As a young girl, Madelain Farah spent hours watching her mother cook. Capturing her mother's "a pinch of this" technique, she has re-created recipes for everything from Arabic Bread, Lentil Soup, and Eggplant Salad, to Baked Fish with Tahini Sauce, Supreme Lamb Stew with Kibbi, and the classic Cucumber Yogurt Salad. Other areas of the Middle East have their own distinctive cooking traditions. Lebanese Cuisine offers light foods with strong flavors of cinnamon, allspice, and lemons. The late Farah compiled her list of the best Lebanese recipes and made them easy to reproduce in American kitchens. Tabbuli, here called Arabic salad supreme, with its liberal amounts of fresh parsley and mint, appeals to many tastes. Dishes with names on the order of epiphany sweet and Arabic sausage made from pork recall Lebanon's sizeable Arab Christian community. But pork and beef are still exceptions, lamb predominating in Lebanese dishes from crunchy Kibbi in all its variations to Kafta, broiled ground meat. A lack of pictures may deter those not conversant with Lebanese cooking from trying some recipes since it's not always clear what the finished dish ought to look like. Mark Knoblauch Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "... the Betty Crocker cookbook of the Middle East." - the Oregonian