a warming soup is Cheesy bread soup with Savoy cabbage and cavolo nero, and a plate of mash is transformed into Garlicky aligot potato with leeks and thyme.

Ottolenghi COMFORT is Yotam Ottolenghi and his team’s celebration of food and home; of the connections we make and pass on as we cook, from place to place and from generation to generation.

The new book is the work of ‘four hungries’ – Yotam Ottolenghi, Helen Goh, Verena Lochmuller and Tara Wigley – and they all bring their own memories, childhoods, and travels with them to explore what comfort food means to them. Chicken soup, bolognese, beans, rice, dhal: the definitive comfort food for many, certainly, but there is no one-comfort-food-fits-all.

Food and words have the incredible power to connect. Their hope is that their new recipes become for you what they are for them: reassuring but revelatory. The team explore the
four elements of comfort in the book: ‘Who we eat with’; ‘Why we eat’; ‘What we eat’ and finally ‘How we eat’ – as important as what we are eating in the first place.

Ottolenghi cookbooks are published in 23 languages, and worldwide sales now exceed 11 million copies.

Yotam Ottolenghi says: “In this book we offer dishes that feel familiar yet fresh. It is also very much about our personal journeys, and all the stories these journeys contain. Food and words have an incredible power to connect. Our hope is that these recipes become for you what they are for us: reassuring on the one hand but revelatory on the other.”

Yotam Ottolenghi is the restauranteur and chef-patron of six Ottolenghi delis, as well as the NOPI and ROVI restaurants. He is the author of ten bestselling and multi-award-winning cookery books. Yotam has been a weekly columnist for the Saturday Guardian for over sixteen years and is a regular contributor to the New York Times. His commitment to the championing of vegetables, as well as ingredients once seen as ‘exotic’, has led to what some call ‘The Ottolenghi effect’. This is shorthand for the creation of a meal which is full of colour, flavour, bounty, and surprise. Yotam lives in London with his family.
ottolenghi.co.uk/
youtube.com/c/ottolenghitestkitchen
instagram.com/ottolenghi

Helen Goh was born in Malaysia and migrated with her family to Australia at the age of ten. After studying psychology, she combined psychotherapy practice with a cooking career, becoming head pasty chef at a landmark Melbourne restaurant before moving to London, and joining Ottolenghi. Co-author with Yotam, of the best-selling baking book SWEET, she has worked closely with him in recipe development for over 10 years, drawing widely on Asian, Western and Middle Eastern influences in her cooking. Helen is also a successful food columnist whose recipes appear in the Sydney Morning Herald, Guardian and Observer. She lives in London with her husband and two sons. instagram.com/helen_goh_bakes

Verena Lochmuller is a recipe and product developer. She was born in Germany, grew up in Scotland and studied pastry and baking arts in New York City. She has been at Ottolenghi since 2015 and is now the Head of Food Quality Product Development at the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen. She has created sweet and savoury products that have become staples at Ottolenghi delis, and curated dessert menus for the group’s restaurants. Verena has contributed her recipes to two Ottolenghi Test Kitchen books: Shelf Love and Extra Good Things, as well as other online Ottolenghi publications. Verena brings a playful touch to familiar, comforting recipes by using unexpected ingredients and techniques. She firmly believes that a good pastry recipe is a secret weapon in every kitchen. instagram.com/verenalochmuller

Tara Wigley worked in publishing for the best part of a decade before switching to food and writing in 2010. She trained at the Ballymaloe cookery school, in Ireland, before starting to work with Yotam Ottolenghi in 2011. Initially testing recipes, she soon became Yotam’s writing collaborator on his columns in the Guardian magazine and the New York Times as well as the cookbooks PLENTY MORE, NOPI, SWEET and FLAVOUR. Tara co-authored Ottolenghi SIMPLE and FALASTIN. Her first solo book, How to Butter Toast – a collection of rhymes about recipes – was published in 2023. instagram.com/tara.wigley