Lebanese Baking with Maureen Abood: Traditional and Modern Middle Eastern Recipes Rooted in Home and Heritage

How Did You Get Started Baking and Writing Cookbooks?

Growing up, I was always hovering in the kitchen next to my mother. One of my clearest early memories is standing beside her at the stove as she taught me how to make scrambled eggs.

I come from a big Lebanese-American family in Lansing, Michigan. There is a strong local Lebanese community there that values cooking, baking, eating, and simply being together. My mother kept stacks of cookbooks and cooking magazines at home, and I remember paging through them and wanting to make everything. 

But I also noticed there was a lack of Lebanese recipes in the books. It wasn’t represented in the publications I loved, and I began to feel a pull to share that part of my heritage more widely.

For a time, I followed a different professional path in Chicago. But a series of personal experiences made it clear that I needed to pursue what I was passionate about. I left my job, moved to San Francisco, and enrolled in culinary school. 

My first goal was to enjoy the experience, and secondly, to prepare myself with the intention of writing a cookbook about Lebanese cuisine and the stories that give it life and meaning. 

After culinary school, I moved back to Michigan, started food blogging, and published my first book in 2015.

Tell Us More About Your Book, Lebanese Baking

After my first cookbook, I knew I wanted my next project to focus on Lebanese baking. It was completely missing from my own recipe shelf. I didn’t have a single go-to source. I was always rifling through different places to find what I needed. Instead, I wanted one book that brought everything together, with recipes rigorously tested and streamlined so they’d work for home bakers.

As I explored the idea, many people told me it was too narrow and that I should broaden it to the entire Mediterranean. But Lebanese baking alone is a huge world. There are cookies, cakes, savory and sweet pastries, yeasted doughs — more than enough to fill a book. I felt strongly that this deserved to stand on its own, and I was thrilled when I got the opportunity to write it.

“Baking offers beauty in solitude and in community.”

For me, that beauty shows up in two ways. Baking alone can be meditative, as it’s a way to step away from busy life, practice a skill, and let memories of loved ones surface while you work. Baking in community is just as powerful. I think of the women in our Lebanese community who would gather before holidays to bake together, preparing for feasts, visiting, and supporting one another through both difficult and joyful times.

I also remember, as a young girl, baking in a small group with my mother. We’d wake up early to make dough, then spend the day watching an incredible variety of breads come out of the oven, our table piled high with treats. The people, the stories, and the love from those days stay with me. 

Through this book, I hope to encourage others to revive those traditions — to bake together, share recipes, and pass handwritten notes and cookbooks down to the next generation. 

Lebanese Baking: More than 100 Recipes for Sweet and Savory Goods, by Maureen Abood (Countryman Press, 2025).

Learn more

Listen to the full podcast episode with Maureen Abood here. You can learn more on her website maureenabood.com and follow her on Instagram @maureenabood.