I spent a significant amount of time living in different areas of the Middle East. My first cookbook, An Edible Mosaic: Middle Eastern Fare with Extraordinary Flair (Tuttle Publishing; November 2012), is a tribute to that era of my life. During my time there I was able to fully immerse myself in the culture and cuisine. Until then, I had never experienced a culture where food is simultaneously an abundance of love, art, and human connection.