Friday nights were sacred in my house. Shortly after moving from California to Minnesota, my father began a new job that required him to travel nearly every week. He would leave Monday or Tuesday morning and fly home on Friday evening. Every Friday afternoon mom would pick us up from school - the one blessed day of the week we had no extra-curricular activities and weren’t required to finish our homework immediately upon arriving home- and my sister and I would play baseball or dress-up until it was time to help mom set the table and prepare for dinner. Once we heard the lurch of the garage door and the fade of my father’s car engine, my sister and I would abruptly drop what we were doing, make blistering eye contact, and break off screaming and running like banshees towards the front door. It was a race to see who could get to the door faster and fly directly into dad’s arms. The slower sister had to retrieve dad’s coffee mug, coat, and briefcase from the front steps.
Every Friday night was the same, my mother prepared the same dish: a delicate, tasty marinara sauce with pasta and a crisp salad made with homemade blue cheese dressing. The recipes were my paternal grandmother’s, a brilliant, stylish Sicilian American and remarkable chef who died eleven months to the day before her first grandchild (me) was born. If we were lucky, my parents let us eat by candlelight while Tony Bennett and Vic Damone (Grandma’s favorite) crooned in the background as we ate and chatted about the week. My sister and I, dramatic and romantic spirits from day 1, lived for these moments. The night would always end after a few rousing games of cards or checkers and my sister and I curled up next to our parents on the coach, while Jon Miller narrated the Friday night Giants baseball game.
Diana Abu-Jaber’s culinary memoir, “The Language of Baklava,” published in 2005, is the perfect read as the seasons begin to change. At times witty and wild, this book is an emotionally poignant exploration of Abu-Jaber’s two distinct cultural identities, Jordanian and American. Abu-Jaber’s narrates her childhood, adolescence and early college years living in upstate New York and Jordan. Her larger than life father raises three girls while navigating the complexities of living an immigrant’s life. The author recounts numerous, often comedic stories of her childhood centered around her father’s overwhelming love for his family and passion for food and hospitality. The author paints a stunning portrait of a mixed family – a father, determined to connect his daughters to their Jordanian roots, and sometimes tormented by his own feelings of longing and disconnectedness, and a patient, dedicated American mother. Interspersed amidst each chapter are recipes, named for the many lessons, memories, and characters of Abu-Jaber’s life. The reader watches the author grow up, determined to locate herself somewhere in the world, somewhere within her mother and father. The book concludes with the author’s reflections and travels to Jordan as an adult and established novelist. She remains restless, still searching. She leaves her readers with the question, “Why must there be only one home! Surely there is no one as bad, as heartbroken, as hopeless at saying goodbye as I am.”
I didn’t understand how meaningful my family’s Friday night tradition was until my early adult life when my own adventures brought me far away from my home and made me lonely for my family. In my childhood, the smell of my Italian spices and the crackling when baseball met bat on the radio, were mere signals of my father’s weekly homecoming, and a respite from the small worries of school. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized the depth of our family traditions, how our familial bond developed during those meals, or was stressed when arguments broke out at the table – which they surely did as my sister and I grew up. When we are children are parents seem like ancient, confident individuals who have always known how to swim, ride bikes, make complex decisions. As I became an adult, I came to understand that my parents were young, unsure of how they were raising their children or piecing together a life. The simple sauce by mother faithfully prepared each week was for my father more than it was for us - a gift to a generous family man who without complaint left his California home to move to my mother’s native Minnesota, and a comfort to a heartbroken young man who lost his beloved mother far sooner than anyone should.
Later in life, I met my partner and best friend - and an immigrant. A young man who is courageous and adaptable, who similarly finds immense joy and meaning in his native cuisine, but who carries a weight I can’t always see. He wrestles with a profound but sometimes lonely understanding of the world, one which is often out of my grasp. As we begin to create our own family together, we're often reminded of the significance and complexity of living between two cultures, and of the intimacies that can only be built by sharing food.
In the spirit of Abu-Jaber’s memoir, I’d like to share a recipe with you all for my grandmother’s kitchen:
Pasta – Simple, Marinara Sauce
Serves 4-6
Ingredients:
Crushed San Marzano tomatoes (or if you are typical, overly busy human you can totally cheat by using 2, 15 oz. cans of Hunt’s sauce because life should be about eating well, even when there’s NO TIME!)
1 6 oz. can of Hunt’s tomato paste
1/3 cup olive oil (I think it is 1/3, honestly, we just wing it)
1 cup of cold water
1 peeled yellow onion – cut several slits into it to let out the flavor
3-4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Sweet basil, about ½ to 1 teaspoon
½ teaspoon Italian seasoning
½ teaspoon oregano
Salt and pepper to taste
Simmer on low for 3 hours
Serve with penne or thin spaghetti. Top with freshly grated Parmesan or pecorino/romano cheese. Serve with a fresh, chilled salad or other seasonal vegetable, and garlic bread.
How does your family relate to food? What are your favorite family recipes?
You can find a copy of Diana Abu-Jaber's book here: [https://www.amazon.com/Language-Baklava-Diana-Abu-Jaber-ebook/dp/B000XUDGTO] This is my first book review, so if any of you have any comments or insights into my writing, I'm very open to your feedback!