The Essential Mediterranean Cookbook

Some of the recipes are very similar to others, nice pictures though.

My wife, kids and myself enjoy trying different foods and we also enjoy a healthy diet. After a taking a few business trips to various Mediterranean countries I took a keen interest in the cuisine. My wife gave me this book for xmas a few years ago and it is now one of my favorite cookbooks. It's simple to understand, the recipe's are easy, delicious and fun to make. We have prepared most the recipes in the book for family and friends and a few of them have become staples of our diet. I highly recommend this book.

The wonderful trend of "coffee-table cookbooks" was probably inspired by people like me who sometimes cook vicariously...who enjoy seeing a photo with every recipe, for all the times when we're just looking. Yes, almost every recipe has a top-quality color photo! Getting to the point.....I'm almost drooling over the photos and recipes in this beautiful book that's divided into chapters of different Mediterranean countries...Greece, Turkey, Italy, France, Spain, North Africa, and the Middle East. Also included are chapters of "special features"...meze, antipasto, making pasta, making pizza, olive oil, dressings and sauces, tapas, and preparing olives. This book is well planned and well executed. The food stylists and photographers did an outstanding job, and the assortment of recipes is organized, balanced and appealing. The instructions are carefully written and are suited to any level of cooking ability. The "Honey and Pine Nut Tart" looks like a Mediterranean version of Southern Pecan Pie. I see a beautiful pistachio biscotti..... artichokes in aromatic vinaigrette..... Tunisian brik..... gnocchi Romana (from scratch!)..... kalamaria yemista (stuffed squid)..... flatbread with za'atar (huh?)..... pollo a la chilindron..... caponata with tuna.....orange and date salad.....oh, my!

I'm not a major chef, so things like Joy of Cooking and James Beard glaze my eyes over unless I know exactly what I'm looking for. This book has pictures of all/most of the dishes so it's fun to page through and find things to cook when you are looking for new and different. I've cooked about 8 things out of here so far and all have been outstanding.The conversions from metric to english leave something to be desired. For canolli shells she says to roll to 5mm or 1/4 inch thick, an 1/8 would be more appropriate. Some things are in weight instead of measure, 300g of flour instead of 2 cups, so be prepared with scale or something.