The Language of Baklava

Diana spends her evenings writing fantasy stories about people escaping from their oppressive parents. She has decorated her room to resemble the bohemian house the family once stayed in. One evening, a boy from school named Ray Jansen knocks at the door and asks for her. He has been flirting with Diana in English class, but it is only now that she realizes that. She considers him her “cowboy.” As Diana comes to the door, Bud follows her.

The boy is invited in and offered food, while each family member looks on with varying levels of incredulity and discomfort. Diana feels a mixture of dread, guilt, and luck. Bud launches into an ever-louder diatribe about how his daughters are “good Arab girls […] not like these American girls” who run around and do drugs (197). He accuses Ray of having the audacity to come to his house and tells him he has the wrong idea. Diana is furious with Bud and feels that Ray is “the only thing in [her] life that has ever really mattered at all” (198). Ray shrinks away, followed by the shouting, impassioned Bud, who calms down after the boy leaves. Diana and Bud fight bitterly until she breaks down in tears. On her way to bed, she notices that Ray ate the food Bud brought out for him without anyone noticing: “And I know then that there are all sorts of things that can be done without anyone’s permission” (201). She then includes the recipe for “Cowboy Kibbeh” (201).

At school the next day, Diana and Ray hold hands in the library, a thrilling but also innocent event. Ray tells Diana he really liked Bud’s food, especially the kibbeh. The couple don’t see each other much after that, but Ray passes by the house sometimes, welcomed by Bud, who brings him food and calls him “[a] real good kid” (202).

Diana is 15 when a new English teacher at school opens up the world of “full-bodied, difficult, modern works” (203). She is inspired by the accounts of literary, European-style dinner parties and plans her own version. She invites three of her immigrant friends—Olga, Sonja, and Mahaleani—and three long-haired American boys to her home, where they sit in a circle in the garden reading aloud, playing guitar, and eating as European a picnic as Diana managed to source. Diana imagines falling for one of the boys (Jay Franklin), in part because “he must be sensitive, and therefore, completely different from Bud” (204). Diana feels transported and free but also nervous about what Bud will say when he sees this rebellious event.

Bud arrives home and questions the group about what they are doing. The tension is relieved when Jay comments: “Diana told us you make your own hummus” (208). Jay and Bud bond over the Middle Eastern foods that Jay knows, going off to the kitchen to cook together. They prepare dinner, and Diana is sidelined as she tries to talk literature over the meal. Bud glows with pleasure and acceptance as he and Jay drink araq (Lebanese anis liquor). Diana realizes she “can never have anything to do with Jay Franklin again” (210). The recipe follows for “A Perfect Glass of Araq” (210).

From this episode, Diana learns to use Arab connections to get past her father’s strict rules and regulations. She finds a potential date for the prom in Sam Ralston, who is really Samer Abdul-Rami and half Lebanese. After an interrogation about the boy and a phone call to a mutual acquaintance to ascertain his lineage, Bud accepts the request. The final recipe is for “‘Stolen Boyfriend’ Baba Ghanouj” (212).