Ben Siman-Tov, aka Israeli-American TikTok star BenGingi, could never have predicted how challenging it would be to publish an Israeli cookbook in a world transformed by Oct. 7.
“It is not what we anticipated and expected when we started the process,” Siman-Tov, 33, told the New York Jewish Week, noting that he and his co-author, his wife Zikki, 29, started on “Eat Small Plates: Vibrant, Shareable Dishes for Daily Joy” in 2022.
During a video interview from his home in Northern New Jersey, Siman-Tov expresses dismay that today words like “Israeli” or “Jewish” have become “triggering,” as he calls it. “I always looked at food as something that connects people, a good bridge between different opinions and cultures,” he said.
“Eat Small Plates” hits shelves on Sept. 9, though it’s already generating buzz on social media. The cookbook is a roadmap for others to learn the way the couple cooks: vegetable-forward, shareable dishes, informal but beautifully presented, designed to gather loved ones around a table laden with boldly flavored dishes to taste and share with abandon.
Many of the book’s recipes are influenced by the vibrant flavors of Israeli cuisine — inspiration that Siman-Tov is not shy about. While Israeli chefs and restaurateurs today might describe their cuisine as Mediterranean or Levantine, Siman-Tov proudly uses the term Israeli.
“My approach is that I never hide it,” said Siman-Tov, who was born in Israel, lived in Milan as a young child, and mostly grew up in Rehovot, in central Israel. “Even with my accent. It’s a world where we need to be cautious but still live with pride.”
Recently Siman-Tov, his wife and nearly 3-year-old daughter traveled to the South of France to meet his parents, who had flown in from Israel. On the train, he said, he was speaking Hebrew with his family when a man approached him and told him, in French-accented English, not to.
“I have a very loud voice. Someone was getting on the train and he said, ‘I recommend that you not speak Hebrew,’” Siman-Tov said. “And I looked at him and I said, ‘Are you Jewish?’ And he said, ‘Yes’. And I said, ‘Sit down, let’s have a conversation.’”
The stranger sat with the Siman-Tovs for the entire ride, and at the end of it, Siman-Tov said, “You see? It’s good that I spoke Hebrew out loud. We became friends. Now we have a relationship! And he said, ‘You know what? You’re right.’”
Siman-Tov is well known for his warm personality and easy smile, something that’s readily observed across his social media platforms, where he has more than 1.2 million followers on TikTok and more than 500,000 on Instagram. He began posting online as Ben Gingi — the name was chosen by his father, and references his red-tinged beard — in 2017, when he was living in Italy.
Ben and Zikki Siman-Tov; at right, kebabs, one of the many “small plates” in their cookbook. (Dan Perez; Penguin Random House)
Siman-Tov came to the States for love — he met Zikki when they were both studying at the Slow Food program at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, in the Italian Alps. Soon thereafter, Zikki returned to her native New York and, eventually, he joined her. The couple married during the pandemic, and like so many others who were sheltered in place, he found himself baking all day. While doing so he also recorded and documented the process.
“I adapted to the way people produce content pretty early on,” Siman-Tov said, adding that “every person that was interested in baking during Covid was exposed to my content.”
He added: “My wife always wants me to state that it is also about being consistent,” he said. “Keep going. Keep pushing it. For the first six months, I produced a video every single day … I would say it was a successful process.”
Zikki, whom Siman-Tov describes as “the love of my life,” grew up in a Ukrainian family in the Ukrainian Village area of Manhattan’s East Village. As a child, she was exposed to Israeli food by her parents who frequented the popular Israeli restaurants on St. Mark’s Place, Cafe Orlin and Cafe Mogador.
Once the couple began cooking together, they created a “food love language” — something that Siman-Tov describes as “no crazy manipulation to the food; serving it as it is and highlighting whatever is in season.”
“Eat Small Plates” contains more than 90 recipes, many of them inspired by their NYC-based catering company of the same name. The book also has a guide to hosting; The co-authors write that their goal is to “make people feel loved and appreciated through food.”
Although it is not an expressly kosher cookbook, all but two of the recipes can be made by the kosher cook. In retrospect, Siman-Tov said he regrets not making the entire cookbook kosher, as he said he’s grown closer to Judaism and Jewish ritual following Hamas’ invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Siman-Tov’s brother is a survivor of the Nova Festival massacre. “He lost one of his best friends who was murdered in the car with him when they drove out of the party,” he said. “They were one of the first cars to encounter the terrorists that day, after they escaped the party. They shot 180 bullets at them. Most of those bullets got into my brother’s best friend. He died on the spot and my brother survived it miraculously.”
His brother’s harrowing story “strengthened my faith,” he said, describing that he now cooks kosher Shabbat dinners each week and puts on tefillin, the leather straps worn during morning prayers, every day.
These days, in addition to running a successful catering business and maintaining popular social media feeds, Siman-Tov is the proprietor of Buba Bureka, a buzzy Greenwich Village spot that focuses on the popular Israel street food.
Surprisingly, Siman-Tov did not include a recipe for the flaky, savory pastry in the book. “Making dough [for burekas] from scratch is not as easy,” he said. “I wanted the book to be very approachable, very straightforward, that every cook with no skill needed.”
Though Siman-Tov said he’s particularly proud of the book’s pita recipe, “most of Zikki’s recipes are my favorite in the book,” he said, pointing to her cashew basil dip, in particular.
Looking ahead, Siman-Tov said he’d like to one day expand his burekas business, and that he’d like to find a way to “combine food and parenting, maybe parenting coaching for fathers, encouraging fathers to be more involved in parenting which I found pretty weak in the States. In Israel it is not.” The timing couldn’t be better: The couple recently announced that they’re expecting another child.
Siman-Tov added that he wants to continue to be an advocate for the future of Israeli cuisine in the United States. “I hope the political climate will allow us to be more proud publicly,” he said. “The book for me is the beginning of approaching this vision. Hopefully it will happen.”
The New York Jewish Week brings you the stories behind the headlines, keeping you connected to Jewish life in New York. Help sustain the reporting you trust by donating today.
