George Lassalle's Middle Eastern Food East of Orphanides

Lassalle ( The Adventurous Fish Cook ) has spent 30 years in the Middle East, with many of those years, one suspects, spent in settling matters with his tastebuds. This book, named after the Ophanides Brasserie in Athens, is offered as a sort of homage to the gentle trafficking in taste that he has sought there: ``Over the years, the Orphanides habit has provided me with many reveries. . . . It was a peep-show at which I could observe what seemed to be all human life.'' Bits of wry little stories from his own life precede Lassalle's kitchen directives, organized by topic, not place: soups, vegetables and salads, meats, desserts, the rest. And the author's opinions are as valuable as his instructions, revealing not only what was tasted but also he-who-tasted it. Of stifado, a stew with onions, he says, ``This classic Greek stew is nowadays often served in an emasculated form, with little cubes of meat.'' Of garlic: ``If you do not like garlic, it will be very difficult for you to appreciate--or cook--Middle Eastern food. A terrible bourgeois refinement . . . has led to a diminished use of the divine bulb.'' The foods themselves are exceptionally attractive, framed by an injunctive, intelligence. (July)