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The great-great-grandfather of my mother was probably using gelatins.

When you use a simple gelatin like collagen, you can get flavor that is 100 percent pure, maybe event 150 percent.

When you cut that eggplant up and you roast it in the oven and you make the tomato sauce and you put it on top, your soul is in that food, and there's something about that that can never be made by a company that has three million employees.

Jellies are to cold cookery what consommes and stock are to hot. If anything, the former are perhaps more important: for a cold entree - however perfect it may be in itself - is nothing without its accompanying jelly.

I like to cook with the philosophy of using great ingredients and not altering them too much.

Olympia was a town crawling with music. I was new to the whole punk scene. The culture shock continued; Olympia had bagels! We didn't have bagels in Arkansas. You could order vegetarian food all over town! It was so crazy to me - a place with so many vegetarians, the restaurants made special dishes for them?

My bread and croissants wouldn't win a prize! I'm not an expert in yeast cookery.

Ottolenghi sells lots of delicious sweet things, but my daily addiction is their unbelievable dark chocolate salted caramel biscuits. They're the best things in the world - I go through half a packet every night. I bring them out after pudding at dinner parties.