SPOTLIGHT: Ben Ebbrell on Hosting Effortlessly

Ben Ebbrell is chef at SORTEDfood – the most engaged cooking channel on YouTube and a global movement of over 2 million friends who share a passion for food, cooking and laughter.

Ben’s skills span the cooking spectrum, which is shown through the hundreds of recipes he has developed with SORTEDfood over the years. But the one central theme to all things SORTEDfood is friendship and socialising around cooking. And so, he joins us with his Entertaining Effortlessly workshop in which he shares all the insider tricks and hacks to impress your guests with ease.

Ben attributes his love of cooking to his foodie family. While his parents were not professionally trained chefs, they always cooked from scratch and so the idea of a ready meal was alien to Ben. He told us that as he grew up, Jamie Oliver became a huge inspiration for him (and still is!).

When it comes to learning new skills, Ben is a huge believer in putting them into practice in order to truly learn and understand them. He says that his favourite thing about Workshop is trust:

“I know that the mentors are super qualified. They’re experts in their field and don’t just know how to do it, but how to break the knowledge and information down into bite-sized chunks, making it truly accessible to new learners”

For those of you who are thinking about trying out Ben’s workshop, we asked him what his top tip would be to anyone thinking about inviting friends over for dinner:

“Know what you’re doing! If you avoid making stuff up as you go along you ultimately avoid the stress and, more often than not, the mess. It means you can spend more time chilling out and socialising with friends and family rather than playing catch-up in the kitchen.”

When it comes to the future of Workshop, Ben expressed his interest to learn how to grow and maintain a small garden space or window box in the UK:

“It’s something I’m interested in and enjoy doing but don’t have enough knowledge to be able to confidently maintain. My choice of plants are rarely suited to the space I have or the lifestyle I keep (there may be several days at a time when I’m away from home and cannot look after them). But, if I try to research the information overload is overwhelming… I want someone knowledgeable to break it down for me in layman terms!”

What are you waiting for? Get ready to entertain effortlessly!