Bright and breezy: Yotam Ottolenghi on simple summer entertaining

Summertime, and the cooking is easy – or at least it should be. This is the season to spend less time in the kitchen and more round the table. Here’s how This year, 22 February happened twice for me. The first time, I was flying from Auckland to San Francisco, crossing the international date line somewhere over the Pacific. I’ve never fully understood what actually happens at the date line. There’s an explanation – something about a group of men in Washington deciding where one day would end and another begin, drawing a line down the middle of the ocean. Knowing that doesn’t make it feel less strange. You fall asleep, and when you wake up it’s still yesterday. Groundhog Day, except the groundhog was me, in my plane seat, eating something that had been described on the menu as a “warm pasta dish”. I had been midway through my Crowd Pleaser tour – four weeks of travelling, cooking, talking about food across Asia, Australia, New Zealand and now North America. I had left late summer in New Zealand – cherries at the market and a sunset that hung around until gone nine – and stepped off the plane into a San Francisco February that should have felt like winter. Instead it was warm and sun

May 29, 2026 → May 29, 2026