The cool thing about Mediterranean cuisine is that it incorporates food from so many diverse regions. Mediterranean cooking encompasses food from Spain, France, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Gaza, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, plus the island countries of Cyprus and Malta.

Nearly all of those places are represented in The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook by Nancy Harmon Jenkins. With Jenkins' recipes, Mediterranean cooking is particularly delicious. If it's healthy, too, so much the better.

You can page through some cookbooks and find only one or two dishes you want to make. That's not a problem in this book. North African Spiced Marinated Fish is a piquant preparation that leads to a superbly moist fish swordfish steak.

Also delicious is Ragout of Fresh Green Beans, a Greek preparation combining the beans with tomatoes, potatoes and onions, served at room temperature. Ditto with Turkish Style Oven-Braised Winter Vegetables, a melange of seasonal vegetables simmered in the oven and combined with beans.

The only misstep was a Stifado of Lamb -- a Greek (or Cypriot) stew using red wine and red wine vinegar as a braising liquid. It came out tasting a little bit vinegary, but the big problem was the sheer mass of onions: 3 pounds of onions to 2 pounds of lamb. A last tested recipe, though, was a hit: Mediterranean Country-Style Bread is an exceptionally crusty loaf with an earthy flavor and a hearty crumb.