Probably like many of you, I bought Ottolenghi's cook-books and have been enjoying recipes from those -- Plenty and Jerusalem in particular. And I've become aware that the ancient culture of Jerusalem owes something to the time it spent in the Ottoman empire. "Turkish" recipes are found from Istanbul down to Alexandria and beyond, there is a lot of shared cuisine in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and Turkey.
At any rate I recently bought a copy of "Rose Water and Orange Blossoms" by Maureen Abood. She was born in America but grew up in a Christian Lebanese family (a lot of Christian Arabs came to America from Lebanon including Danny Thomas and half of the car dealers in New Jersey). What makes her book charming is her reminiscences about her family, her impressions when she finally went to visit Lebanon, etc. When there is overlap between her cookbook and Ottolenghi's, the difference is that her recipe has 4 ingredients and Ottolenghi's has 14. He's a chef, she isn't. But that makes her recipes easy to attempt since I often have everything I need right on hand without doing any shopping (I have an interesting pantry already). They sometimes come out a little bland but I can use my own talents to make positive changes.
What has really made this interesting is that I finally realized that the Phoenician Bakery, a local shop where I go for hard to find Persian ingredients, is really a Lebanese grocery. There is just enough overlap that I can find things like dried rosebuds and angelica necessary for some Persian dishes.
I started out with something a little ambitious. Stuffed Koosa Squash. They had a big box of Koosas, which are a variety of Zucchini (you can use regular Zucchini) and they sold the device to scoop out a hole in the center, which turns a Zucchini into a kind of test tube. You then fill the test tube with ground meat mixed with rice and spices and poach in a flavorful tomato sauce until tender. And serve topped with the sauce. It was interesting. Not as interesting taste-wise as most recipes from Ottolenghi, but you know you are eating a "national dish" of Lebanon and that adds to it. They also have several kinds of Labneh (a thick tangy yogurt) and Zaatar-topped flatbreads and sesame cookies etc.
Anyway I am having fun and as I said I can pick any recipe in the book and generally execute it quickly and easily with only a few special ingredients to look for. And my family seems to be enjoying the journey.