Alice’s Kitchen:
My Grandmother Dalal and Mother Alice’s Traditional Lebanese Cooking
by Linda Dalal Sawaya
4th edition published 2005, 256 pages, 6 x 9, paperback, index, black & white illustrations
ISBN 978-0-9660492-2-0 (13-digit ISBN)
ISBN 0-9660492-2-5 (10-digit ISBN)

The fourth edition has 40 additional pages, wonderful new recipes, and more photos!

Books are $20 each. Let us know if you'd like your book(s) signed and personalized by sending an email! click below to buy online via PayPal or see mailing address below for mail order.

a percentage of the proceeds of sales of Alice's Kitchen goes to help the children in Lebanon.

SHIPPING
Priority shipping is $5 for the first copy or for two to the same address in the U.S. ($13 to Canada or Mexico; $17 to most other countries).
• three to ten books to one U.S. address is $12 (includes insurance),
• eleven to eighteen books in the U.S. is $18 (includes insurance);
please inquire for international shipping for large quantities.

Email with zip code for larger quantities, wholesale prices, media mail, international orders, and any other questions.

Alice's Kitchen makes a fabulous gift! Churches and non-profits can sell the book as a fundraiser. please contact me for more info.

MAIL ORDER
If you prefer to mail order, just mail a check for your books plus shipping to Linda at the address below, indicating if you'd like your books signed and personalized.

Linda Dalal Sawaya
PO Box 91192
Portland, Oregon 97291

email inquiries
telephone inquiries: 503.297.7497

ALICE'S KITCHEN is authentic Lebanese home cooking at its best! An immigrant family cookbook, with more than 125 original recipes, from how to pick and cure olives to how to bake pocket bread. Here are generations of recipes passed down from mother to daughter in the mountain village of Douma, overlooking the Mediterranean, brought to America by Grandmother Dalal and Mother Alice, and then passed on to Linda. In ALICE'S KITCHEN, Linda presents their recipes, along with family stories, as a culinary gift to you of Lebanese cuisine-one of the healthiest on the planet.

Traditional, home style Lebanese recipes that include quick, familiar vegetarian favorites such as hommous, tabbouli, baba gannouj and many other fantastic and authentic salads, rice, and vegetable entrees. Learn to create Lebanese ice cream and pastries, such as heavenly, light baklawe, where one piece is never enough. Tantalizing, traditional lamb and rice dishes keep company with rolled grape leaves, soups, and appetizers in this expansive collection. Sawaya provides excellent recipes seasoned with a generous amount of memoir.

"A warm and enthusiastic cookbook...one to be treasured!" —Paula Wolfert, author of The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean "An elegant and utterly delicious tribute to Middle Eastern food, memory and the precious family flavors we savor all our lives-I adore Linda Sawaya's written-with-true-love cookbook and keep it close by at all times. It has never yet met the shelf." —Naomi Shihab Nye, author of Sitti's Secrets, Habibi "Your cookbook performs miracles!...It's like going home!" —from one of Alice's Kitchen's Lebanese-American readers

Reviews and
Readers' comments

click for new Video
Cooking with Love—Alice's Kitchen!

click for new Video
How to Make Vegetarian Lebanese Stuffed Squash (Kousa)

Videos courtesy
Rebecca Gerendasy http://cookingupastory.com/

Amazon reviews

photo gallery

events & booksignings

Lebanese Cooking Demo
Chuck's Produce
Vancouver, WA

October 13 & 14, 2012
Wordstock Book Festival
Portland, Oregon

Portland Lamb Jamb
Portland, Oregon
October 21, 2012

"Food is central to Arab culture in general and Lebanese culture in particular. It is also central to one of the most important factors in that culture which is Hospitality.

Food is served to family and guests in copious amounts and the variety of dishes on a well laid table is designed to delight the eye, as well as to impress the appetite and the guest. Such a table is a proud work of art.

Artist Linda Sawaya’s timely book, Alice’s Kitchen, serves up such a work of art. In so doing, she passes on a cherished tradition to Arabic speaking immigrants’ children and their well-assimilated descendants several generations deep. She beckons them to follow her lead and keep the wonderful tradition alive. She gives them, as well, mouth-watering recipes from which to create their own proud works of art.

Thank you, Linda Sawaya, for this book."

-Alixa Naff, Ph.D, Middle East Social and Political History, Creator of the Naff Arab American Collection
National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

5-star reviews from Amazon.com buyers of Alice's Kitchen, third edition:

From: Rebecca Johnson (Washington State):
Traditional Lebanese Cuisine
"Having a garden and eating foods in season is our inherited ancestral tradition of living gently on the earth, using its resources respectfully, and preparing and sharing food with love. Food, of course, is a central part of Lebanese culture." ~Linda Dalal Sawaya

Linda Dalal Sawaya presents a cookbook with a beautiful warm personality, filled with recipes for: Appetizers, Cheese, Yogurt, Butter, Sauces, Soups, Salads, Lamb, Chicken, Fish, Vegetarian Entrees, Vegetables, Beans, Grains, Breads, Sweets, Preserves, Beverages, Herbs, Spices and Fragrant Waters.

Sample Recipes:
Fig Jam with Aniseed and Walnuts
Spinach Pies
Stuffed Grape Leaves with Lamb and Rice
Savory Pastry or Meat Pies
Lemony Lentil Soup with Chard
Turkish Coffee
Rose Water Pudding
Filo Cheescake with Orange Blossom Water
Baklava
Sesame Cookies

Alice's Kitchen is a world of Lebanese cooking that gives insight into how life was lived in Lebanon and how a family adapted to buying ingredients in America while living in California. Linda Dalal Sawaya tells the story with humor and we learn about how her family maintained their traditions despite a variety of obstacles.

"Dear, if you make it with love, it will be delicious." ~ Mother Alice

Each recipe is set out in a way that is easy to follow with step-by-step instructions and plenty of pictures throughout to keep you entertained. The pictures and the family stories make this book collectible and the recipes bring the warmth of Lebanese cooking into your home in a way that is very accessible. The ingredients include spices and herbs like parsley, paprika, cinnamon and allspice. Lemon juice and olive oil are used throughout the recipes. Pomegranate syrup and orange blossom water are very easy to find these days, especially online. Most of the recipes use ingredients you can find at your local grocery store, but you might want to order some "zaatar."

This book made me long for my childhood overseas when we had Lebanese friends who always made delicious dinners and taught me to make a spinach dish with yogurt and cheese. My dad also used to make fig jam from a tree in our backyard. So, this book was filled with lots of memories and introduced me to a world of treasured memories as shared by Linda Dalal Sawaya.

As you cook from this book your home will be filled with the scents of fragrant spices, warm syrupy baklava, rose, lemon, anise, coffee, doughnuts, buttery cookies, fresh bread, lamb with rice, and of course, garlic! Sufra deimi! ~The Rebecca Review

From: M.D. Thomas (New London, CT):
"Delightful eat down someone else's memory lane
Growing up as third generation Lebanese-American, I enjoyed many of the dishes in this book. I have prepared many of the dishes in this book with great success. I enjoy cooking Lebanese food regularly (now if I could just get some help with the language). The recipes are easy to follow and yield marvelous results. I highly recommend the Lentil Soup (Shourbat Addis)and the Lebanese Squash stuffed with lamb and rice (Kousa Mihshi). Reading Ms. Sawaya's introduction and tips greatly enhanced my enjoyment of using this cookbook. If you are interested in preparing Lebanese foods, or like me, remembering food from your childhood, this book is an excellent place to start. Simple recipes that produce tasty results."

"Absolutely Excellent book
This book has accurate, yummy recipes. A little cultural background and story. The recipes are very traditional and simple. Highly highly recommend it. Many friends have asked for this book for XMAS. Well done."

From: Sally (Seattle, Washington):
"An exquisite, thorough cookbook.
As a 22-year-old Lebanese American, I know that our food is not simply something thrown down your throat. It is love, it is nourishment to our souls as well as to our hearts. It is shared at every event, every home...sometimes when you are not even hungry! Sawaya starts the book with her family's history, which truly brought tears to my eyes. She explains all the ingredients, even their history. The book includes everything Lebanese I have ever eaten, and those I haven't. She covers all breads, preserves, herbs, sauces, hors d'oeuvres, salads, lamb, chicken, fish, sweets, beverages, grains, vegetables...It is 216 pages of hard work and lots of love. Family pictures of Sawaya's abound, and her hand-done illustrations grace the cover. I am moving away from home soon and will take this book with me, to share with all who come into my home, the pleasure and joy of Lebanese cooking."

Use Alice's Kitchen's as a fundraising tool!

We have a special fundraising program for non-profit organizations such as peace groups and churches working for peace in the Middle East through sales of Alice's Kitchen's. Please send an email for further information.