The New Mediterranean Table: Modern and Rustic Recipes Inspired by Traditions Spanning Three Continents

Wonderful, beautiful book. Very easy to follow and recreate some spectacular dishes. Being a frequent visitor of the restaurant, I am loving how I can recreate some of my favorite dishes at home, and this is such a great way to do so.Some highlights for me:*** Everything is in grams, which makes portioning the recipes so simple.1) Spice blends: at the very least, buy the book for these. Easy to follow and portion.2) Salts: eggs will never be the same.3) Simple: While the dishes can be hard, and some ingredients can be tough to find, if you LOVE cooking, you will challenge yourself and the outcome is awesome.Worth the buy - teach yourself new flavors and maybe introduce yourself to new meats...

Many great recipes here. I am a real fan of Sameh and regret he had to close his signature restaurant in Minneapolis due to the local government and its Socialist business-killing policies. I hope he reopens to serve his great fans in a new location outside the city borders. Until then, this book is the way to get those amazing flavors. Many kudos~! Never vote for Democrats - ever. If you do, may you forever be served rotting bland Socialist food.

This was a Christmas gift , the couple we gave it to absolutely adored the book, it was a huge hit!

I love unusual recipes. I really enjoy using recipes from all sorts of regions of the globe. It is fun to explore and my family enjoys having the different perspectives on culture via food! This book is really different than most books, but it does have a bit of frustration involved. Quite a few of the ingredients may be hard to find for some people. Also, a few of the recipes call for an unusual ingredient, but they don't tell you that the recipe is in the back of the book!RECIPES WE HAVE LIKED SO FAR-Asparagus with Roasted Garlic and Fresh Cheese-Wild Arugula Salad with Orange Medjool Dates and Almonds (had to fudge the Harissa recipe due to not having all peppers available)-Marinated Peppers with Toasted Garlic & SMoked Paprika-Beet Salad with Yogurt Cheese and Honey (left out pistachios)-Coriander Potatoes with Roasted Tomatoes and Carmelized Paprika ButterINGREDIENTS THAT MIGHT NOT BE EASY TO FINDThere are a lot of ingredients in this book which might be difficult to find for many people who do not live near grocery stores that carry Middle Eastern ingredients.Some examples of hard to find ingredients:-fresh chickpeas in the pod-rose petals-Lebanese cucumbers-watercress leaves-hyssop-haloumi cheese-Na'anik sausages-blue prawns-Jerusalem artichokes-buratta cheese balls-ground sumac-manchengo cheese-raki or arak-pomegranate molasses-pea shoots-fresh pole beans-fiddleheads-young fava beans in the podIS THIS BOOK WORTH HAVING?Even if you don't know what to do about the list of ingredients I have listed above, this book is still worth having if you want to explore Mediterranean cooking and you are not opposed to having to substitute ingredients now and then. The recipes are interesting, great combinations, and unique to me, anyway, who has a large collection of ethnic cookbooks.PHOTOSThe photos are beautiful and inspirational. They do motivate me to want to make a recipe, especially if I am in a hurry and need a quick recipe to make without having to do a lot of reading.THE BOTTOM LINEIf you are the type of person that has to have every ingredient exactly like in a recipe, you will want to be sure you have access to the ingredients I put on the list. If you don't mind substituting ingredients, this book will be a wonderful journey through Mediterranean cooking with very different flavors and textures. The photos are beautiful and inspirational, and the recipes are well laid out and easy to follow. Many of the unusual ingredients are actually recipes found in the back of the book. For instance, you can buy Za'atar, but there is a recipe for it in the back. I like the book and rate it four stars, only because of the difficulty to find a lot of ingredients. I also took a while to figure out that when they called for a strange ingredient that they don't always label it as being found in the back of the book with the page number. They do list that for quite a few recipes, but there are some which could be frustrating if you didn't realize it.

I gave this to my son for college graduation. Now that he has moved out, had to buy a copy for myself. The spice mixtures are amazing and worth making up batches in advance. Try the slow cooked green beans at Thanskgiving.

I love this cookbook. It's a great collection of authentic but feasible recipes. It's well designed, filled with beautiful pictures and amazing-tasting, easy-to-follow recipes. I'm not much of a cook, but even I can make several of the recipes included in the book without screwing them up. I love that these taste so good and use ingredients that aren't hard to get.

I love reading cookbooks as much for the history and narrative and love this one! Added a whole new set of flavors and recipes to my collection. Particularly loved how the author translated and gave history on his many family recipes

I want to give this cookbook more stars. Sadly, three is where it's at.First the positives - this book is beautifully written, the recipes are laid out well, and the accompanying photographs are beautiful. I've made a couple of the recipes and they are delicious.Here are the cons: These are not the most user friendly recipes, and I have never seen quite so many ingredients and steps in the mediterranean cookbooks I've owned. Many of the recipes will require a substantial upgrade to your pantry staples, and you will find yourself furiously googling produce substitutes for many recipes (I live in CA, the biggest agricultural producer in the United States and it's insanely challenging to obtain real, fresh ramps and fiddlehead ferns).My last gripe, these recipes are lengthy to prepare. You won't be whipping these meals out in a work night.All of that said, the book is still quite beautiful, and the recipes can be real showstoppers, assuming you plan each recipe well enough to order exotic ingredients, etc. a good week in advance and are fully ready to dedicate an afternoon to cooking your evening meal.