When I heard that Adeena Suss­man was com­ing out with a new cook­book, I was thrilled. For the Land of Milk and Hon­ey-yearn­ing Met­ro­pol­i­tan Area dweller in me, Adeena’s cook­books don’t just offer reli­able, approach­able, sun­ny dish­es; they let me play ​“Israel” in my New York kitchen. When I make her yerushal­mi kugel, tahi­ni blondies, or one of the many fish dish­es that have become week­ly sta­ples, I can, for a brief moment, make believe I am back in my old Jerusalem apart­ment, with its linoleum floors, finicky burn­ers, and egg yolk-like sun splashed against the walls. Adeena has a spe­cial abil­i­ty to bot­tle the dis­tinct awe that non-Israel-born res­i­dents of-Israel expe­ri­ence — a feel­ing that nev­er seems to wear off — no mat­ter how long you call Israel home. 

That said, when I saw Zariz being mar­ket­ed as an ​“easy recipes” cook­book, the thir­ty-minute meal warn­ing bells went off in my head. With no dis­re­spect to Rachael Ray (whom I watched reli­gious­ly through­out mid­dle school and cred­it with piquing my inter­est in food), I am not the type of cook who likes to be told some­thing is easy. For me, cook­ing is about trans­port­ing myself to new places — both through the method­i­cal mea­sur­ing, knead­ing, and whisk­ing that calm me more than any med­i­ta­tion, and through fla­vors and com­bi­na­tions that can car­ry me from Israel to India and beyond. 

Hav­ing now made sev­er­al of Zariz​’s fish recipes, near­ly all of the dips, and a delec­table veg­etable soup, I can say I am more than pleas­ant­ly sur­prised. In par­tic­u­lar, I am excit­ed to try Adeena’s pastil­la-inspired (which she refers to as ​“b’stila,” using the b-sound of Ara­bic dic­tion) salmon. This adap­ta­tion allows pescatar­i­ans such as myself to try this tra­di­tion­al­ly chick­en-based sweet-savory North African dish. And, as a spoil­er: the dips — espe­cial­ly the car­rot-gin­ger and the white bean haris­sa — are excel­lent. I am already plan­ning to make the Mid­dle East­ern chili crisp and ​“dil­ly gar­licky” egg­plant dip for this com­ing Shabbat.

This cook­book is sim­ple — sim­ple, as I am learn­ing, is not always a bad thing, nor does it sig­ni­fy sim­ple fla­vors. Even for an exper­i­men­tal cook like myself, it can some­times be nice to lean into short­er ingre­di­ent lists and few­er steps and still make some­thing deli­cious and inven­tive with­out the leg­work. And when it comes to sim­ple done right, there is no bet­ter guide than Adeena Sussman.