DInner for Four

I’d say it took almost six hours to bake the cake and the fancy Waldorf salad took another two hours; all this after about 45 minutes of shopping. The socca took about two and a half hours and the eggplant Kadaifi nests took a good three and a half hours. That’s almost fifteen hours of cooking and baking for my friends. I loved doing it all; it’s the perfect activity for me as I recover.

I’d made everything except the nests before. I get really nervous/excited trying something for the first time. They are very elaborate to make, like many things in Mr. Ottolenghi’s cookbooks, but reward is proportionate to effort.

The baked eggplant is mixed with ricotta &
pecorina cheeses, Italian parsley egg, etc. and
then it's wrapped in Kadaifi pastry. This is how
mine looked before baking.