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I’m always drawn to the flavors of Levantine cooking and the generous use of vegetables in varied dishes. A new book starts with those flavors and adds new ingredients to open up the possibilities of this style of cuisine. The book is Levant: New Middle Eastern Cooking from Tanoreen by Rawia Bishara, and I received a review copy. Her first book, Olives, Lemons, and Za’atar , stuck more closely to traditional recipes, but this time, she explores some new directions as she does at her New York restaurant Tanoreen. What I enjoyed about this book is that it gives you freedom to roam about a bit with traditional dishes. Rather than sticking to how a dish has always been made, new discoveries are celebrated and encouraged. The recipes are still inspired by Middle Eastern cooking but with a new perspective. For instance, the Shakshuka is a green version made with tomatillos, poblanos, and summer squash. Although hummus literally translates to chickpeas, here the concept is expanded into four...

If I were lucky enough to be visiting Melbourne, Tivoli Road Bakery is exactly the kind of place I’d want to find while out for a stroll. Michael and Pippa James’ bakery was built on their relationships with farmers and suppliers while finding the best ingredients, and it was built on excellent baking, of course. The book The Tivoli Road Baker: Recipes and Notes from a Chef Who Chose Baking , of which I received a review copy, tells the whole story. Descriptions of ingredients and suppliers are interspersed throughout the pages of recipes making clear the bakery’s goal of using the best in terms of flavor, sustainability, and cultural identity. One story highlights work being done to learn how early indigenous Australians harvested grain and made bread, and another explains the methods of a biodynamic farm. I was sold on the philosophy and then became a bigger fan as I read about the types of sourdough bread they bake. There are complete instructions for creating and maintaining a sour...