Meze: Small Plates to Savor and Share from the Mediterranean Table

Now you can enjoy the food and fun of a meze feast. Meze, the small plates of just about everything from seafood, meat, and vegetables to handheld pies, colorful salads, nuts, olives, and cheeses, is the food of hospitality and conviviality, food meant to be shared with friends and family and savored with wines and spirits.

Here, in Meze, Diane Kochilas, the award-winning author of The Glorious Foods of Greece, chef, restaurateur, and cooking teacher, takes you on a spirited journey across Greece and the rest of the Mediterranean, exploring these simple and simply irresistible dishes. The recipes are robust, dear, and easy to follow. These uncomplicated dishes are charged with flavor and based on fresh, accessible ingredients. The results are spectacular.

Meze makes every meal a party, and no one knows how to throw a party better than the Greeks. Youll find tangy, skewered meats and juicy meatballs, delicious seafood dishes from simple steamed mussels to creamy ouzo-flavored shrimp. You'll find a healthful selection of aromatic bean dishes, and a recipe for the best fried potatoes in the world, Greek fries, which are hand cut and cooked in olive oil.

The convivial and festive nature of the meze table is reflected in Diane's warm, inviting style. The innate attractiveness of the food — the colors, textures, and shapes — are captured in brilliant photographs that evoke the sunny, warm Mediterranean dime. Whether you make just a few dishes for informal entertaining, or create an entire meal of meze, Diane Kochilas makes it possible to bring the spirit of fun and sharingthe essence of meze throughout Greece and the Mediterranean — to your own table at home.

"These piquant, lively foods are 'a savory flirtation,' and an array of them on a table is a delightful thing." Publishers Weekly

- The Glorious Foods of Greece won the prestigious Jane Grigson Award from the IACP.

The award-winning author of "The Glorious Foods of Greece, " Kochilas introduces the dazzling array of Greek meze and explores its rituals and traditions. Filled with dozens of color photos, "Meze" adds Mediterranean flavor to any gathering.

Diane Kochilas, a native New Yorker who adopted Athens in the early 1990s as her home, is the author of two other books on Greek cuisine, The Food and Wine of Greece and The Greek Vegetarian. She has contributed to many American and international publications, including Saveur, Food & Wine, and the New York Times. She is the regular food columnist and restaurant critic for Greece's largest daily newspaper, Ta Nea. Diane also teaches and lectures on Greek cuisine and culture around the world and keeps her hand in a few restaurant kitchens in New York and Athens, cooking and consulting.