SOUK: FEASTING AT THE MEZZE TABLE
Size: 8.2 x 1.2 x 10.6 inches
Pages: 256
ISBN: 192541826

Authors Nadia Zerouali and Merijn Tol have been writing about Arabic and Mediterranean cookery for many years. They have traveled around southern Europe, the Maghreb, and the Middle East to experience the influence of Arabic cuisine for themselves, to taste the food, and to learn how to cook it authentically by joining local women in their own kitchens. They have previously authored Arabia and A Drop of Rose Water. They can also be seen on Dutch television (NTR), where they will present their own culinary travel program.

The word mezze stems from the Arabic term tamazzaza—a single word that broadly embraces the idea of enjoying small portions of food and taking the time to indulge one’s taste buds, eyes, and nose by exposing them to a wide range of aromas and flavors. A complete mezze table is formed when many of these warm and cold dishes are presented together, as a meal in itself.

The mezze culture originated in the Ottoman Empire and can be found in the whole of the Levantine Mediterranean: from Greece and Cyprus to Turkey, Palestine, Jordan, and Syria. But it is Lebanon, the cultural home of the authors, which has really developed and is famed for the richest, most extensive, and most sophisticated mezze culture.

In addition to the 100 classic and contemporary mezze recipes, Souk also delves into the personal stories and reminiscences about this food tradition and the families and friends the authors meet along the way. Eating mezze is a social event, wrapped in warmth and coziness, and spiced with waves of laughter and noisy chatter.

SHAYA: AN ODYSSEY OF FOOD, MY JOURNEY BACK TO ISRAEL
Size: 7.4 x 1.3 x 9.8 inches
Pages: 440 pages
ISBN: 978-0451494160
Author: Alon Shaya was born in Israel, raised in Philadelphia, and calls New Orleans his home. The three celebrated restaurants he started and ran as executive chef/partner–Do-menica, Pizza Domenica, and Shaya–reflect his culinary journey and love of Israeli and Italian cuisine. In 2017, Alon Shaya formed Pomegranate Hospitality to foster opportuni-ties for colleagues, partners, and friends in a comfortable and professional environment where cultural differences are celebrated. Alon Shaya has been nominated for five James Beard Awards. In 2015 he was named “Best Chef, South” while at Domenica, and a year lat-er, ‘Shaya’ was hailed as “Best New Restaurant”. He was called one of the “50 People Who Are Changing the South” by Southern Living magazine, and by The Forward as one of the “50 Most Influential Jews in America”, published by Alfred A. Knopf, and with Pomegranate Hospitality he is opening two new restaurants: Saba in New Orleans and Safta in Denver.

Alon Shaya’s is no ordinary cookbook. It is a memoir of a culinary sensibility that begins in Israel and wends its way from the U.S.A. (Philadelphia) to Italy (Milan and Bergamo), back to Israel (Jerusalem) and comes together in the American South, in the heart of New Orle-ans. It’s a book that tells of how food saved the author’s life and how, through a circuitous path of (cooking) twists and (life-affirming) turns the author’s celebrated cuisine–food of his native Israel with a creole New Orleans kick came to be, along with his award-winning New Orleans restaurants: Shaya, Domenica, and Pizza Domenica, ranked by Esquire, Bon Appétit, and others as the best new restaurants in the United States.

These are stories of place, of people, and of the food that connects them, a memoir of one man’s culinary sensibility, with food as the continuum throughout his journey–guiding his personal and professional decisions, punctuating every memory, choice, every turning point in his life. Interspersed with glorious full-color photographs and illustrations that follow the course of all the flavors Shaya has tried, places he’s traveled, things he’s experienced, lessons he’s learned–more than one hundred recipes–from Roasted Chicken with Harissa to Speckled Trout with Tahini and Pine Nuts; Crab Cakes with Preserved Lemon Aioli; Roast-ed Cast-Iron Ribeye; Marinated Soft Cheese with Herbs and Spices; Buttermilk Biscuits; and Whole Roasted Cauliflower with Whipped Feta.