"Dunlop explores the cuisines of Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya as interpreted by eight very different cooks. Aicha Ait Ouad, for example, who comes from a tiny town in the Atlas Mountains, is the chef for a private club in Marrakech; Khadouj Sentwi retired after almost 30 years at a restaurant in Fez, where she was 'the iron lady of the kitchen.' There are brief profiles of each cook, followed by a dozen or so of her or his (seven of them are women) signature recipes. Dunlop provides cultural and historical background as well, and there are color photographs of the individual kitchens and of North African street and market scenes. There are relatively few titles on these cuisines-Paula Wolfert's classic Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco being the best known-and Dunlop's is recommended for all subject collections."

In beautifully written prose that is sometimes lyrical, sometimes factual and always respectful, Fiona Dunlop takes us to the area of North Africa known as the Maghreb. The recipes are easy to follow and the photographs evoke not just the dishes of the region, but the region itself, while the stories show the great heart of this area of the world.

The recipes are straightforward and, in most cases, require little more than your regular cooking tools.

– Melissa Lion, www.culinate.com

Fiona Dunlop embarks on a 'voyage of gastronomic discovery' with eight cooks serving as guides into their private kitchens in Morocco, Tunisia and Libya. 'It is hard to find a more promiscuous cuisine, ' Dunlop says of the North African range of fares, and her lush, well-appointed book- with warm evocative photographs by Simon Wheeler- supports her claim. Each section opens with a mini-profile, as the cooks share their culinary approaches and backgrounds. One learns, for instance, that Fassi women (women from Fez, Morocco) traditionally learn cooking not only from their mothers, but also in 'apprenticeships' with their aunts, each of whom has a different specialty dish. Dunlop's selection of recipes adroitly balances the different with the doable, from simple, lovely appetizers like carrots with orange and cinnamon or honeyed tomatoes, to full-bore, masterful productions like seven-vegetable couscous or classic Fassi sweet pigeon pie. The reader-cook also learns the culinary range of the region, such as five different recipes for lamb tagine, including prune, almond-ball, saffron, and quince variations.