Spoon Lamb
Ana Sortun, the chef at Oleana restaurant in Cambridge, Mass., finished culinary school in Paris in 1988. But the education of her palate wasn't complete, she said, until she apprenticed herself to the Tunisian chef Moncef Meddeb in Boston, then began traveling to Turkey and Greece in the 1990's. Now, Ms. Sortun's food at Oleana is defined by its generous use of seasonings used in balance. Her signature lamb stew has a juicy dose of pomegranate, but its intensity is smoothed out with a final squeeze of lemon juice and (that old cooking school favorite) cold butter. Julia Moskin
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