‘In the introduction to her latest release, The Middle Eastern Vegetarian Cookbook, Salma Hage recalls the communal nature of preparing food in the Lebanese village in which she grew up—stringing together beans to dry, pickling turnips, and making batches of her grandmother’s beloved tomato paste. Hage is not vegetarian, but when her son Joe axed meat from his diet, she began adapting favorite recipes to suit his needs. Often she didn’t need to—so many classic Middle Eastern dishes are meat-free that the cuisine is a vegetarian’s dream.’