It took me forever to read Abu-Jaber's The Language of Baklava: A Memoir simply because I never wanted it to end! I savored each of the stories, reading some of them twice, and tried many of the recipes that she shared. In fact, I loved it so much that after completing the e-book I ordered the hardcover to own. It's truly delightful. I needed to read a "food memoir" for a book challenge and chose this one because I could eat baklava forever and a day. I knew nothing about this book before beginn...

Rating 4.5I enjoyed this book so much. If you love food, all types of food, then this is the book for you. The author tells the story of her growing up and how much food was a central part of her life. She grew up in both the United States and in Jordan and she tells wonderful stories of each of these times. Her father, Bud, is such a unique character and would be someone you would love to just talk to for hours on end. Food is extremely important to him and his family. The tales of the most bas...

3.5★I wanted a foodie memoir, and that's precisely what I got with this book by Diana Abu-Jaber, who describes a life straddling two cultures. Although I enjoyed it, I've rated it down slightly as I thought it was a bit patchy. For probably the first 2/3, following Diana's life from the meeting of her Jordanian father and American mother, through until the end of her university years, it was excellent; warm, detailed and immediate. Then there's a gap of a number of years while she's establishing...

I finished Diana Abu-Jaber's memoir The Language of Baklava, which I checked out from the library, and I may have to get a copy of this book. It's a wonderfully written memoir filled with memories and food recipes, much of which hailing from Abu-Jaber's Jordanian heritage from her father's side, but some others that are pulled from other places.Much like Kim Sunée's Trail of Crumbs, which is another memoir mixed with recipes, Diana Abu-Jaber's recollections place a major focal point on the food,...

I had mixed feelings about this book. When I first realized it was a book with recipes in each chapter, I thought, oh, no, one of those cooking books that are cutesy and vapid. But, no, it is a well written and delightful memoir of a Jordanian-American family with a high energy, outgoing father who loves to cook. The recipes are not the point of the book but simply seem to emphasize certain lessons in growing up in the author's culture. My favorite part was the year that the family spent in Jord...

I love to read. I love to cook. I love to eat good, well prepared food. I love to read about people who cook.But the author apparently isn't a person who cooks, at least not beyond helping grandma or auntie make the occasional pastry. She never does the cooking. It's done for her, or she's invited to a meal cooked by someone else.The recipes are delicious, and a person with some cooking experience should be able to reproduce them--IF you can find the special ingredients. The author glibly stars

I could not out this book down. It's basically a memoir of eating and living the Arab way, but it will strike a chord with anyone who grew up in a close family. I loved reading about Abu-Jabber's family adapting to the American way. The trips to the city and NJ and thr family time made me think back on the stories I've heard of how it was when my own relatives lived in that area. The recipes are part traditional part American and are allllll very do-able. I found recipes that I want to make and

To continue my continuous craving of Middle Eastern food, the memoir of Diana Abu-Jaber reads very similarly to her novels. You can see how family members she really has get woven into her fictional characters later on. Plus, this book has a bunch of recipes that I will hopefully get to try. Now I just have to sit and wait for her to write more novels! If anyone has recommendations for other books about people who live in two worlds (such as being of Arab-American descent) I would love to hear a...

Abu-Jaber was a dual-culture child: with an American mother and a Jordanian father, she spent most of her childhood in upstate New York but a two-year (relatively brief, but formative) period in Jordan. She portrays her father as a larger-than-life character, eagerly embracing much of what the States had to offer while also hanging steadfastly to certain cultural norms.This is not the sort of book with a tidy start point and end point, or one about a definable thing that happens. Rather, it is a...

Diana Abu-Jaber is a product of two very different worlds – American and Jordanian – and like her Bedouin ancestors, she’s comfortable moving from place to place. “Home” is a fluid concept held more in her mind and heart than a stationary place. Her childhood is a rich combination of Jordanian foods and flavors and culture which occasionally war against her American ones - or maybe it’s just that she doesn’t always see eye to eye with her Jordanian father. The Abu-Jabers spend a year in Jordan w...

I really enjoyed this! I love the structure of this book. The recipes woven throughout come at appropriate times; it isn't a predictable boring structure. And I love the inclusion of even the simplest of recipes because of the intimate memory it represented in the author's life. Everything sounds soooo delicious, it makes me want to buy the physical copy to try out the recipes.I think I learned a lot about Jordanian culture—one that guiltily has slipped under my radar. But also, anyone who is an...

don’t know if it was me & my mood or this book but 3/5 ☆ towards the second half things started to feel too sketched out. just wasn’t my type of memoir. (i am more interested in just the author’s life. there was a chapter or two about her friend, Phinny, who came & visited her in Jordan and it drug on and on about his love life and i was just bored. but again, may have been my mood.) i skimmed the last fifty pages because i was just ready to be done reading this. i would still 110% recommend thi...

Thoroughly, completely charming.

I'd never even considered making my own pita bread until I read the seemingly simple recipe in Diana Abu-Jaber's wonderful memoir The Language of Baklava. In beautiful, resonant language, and delicious-sounding recipes (well, maybe not the Velveeta grilled-cheese sandwich one!) Abu-Jaber explores growing up between the culture of her expansive Jordanian father and that of her reserved and calm Irish-German-American mother. I too grew up in a multicultural household (not Arab in my case, but Sout...

Culinary memoir, eh? Sounds like a winner to me. Actually, so much foodwriting is shamelessly exhibitionist, a shower of sensory description, a contest to see who can worship more lavishly at the alter of the edible. And a lot of memoir is distracted by the need to editorialize on one's journey. So culinary memoir tends to center on The Nostalgically Delicious and Impossibly Meaningful Meal of Yore. This author's story unfolds naturally, her vivid recollections of shared family meals in the US a...

"Laugh out loud" funny may be a cliche but I started smiling on page 1 and by page 23, I was laughing out loud. It may just be me ... see for yourself:"I am a hapless kid. My shirts are covered in food. I lose myself searching for four-leaf clovers and get left behind when recess ends. I look up from my hunting to find myself sprawled alone in a clover field, a sunny sky full of white sailing clouds. I get lost on the way to school. I get lost on the way to the washroom. I get lost on the way ho...

It's difficult for me to criticize memoirs. I mean, who am I to criticize someone's life recollections? Nonetheless...I didn't find this book very compelling. Maybe I know too many people who have grown up in multiple cultures and felt identity crisis. Abu-Jaber's life didn't seem that remarkable to me. She was creative in weaving the narrative of food throughout the book. The recipes left me feeling hungry but that was the extent of my inspiration.

An absolutely lovely memoir that makes you laugh and cry. Does a very good job getting all of us non-Arab readers to begin to understand some of the cultural issues that Americans from that background encounter.

I learned that just because you have a mixed cultural heritage doesn't mean you have anything interesting to say about it or an interesting way to say something about anything.

I did not find this book "vibrant and humorous" like the jacket claimed. I found it sad and depressing. Most of the stories were upsetting and I didn't find the humor in them at all.

Diana Abu-Jaber, eldest daughter of a Jordanian named Ghassan Abu-Jaber ‘Gus’ (though his daughter calls him Bud, since that’s how he insisted on addressing everybody when he came to America), writes about her family. And about food. The Language pf Baklava begins when Diana, six years old, is growing up in Syracuse, America, surrounded by her father’s many brothers and their families. Great big family gatherings, where the tables groan with food and the brothers fight and joke and laugh and fee...

My opinion of The Language of Baklava wavered as I was reading it.At first, I found it hard to get into, but once I was hooked, I was hooked... until it become an altogether too familiar story: over-bearing patriarch who wants to relive the glory of his past days and childhood, submitting his daughter who still has not broken free from the familial chains in order to go find herself. It is the story of most Arab households.I think that's the reason I just got tired and didn't feel like picking i...

A memoir about a person split between two cultures--Jordan (her father) and America (her mother), largely revolving around food and how it relates to her, her family, and both cultures.I never get sick of foodie memoirs, and also books (both fiction and non-fiction) about culture clash. The author feels pulled in two directions throughout the book, and lives in both Jordan and the US for periods of time.Food is fundamental. Food is family, entertainment, and culture here. Food is the centerpiece...

I am so glad that I chose to read this book even though it was part of my Young Adult Literature class last semester. Honestly, I'm heart-broken that I wasn't able to hear my professor's thoughts and analyzations about this book. But regardless, this is definitely one of my favorite memoirs I've ever read. The Language of Baklava was so beautifully written. Food is such an important part of culture, regardless of whichever culture you come from. The fact that Diana Abu-Jaber added recipes in bet...

I loved this book. As I read it we were starting the COVID-19 pandemic and this memoir mad a marvelous antidote for the difficult news of the days.Diana Abu-Jaber's father is a Jordanian immigrant. Her mother is an American from Syracuse, New York. Not only is the father Jordanian, he comes from a Bedouin family, thus is restless about settling in one place. The family lives in Syracuse, but visits Jordan for extended periods several times during Diana's early years. She learns to speak both Eng...

There were so many things I could relate to in The Language of Baklava. Reading Abu-Jaber's story I had a chance to remember my memories that I thought I had forgotten. If you have more than one place that you call "home" you will relate to her story and feel that you are not the only one feeling that way. I am excited to try the recipes from the book. Such a rich and delicious book!"I miss and long for every place, every country, I have ever lived and frequently even the places my friends and m...

Diana Abu-Jaber grew up between two worlds: her mother's America and her father's native Jordan. Food is the link between the two, the way she stays connected to her family (and particularly her father) as they move from Syracuse, NY to Jordan and back again. Each of Abu-Jaber's chapters is a stand-alone story with a recipe at the end. Although both Abu-Jaber and her narrative lose their way after she graduates from college--a place with such terrible, soulless food--the latter part of the memoi...

This book was *slightly* less set in Jordan than I hoped -- but would probably be better categorized as America and Jordan from a Jordanian-American perspective. I did appreciate Diana's perspective of moving between the cultures of her American mother and Jordanian father. What really makes this book sing, outside of some of individual stories and the characters, is how Abu-Jaber interweaves recipes from her family into the book. The corners I folded down were dishes that made my mouth water ju...

This is a memoir of Diana Abu-Jaber and her father from her childhood into her thirties. Her father was a very outgoing man who immigrated from Jordan and loved to cook. The book meanders through Diana's childhood as she tells stories of her childhood that centered around meals cooked by her father. There relationship could be stormy at times. With each chapter, she includes recipes for the foods that anchor the chapters. The story includes times when Diana lived in upstate New York and when she...

Loved it! Will definitely be reading her other books. I'm crazy about the way she uses language. Also I have a special place in my heart for many of the dishes in this book: hummus, muhammara, mujaddara, baba ghanoush, labneh, falafel. I first sampled these items as a college student, and the smells and tastes of these foods are inextricably tied to a sense of freedom and possibility. My friend gave me a copy of this book, and I will be passing it along to another friend, who loves to cook as mu...