Brand new The Culinary Institute of America's Mediterranean Cooking by Lynne Gigliotti with a small area of damage between the front cover & first page about 0.25 inch in size, please see the closeup photo.   A 9.5 x 10.25 inch hardcover first edition cookbook published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.  From the publisher:  Though there is no one "Mediterranean cuisine," the various cooking styles of the region share many fundamental characteristics.  The foods of the warm and arid coasts are often spicy, herbaceous, and light.  Olive oil is the fat of choice, while fish, eggplant, yogurt, cheese, and tomatoes are used in abundance.  What unites the vastly different cuisines from North Africa to Southern Europe to the Middle East is just how deeply they've borrowed from each other.  In Mediterranean Cooking, Lynne Gigliotti and The Culinary Institute of America take you on a guided tour through the entire region and it's amazing food.  This comprehensive survey includes almost 200 recipes for soups, snacks, sides, salads, main dishes, and desserts.  Here, thrilling flavor combinations abound--savory meals and fresh herbs, hot peppers and soothing yogurts.  From Moroccan tagines bursting with spices to the Galician-style octopus dish known as Pulpo a Feira, each of these recipes is unique to its own place and culture, but is heavily influenced by the distinct places and cultures around it.  In the boot heel of Italy, the standard pizza is Pizza Margherita topped with tomato sauce, fresh basil leaves, and mozzarella cheese, but in the south of France, pizza receives a uniquely Gallic spin and becomes a Pissaladiere topped with  onions, olives, and anchovies.  Divided by type of dish rather than country, Mediterranean Cooking showcases recipes as varied as Kurdish Hot and Spicy Lentil Soup and Chilled Cucumber Soup with Yogurt and Lemongrass.  North African couscous appears next to its Spanish cousin paella, while flaky Greek phyllo dough contrasts beautifully with buttery French brioche.  Again and again, the same ingredients and techniques are reinterpreted, borrowed, changed, and molded into delicious variations unique to a single country or people.  Dive in and begin with familiar favorites--like traditional Italian pastas or French comfort food standards--before discovering various interpretations that will delight and surprise you.  Gorgeously photographed throughout, Mediterranean Cooking offers a sweeping survey of one of the world's richest culinary regions.