The cover of “Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking,” by Israeli-born chef Michael Solomonov and his associate Steven Cook. Credit: Rux Martin/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

JNS.org – A cookbook written by an Israeli-born chef and his associate won the “International” and “Book of the Year” awards at the 2016 James Beard Foundation Book, Broadcast & Journalism Awards on Tuesday night in New York City. The prestigious James Beard awards are often referred to as the “Oscars of Food.”

“Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking,” by Israeli-born chef Michael Solomonov and his associate, Steven Cook, took home the top honors at the event. Solomon is the founder and chef of Zahav, the flagship restaurant of the Philadelphia-based restaurant group CookNSolo.

Another Israeli chef, London-based Yotam Ottolenghi, and his co-author Ramael Scully won the James Beard Foundation’s “Cooking from a Professional Point of View” prize for “NOPI: The Cookbook.”