1. There's supposedly a Charles Perry article which theorizes that the Turks invented baklava. I'm meaning to look it up.

2. I think you'd have the same response to this one: it was fun, I was sucked in far enough to spend all evening reading it, and there were some nifty details in the setting, but a bunch of the plot depends on romance, and the characters didn't feel individual enough for the romance to be entirely satisfying.