Special sausage gyro is a link to Lebanon

ARLINGTON -- If Victor Karamousayan were a car salesman, he could sell a Toyota Prius to a Ford executive. Instead, he presides over Arlington's Yerevan Middle Eastern Grocery, encouraging his customers to go home and create Armenian and Middle Eastern feasts. Walk in looking for something simple, and you might leave with everything you need to make gyros.

Karamousayan believes that with the right ingredients anyone can replicate the Armenian-Lebanese cuisine he grew up with. "It's easy, easy." he says. Karamousayan remembers standing in line at small take out windows in Lebanon, waiting to buy maani sandwiches for his father, who is a tailor. The sandwiches are a kind of gyro made with sausages. Instead of following in his father's footsteps, he did what his maternal grandfather and uncles did and went into the food business.

Karamousayan's 30-plus years in this country have not dulled his passion for Lebanon and for his own Armenian heritage, or what he considers to be typical American images: When he's instructing a visitor to squeeze lemon juice over sausages, he says they should "sparkle like Las Vegas."

The market owner will share his recipe for the gyro sandwiches and yogurt sauce, but he's reluctant to list the herbs in the sauce. The gyros begin with pita bread, which are layered with the sausages, lettuce and tomatoes, then rolled up.

The secret lies in the sausages, which are sold at the market and other shops. Karamousayan's are marinated in red wine with coriander and pine nuts. Their look is distinctively handmade -- something, in fact, for which he might have stood in line to bring to his father for lunch.

Lamb sausages are available at Yerevan Middle Eastern Grocery, 892 Massachusetts Ave., Arlington, 781-643-0550 ($16.99 a pound); Sevan Bakery, 599 Mount Auburn St., Watertown, 617-924-9843 ($7.99 a pound); Safy Market, 691 Broadway, Revere, 781-284-0761 (by special order; 5-pound minimum).