They're sweet on meringue

For all of the sugar artistry, the showiness of elaborate frosting and gorgeous fruit, on display in a pastry kitchen, desserts are mostly about fundamentals. Basic techniques. Basic ingredients. So it shouldn't really come as a surprise that egg whites feature so prominently in the latest cookbook from British Israeli chef Yotam Ottolenghi.

He began his career as a pastry chef, after all, as did Helen Goh, his collaborator on "Sweet," their new dessert cookbook. There's a pavlova on the cover of the American edition. There are about 10 recipes for meringues inside the book.

If you've ever been to Ottolenghi's shop in the Notting Hill neighborhood of London, meringues are the first thing you see, towering in the window, confronting you as you walk in the door, begging to be eaten as soon as possible.

And when Ottolenghi and Goh visited The