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Diana Abu-Jaber

Diana Abu-Jaber Books

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Crescent

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“He had a satisfying wholeness about him, American good looks like a baseball player's- level shoulders, a pale shock of hair. A good mind and ethical nature: little gave him more pleasure than learning laws and governance- "It shows you the shape of your society." But what drew the deepest sliver of her self toward him, was the weakness in his chin, his slightly disoriented air, like an injury he allowed only Avis to see. Brian was the opposite of her mother. There wasn't a whiff of mystery about him: he was solid, entirely himself. Avis still cooked in those days and she invited him to her minuscule studio. She set a hibachi up on the fire escape and grilled him a marbled, crimson rib-eye, crusty with salt and pepper, its interior brilliant with juices. Some garlicky green beans with pine nuts, rich red wine, mushrooms and onions sautéed in a nut-brown butter. She'd intuited his indifference to chocolate, so dessert was a velvety vanilla bean cake with a toasted almond frosting.”

DatingCookingSupportiveDessertDinner DateAvis MuirAvis And BrianBrian MuirCollege Sweethearts
Book:Birds of Paradise
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“Show me." He looks at her, his eyes darker than the air. "If you draw me a map I think I'll understand better." "Do you have paper?" She looks over the empty sweep of the car's interior. "I don't have anything to write with." He holds up his hands, side to side as if they were hinged. "That's okay. You can just use my hands." She smiles, a little confused. He leans forward and the streetlight gives him yellow-brown cat eyes. A car rolling down the street toward them fills the interior with light, then an aftermath of prickling black waves. "All right." She takes his hands, runs her finger along one edge. "Is this what you mean? Like, if the ocean was here on the side and these knuckles are mountains and here on the back it's Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, West L.A., West Hollywood, and X marks the spot." She traces her fingertips over the backs of his hands, her other hand pressing into the soft pads of his palm. "This is where we are- X." "Right now? In this car?" He leans back; his eyes are black marble, dark lamps. She holds his gaze a moment, hears a rush of pulse in her ears like ocean surf. Her breath goes high and tight and shallow; she hopes he can't see her clearly in the car- her translucent skin so vulnerable to the slightest emotion. He turns her hands over, palms up, and says, "Now you." He draws one finger down one side of her palm and says, "This is the Tigris River Valley. In this section there's the desert, and in this point it's plains. The Euphrates runs along there. This is Baghdad here. And here is Tahrir Square." He touches the center of her palm. "At the foot of the Jumhurriya Bridge. The center of everything. All the main streets run out from this spot. In this direction and that direction, there are wide busy sidewalks and apartments piled up on top of shops, men in business suits, women with strollers, street vendors selling kabobs, eggs, fruit drinks. There's the man with his cart who sold me rolls sprinkled with thyme and sesame every morning and then saluted me like a soldier. And there's this one street...." He holds her palm cradled in one hand and traces his finger up along the inside of her arm to the inner crease of her elbow, then up to her shoulder. Everywhere he touches her it feels like it must be glowing, as if he were drawing warm butter all over her skin. "It just goes and goes, all the way from Baghdad to Paris." He circles her shoulder. "And here"- he touches the inner crease of her elbow-"is the home of the Nile crocodile with the beautiful speaking voice. And here"- his fingers return to her shoulder, dip along their clavicle-"is the dangerous singing forest." "The dangerous singing forest?" she whispers. He frowns and looks thoughtful. "Or is that in Madagascar?" His hand slips behind her neck and he inches toward her on the seat. "There's a savanna. Chameleons like emeralds and limes and saffron and rubies. Red cinnamon trees filled with lemurs." "I've always wanted to see Madagascar," she murmurs: his breath is on her face. Their foreheads touch. His hand rises to her face and she can feel that he's trembling and she realizes that she's trembling too. "I'll take you," he whispers.”

SeductionMapSirine And Han
Book:Crescent
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“Marry, don't marry,' Auntie Aya says as we unfold layers of dough to make an apple strudel. Just don't have your babies unless it's absolutely necessary.' How do I know if it's necessary?' She stops and stares ahead, her hands gloved in flour. 'Ask yourself, Do I want a baby or do I want to make a cake? The answer will come to you like bells ringing.' She flickers her fingers in the air by her ear. 'For me, almost always, the answer was cake.”

FoodHumourBabies
Book:The Language of Baklava: A Memoir
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“She thinks of Stanley's colored pencil drawings of theoretical businesses: a cafe, a bookshop, and, always, a grocery store. When she was ten and he was fourteen, he was already working as a bag boy at Publix, reading what their father called "hippie books." He talked about stuff like citrus canker, the Big Sugar mafia, and genetically modified foods and organisms. He got his store manager to order organic butter after Stanley'd read (in the 'Berkeley Wellness' newsletter) about the high concentration of pesticides in dairy. Then, for weeks, the expensive stuff (twice as much as regular) sat in the case, untouched. So Stanley used his own savings to buy the remaining inventory and stashed in his mother's cold storage. He took some butter to his school principal and spoke passionately about the health benefits of organic dairy: they bought a case for the cafeteria. He ordered more butter directly from the dairy co-operative and sold some to the Cuban-French bakery in the Gables, then sold some more from a big cooler at the Coconut Grove farmer's market. He started making a profit and people came back to him, asking for milk and ice cream. The experience changed Stanley- he was sometimes a little weird and pompous and intense before, but somehow, he began to seem cool and worldly.”

DairyButterOrganic FoodHealth BenefitsFoodsGrocery StoreStanley MuirModified
Book:Birds of Paradise
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“I mean, he could blow old Capitalist-Stevie here away." Felice doesn't respond. She pulls the backs of her ankles in close to her butt and rests her chin on the flat of one her knees. She thinks of Stanley's colored pencil drawings of theoretical businesses: a cafe, a bookshop, and, always, a grocery store. When she was ten and he was fourteen, he was already working as a bag boy at Publix, reading what their father called "hippie books." He talked about stuff like citrus canker, the Big Sugar mafia, and genetically modified foods and organisms. He got his store manager to order organic butter after Stanley'd read (in the 'Berkeley Wellness' newsletter) about the high concentration of pesticides in dairy. Then, for weeks, the expensive stuff (twice as much as regular) sat in the case, untouched. So Stanley used his own savings to buy the remaining inventory and stashed in his mother's cold storage. He took some butter to his school principal and spoke passionately about the health benefits of organic dairy: they bought a case for the cafeteria. He ordered more butter directly from the dairy co-operative and sold some to the Cuban-French bakery in the Gables, then sold some more from a big cooler at the Coconut Grove farmer's market. He started making a profit and people came back to him, asking for milk and ice cream. The experience changed Stanley- he was sometimes a little weird and pompous and intense before, but somehow, he began to seem cool and worldly. Their mother, however, said she couldn't afford to use his ingredients in her business. They'd fought about it. Stanley said that Avis had never really supported him. Avis asked if it wasn't hypocritical of Stanley to talk about healthy eating while he was pushing butter. And Stanley replied that he'd learned from the master, that her entire business was based on the cultivation of expensive heart attacks.”

DairyButterOrganic FoodHealth BenefitsAvis MuirGrocery StoreStanley MuirModified
Book:Birds of Paradise
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“She has started to taste her own cooking in a professional way again. Detached, critical, and overly scrupulous. It tastes somewhat different from how she remembers it. Her flavors have gotten somehow stranger, darker and larger: she stirs roasted peppers into the hummus and apricots and capers into the chicken. And she walks into the basement storage room one day and discovers Victor Hernandez kissing Mireille on the butcher block table among the onion skins. Mireille, then Sirine, burst into laughter. Later, Sirine realizes it's the first time she's really laughed in a year. A month later, Mireille is engaged to Victor Hernandez and Victor moves in with her and Um-Nadia. He makes three different kinds of mole sauces for their wedding dinner, and chocolate and cinnamon and black pepper sweetcake.”

CookingEngagedFlavorsTasting
Book:Crescent
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“On the top rack is a cooled and decorated seven-layered 'opera' cake. Her client- the Peruvian ambassador- had requested a "tropical" theme for a dinner party dessert. Avis had based the decoration on the view through the kitchen window, re-creating in lime, lemongrass, and mint frostings the curling backyard flora, curving foliage shaped like tongues and hearts, fat spines bisecting the leaves.”

CakeDecorationTropicalAvis Muir
Book:Birds of Paradise
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“As she piped rosettes, docked a sheet of dough, or doused a tart with sanding sugar, another world occurred on the doorstep. Now Avis answers the door herself and leads surprised delivery people into the front entrance, across the living room, and through the heavy swinging door to her kitchen. She almost enjoys the contact with the outside world. On Monday, there is a Colombian man who delivers free-range eggs and unpasteurized milk that glows like satin. Tuesdays, a woman from Lima bring special concoctions of candied lilacs and fruit peels and 'gelees,' and later a young boy comes with a box filled with dried starfruit and bananas and fresh tea, mint and sage from his father's botanical garden in the Redlands. She asks and forgets everyone's names, but next week, she thinks, she'll ask again. Some deliveries- like those from her son's market- come every week, others- like the fig balsamic vinegar- were special-ordered to accompany a single chocolate strawberry ice cream cake.”

IngredientsDeliveryDessertsAvis Muir
Book:Birds of Paradise
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“It's been over a year since they've visited their son's market. As they walk through the parking lot they take in a number of improvements. Brian admires the raised garden beds made of cedar planks that flank the sides of the lot. There are stalks of tomatoes, staked beans, baskets of green herbs- oregano, lavender, fragrant blades of lemongrass and pointed curry leaf. The planter of baby lettuces has a chalkboard hung from its side: "Just add fork." A wheelbarrow parked by the door is heaped with bright coronas of sunflowers, white daisies, jagged red ginger and birds-of-paradise. Avis feels a leap of pride as they enter the market: the floor of polished bamboo, the sky-blue ceiling, the wooden shelves- like bookshelves in a library. And the smells. Warm, round billows of baking bread, roasting garlic and onions and chicken.”

ProduceFlowersHerbsSeasoningsScentsMarketMother And SonAvis MuirStanley Muir
Book:Birds of Paradise
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“Mondays are for baklava, which she learned to make by watching her parents. Her mother said that a baklava-maker should have sensitive, supple hands, so she was in charge of opening and unpeeling the paper-thin layers of dough and placing them in a stack in the tray. Her father was in charge of pastry-brushing each layer of dough with a coat of drawn butter. It was systematic yet graceful: her mother carefully unpeeling each layer and placing them in the tray where Sirine's father painted them. It was important to move quickly so that the unbuttered layers didn't dry out and start to fall apart. This was one of the ways that Sirine learned how her parents loved each other- their concerted movements like a dance; they swam together through the round arcs of her mother's arms and her father's tender strokes. Sirine was proud when they let her paint a layer, prouder when she was able to pick up one of the translucent sheets and transport it to the tray- light as raw silk, fragile as a veil. On Tuesday morning, however, Sirine has overslept. She's late to work and won't have enough time to finish preparing the baklava before starting breakfast. She could skip a day of the desserts and serve the customers ice cream and figs or coconut cookies and butter cake from the Iranian Shusha Bakery two doors down. But the baklava is important- it cheers the students up. They close their eyes when they bite into its crackling layers, all lightness and scent of orange blossoms. And Sirine feels unsettled when she tries to begin breakfast without preparing the baklava first; she can't find her place in things. So finally she shoves the breakfast ingredients aside and pulls out the baklava tray with no idea of how she'll find the time to finish it, just thinking: sugar, cinnamon, chopped walnuts, clarified butter, filo dough....”

BakingDessertsBaklava
Book:Crescent
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“Thanksgiving dinner is vast and steaming, crowded over the tabletop in hot platters bumping against each other. There are three open bottles of wine, all different colors, and there seem to be far more plates and silverware than are actually needed. Among the guests' contributions, there's a big round fatayer- a lamb pie- that Aziz bought from the green-eyed girl at the Iranian bakery; six sliced cylinders of cranberry sauce from Um-Nadia; whole roasted walnuts in chili sauce from Cristobal; plus Victor brought three homemade pumpkin pies and a half-gallon of whipping cream.”

LeftoversThanksgiving DinnerSide DishArabian Cuisine
Book:Crescent
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“A cookie, Avis told her children, is a soul. She held up the wafer, its edges shimmering with ruby-dark sugar. "You think it looks like a tiny thing, right? Just a little nothing. But then you take a bite." Four-year-old Felice lifted her face. Avis fanned her daughter's eyes closed with her fingertips and placed it in Felice's mouth. Felice opened her sheer eyes. Lamb slid his orange length against her ankles. Avis handed a cookie to eight-year-old Stanley, who held it up to his nose. "Does that taste good?" she asked. Felice nodded and opened her mouth again. "It smells like flowers," Stanley said. "Yes." Avis paused, a cookie balanced on her spatula. "That's the rosewater. Good palate, darling." "Mermaids eat roses," Felice said. "Then they melt.”

CookiesBakingMermaidsAvis MuirRosewaterFelice MuirStanley Muir
Book:Birds of Paradise
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“Han breaks a tangerine into sections and feeds them to her one by one. Then he cuts a lemon in half, sprinkles a spoonful of sugar over the cut top, and bites into it. Sirine looks around at the wandering palms and the dusty street. Just that morning the radio weatherman had said it would be an Indian summer scorcher. She slices open an avocado and sprinkles it with coarse salt before handing it to Han.”

FeedingFruits And VegetablesSirine And HanSalt And Sugar
Book:Crescent
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“Sirine smiles back and asks what he would like to have for breakfast. He yawns and sits up, and asks almost timidly, "I don't suppose you could make some more of that frekeh?" The dish of smoked wheat kernels with olive oil and garlic. She sits still, the sunlight from the balcony skimming through the bedroom. There are bags and bags of frekeh at her uncle's house, pounds of it at the café, even the Indian market a few blocks away from Han's apartment sells it in bulk. But she takes a breath and frowns and says, "I'm not sure if I can find any more right now." She tells Han to sleep a little longer and she walks down to the Indian market by herself. But when she comes back with her groceries she doesn't have frekeh. She makes scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast. She stirs dollops of heavy cream and cheese into the eggs, letting the bacon grease soak into the egg, slicing squares of buttered toast in half, filling the glasses with orange juice. She serves this to Han while he's still in bed and he smiles and eats it and doesn't say anything more about frekeh.”

BreakfastSirine And Han
Book:Crescent
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“Avis named her business Paradise Pastry because she imagined cathedrals. She thought about the stonemasons, glassblowers, sculptors- who gave lifetimes to the creation of beauty. Every sugar crust she rolled, every simple 'tarte Tatin' was a bit of a church. She consecrated herself to it: later, it became her tribute to her daughter and the unknown into which she'd disappeared. She had her cathedral to enter, to console her. Her friend Jean-Francoise, chef at La Petit Choux, said that her pastries would be transcendent, if only she wasn't American.”

BusinessFrenchCathedralsPastriesPastryAvis MuirFelice Muir
Book:Birds of Paradise
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“The first time Avis knelt on a chair and stirred eggs into flour to make a vanilla cake, she had an inkling of how higher orders of meaning encircle the chaos of life. Where philosophy, she already intuited, created only thought- no beds made, no children fed- in other rooms there were good things like measuring spoons, thermometers, and recipes, with their lovely, interwoven systems and codes. Avis labored over her pastries: her ingredient base grew, combining worlds: preserved lemons from Morocco in a Provencal tart; Syrian olive oil in Neapolitan cantuccini; salt combed from English marshes and filaments of Kashmiri saffron secreted within a Swedish cream. By the time Avis was in college, her baking had evolved to a level of exquisite accomplishment: each pastry as unique as a snowflake, just as fleeting on the tongue: pellucid jams colored cobalt and lavender, biscuits light as eiderdown.”

IngredientsBakingPastriesAvis MuirImported
Book:Birds of Paradise
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“She considers a tray of flaky 'jesuites,' their centers redolent of frangipani cream, decorated with violet buds preserved in clouds of black crystal sugar. Or 'dulce de leche' tarts- caramelized swirls on a 'pate sucree' crust, glowing with chocolate, tiny muted peaks, ruffles of white pastry like Edwardian collars. But nothing seems special enough and nothing seems right. Nothing seems like Stanley. Avis brings out the meticulous botanical illustrations she did in school, pins them all around the kitchen like a room from Audubon's house. She thinks of slim layers of chocolate interspersed with a vanilla caramel. On top she might paint a frosted forest with hints of white chocolate, dashes of rosemary subtle as deja vu. A glissando of light spilling in butter-drops from one sweet lime leaf to the next. On a drawing pad she uses for designing wedding cakes, she begins sketching ruby-throated hummingbirds in flecks of raspberry fondant, a sub-equatorial sun depicted in neoclassical butter cream. At the center of the cake top, she draws figures regal and languid as Gauguin's island dwellers, meant to be Stanley, Nieves, and child. Their skin would be cocoa and coffee and motes of cherry melded with a few drops of cream. Then an icing border of tiny mermaids, nixies, selkies, and seahorses below, Pegasus, Icarus, and phoenix above.”

IngredientsCakeOver The TopPastriesAvis MuirDecorationsStanley MuirFondant
Book:Birds of Paradise
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“This morning's pastry poses challenges. To assemble the tiny mosaic disks of chocolate flake and candied ginger, Avis must execute a number of discrete, ritualistic steps: scraping the chocolate with a fine grater, rolling the dough cylinder in large-grain sanding sugar, and assembling the ingredients atop each hand-cut disk of dough in a pointillist collage. Her husband wavers near the counter, watching. "They're like something Marie Antoinette would wear around her neck. When she still had one." "I thought she was more interested in cake," Avis says, she tilts her narrow shoulders, veers around him to stack dishes in the sink.”

ChocolateIngredientsBakingPastriesMarie AntoinetteAvis MuirAvis And Brian
Book:Birds of Paradise
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“At work, Sirine announces that this year will be an Arabic Thanksgiving with rice and pine nuts and ground lamb in the turkey instead of cornbread, and yogurt sauce instead of cranberries. Mireille sulks and says she doesn't like yogurt and Sirine says, annoyed, why can't we ever do things differently? And Um-Nadia says, girls, never mind already, we can have the for-crying-out-loud rice stuffing and I'll bring the can of the red berries sauce.”

ThanksgivingYogurtArabic
Book:Crescent
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“Sirine puts a forkful of sweet potatoes into her mouth. The potatoes are soft as velvet, the gravy satiny. It is as if she can taste the life inside all those ingredients: the stem that the cranberries grew on, the earth inside the bread, even the warm blood inside the turkey. It comes back to her, the small secret that was always hers, for years, the only truth she seemed to possess- that food was better than love: surer, truer, more satisfying and enriching. As long as she could lose herself in the rhythms of peeling an onion, she was complete and whole. And as long as she could cook, she would be loved.”

BelovedTastesFood Sensor
Book:Crescent
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“Brian and Avis deliver their stacks and try to refuse dinner, but the waiters bring them glasses of burgundy, porcelain plates with thin, peppery steaks redolent of garlic, scoops of buttery grilled Brussels sprouts, and a salad of beets, walnuts, and Roquefort. They drag a couple of lawn chairs to a quiet spot on the street and they balance the plates on their laps. Some ingredient in the air reminds Avis of the rare delicious trips they used to make to the Keys. Ten years after they'd moved to Miami they'd left Stanley and Felice with family friends and Avis and Brian drove to Key West on a sort of second honeymoon. She remembers how the land dropped back into distance: wetlands, marsh, lazy-legged egrets flapping over the highway, tangled, sulfurous mangroves. And water. Steel-blue plains, celadon translucence. She and Brian had rented a vacation cottage in Old Town, ate small meals of fruit, cheese, olives, and crackers, swam in the warm, folding water. Each day stirring into the next, talking about nothing more complicated than the weather, spotting a shark off the pier, a mysterious constellation lowering in the west. Brian sheltered under a celery-green umbrella while Avis swam: the water formed pearls on the film of her sunscreen. They watched the night's rise, an immense black curtain from the ocean. Up and down the beach they hear the sounds of the outdoor bars, sandy patios switching on, distant strains of laughter, bursts of music. Someone played an instrument- quick runs of notes, arpeggios floating in soft ovals like soap bubbles over the darkening water.”

OceanBeachFood And WineVacationsKey WestAvis And Brian
Book:Birds of Paradise
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“They get so busy, Victor Hernandez starts to help out as a sous chef, chopping up bowls of onions and garlic and peppers, making salads and mixing marinades. He brings in a bagful of chili peppers one day, some long and narrow and shriveled as old fingers, some petite and glossy as young fingers. He roasts them under the broiler and in a dry skillet, then slides off the charred outer skins. And Sirine uses slices of the soft inner hearts puréed into the baba ghannuj and marinades for the kabobs. "They say that pepper is good for love," Victor tells her, then raises his eyebrows at Mireille, who turns pink. "It brings heat to the blood.”

CookingPeppers
Book:Crescent
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“It's slow at the café so Um-Nadia sends Mirielle and Sirine out to the Wednesday afternoon farmer's market in Westwood. The two women comb the tables and stalls full of gleaming tomatoes, black-eyed sunflowers, pomegranates full of blood-red seeds. The air smells like burst fruit. Heat rolls in across the neighborhoods, emptying the streets, rippling above the cars. The two women fill bags with knobs and globes of squashes and another bag with garlic and another bag with cucumbers. "Best walnuts in town," a tanned young farmhand tells Sirine and Mirielle. "They're fresh, perfect, and they taste like butter." Sirine cocks an eyebrow. "At these prices? They better." He smiles, his teeth impossibly white. "Hey, you gotta pay for the good stuff.”

Grocery ShoppingFarmers Market
Book:Crescent
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“He realizes finally that the boy he's been watching snap his board into the air, then neatly touch down- long, black, gleaming hair, pale white skin- is Felice. He didn't know she'd learned how to skateboard. He's never seen her like this before- so intently focused and content- her beauty beside the point, merely part of the catalog of effects- speed, balance, daring. He admires her athletic form and feels moved in some unexpected way.”

SkateboardingFelice Muir
Book:Birds of Paradise
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“But Stanley persisted in the kitchen, performing the small yet demanding apprentice's tasks she set for him- removing the skin from piles of almonds, grating snowy hills of lemon zest, the nightly sweeping of the kitchen floor and sponging of metal shelves. He didn't seem to mind: every day after school, he'd lean over the counter, watching her experiment with combinations- shifting flavors like the beads in a kaleidoscope- burnt sugar, hibiscus, rum, espresso, pear: dessert as a metaphor for something unresolvable. It was nothing like the slapdashery of cooking. Baking, to Avis, was no less precise than chemistry: an exquisite transfiguration. Every night, she lingered in the kitchen, analyzing her work, jotting notes, describing the way ingredients nestled: a slim layer of black chocolate hidden at the bottom of a praline tart, the essence of lavender stirred into a bowl of preserved wild blueberries. Stanley listened to his mother think out loud: he asked her questions and made suggestions- like mounding lemon meringue between layers of crisp pecan wafers- such a success that her corporate customers ordered it for banquets and company retreats. On the day Avis is thinking of, she sat in the den where they watched TV, letting her hand swim over the silk of her daughter's hair, imagining a dessert pistou of blackberry, creme fraiche, and nutmeg, in which floated tiny vanilla croutons. Felice was her audience, Avis's picky eater- difficult to please. Her "favorites" changed capriciously and at times, it seemed, deliberately, so that after Avis set out what once had been, in Felice's words, "the best ever"- say, a miniature roulade Pavlova with billows of cream and fresh kumquat- Felice would announce that she was now "tired" of kumquats.”

IngredientsBakingFlavorsPastriesPickyAvis MuirFelice MuirStanley Muir
Book:Birds of Paradise
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“At thirteen, she was already five feet seven, a little hollowed-out by her growth spurt, her chest concave, her eyes with their ineffable violet light enormous, her bangs cut straight across her brow so she looked very young and serious. He realizes only now that as time passed he'd continued to think of Felice as that thirteen-year-old child, preserved like a geranium between the leaves of a book. She is still young and slim, yet changed. Her shoulders are straighter and more refined; the bangs are gone- her hair swings to her shoulders. Her eyes no longer seem overlarge: they are wide, almond-shaped. Nieves stares at her: he'd failed to mention his sister's beauty. Stanley tucks his chin: inside, a ragged blank- the feeling that this couldn't possibly be his sister: 'she' is still out there- a thirteen-year-old, who vanished into the night, a black orchid.”

ChangeBeautyTeenagerBrother And SisterFelice MuirStanley Muir
Book:Birds of Paradise
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“She's been scouted by Ford and Elite- real New York agencies. Micah, the agent for Elite- a tall black guy in silver eyeliner- said that Felice was "heart-stopping." Everyone says that Felice looks like Elizabeth Taylor- all pleased with themselves, as if she were hearing this for the first time. It used to bug Felice: she pictured that squat, henlike woman in her wig and jewels, holding hands with Michael Jackson. But one day, Duffy brought over an old movie magazine while Felice and Berry lounged at their cafe table. He opened it and jabbed at the photo. "There. Look. You kids really are morons. You really don't know anything, do you? 'That's' Elizabeth Taylor." Berry craned over the page. "Wow, you really kind of do. Look at her. You guys could be related." A little nearsighted, Felice held the magazine closer, startled to see the resemblance- the straight brow bone, glimmering eyes, the fine jaw; only Felice's straight hair was self-hacked below the shoulders and Liz's hair was a sable bob, thick as a paintbrush. She finally realized what a compliment this comparison was.”

BeautyModelingFelice MuirLook AlikeElizabeth Taylor
Book:Birds of Paradise
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“Avis puts aside the 'Saint-Honore' and decides to embark on a new pastry. She's assembling ingredients when the phone rings in the next room. She ignores it as she arranges her new mise en place. This recipe is constructed on a foundation of hazelnuts- roasted, then roughed in a towel to help remove skins. These are ground into a gianduja paste with shaved chocolate, which she would normally prepare in her food processor, but today she would rather smash it together by hand, using a meat tenderizer on a chopping block. She pounds away and only stops when she hears something that turns out to be Nina's voice on the answering machine: "Ven, Avis, you ignoring me? Contesta el telefono! I know you're there. Ay, you know what- you're totally impossible to work for..." Avis starts pounding again. Her assistants never last more than a year or two before something like this happens. They go stale, she thinks: everything needs to be turned over. Composted. She feels invigorated, punitive and steely as she moves through the steps of the recipe. It was from one of her mother's relatives, perhaps even Avis's grandmother- black bittersweets- a kind of cookie requiring slow melting in a double boiler, then baking, layering, and torching, hours of work simply to result in nine dark squares of chocolate and gianduja tucked within pieces of 'pate sucree.' The chocolate is a hard, intense flavor against the rich hazelnut and the wisps of sweet crust- a startling cookie. Geraldine theorized that the cookie must have been invented to give to enemies: something exquisitely delicious with a tiny yield. The irony, from Avis's professional perspective was that while one might torment enemies with too little, it also exacted an enormous labor for such a small revenge.”

CookiesBakingBittersweetDark ChocolateAvis MuirHazelnutGianduja
Book:Birds of Paradise
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“Sirine learned about food from her parents. Even though her mother was American, her father always said his wife thought about food like an Arab. Sirine's mother strained the salted yogurt through cheesecloth to make creamy labneh, stirred the onion and lentils together in a heavy iron pan to make mjeddrah, and studded joints of lamb with fat cloves of garlic to make roasted kharuf. Sirine's earliest memory was of sitting on a phone book on a kitchen chair, the sour-tart smell of pickled grape leaves in the air. Her mother spread the leaves flat on the table like little floating hands, placed the spoonful of rice and meat at the center of each one, and Sirine with her tiny fingers rolled the leaves up tighter and neater than anyone else could- tender, garlicky, meaty packages that burst in the mouth.”

Childhood MemoriesMiddle Eastern Cuisine
Book:Crescent
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“Um-Nadia says that great food needs darkness. It requires letting the dough inhale the very early morning and letting the kabobs drink up wine and garlic all night long, and- on occasion- it requires stuffing the small birds, squabs, pigeons, and other sweet, wild game under the round moon, "when they have let go of their songs," Um-Nadia says. Sirine dreams of cooking and wakes to thoughts of cooking- even when she can't stand the old smells of rancid butter and oils hanging in her hair. She still wakes too early, to grind and salt the lamb by hand, to fan the parsley over the chopping block.”

CookingRequirementsMiddle Eastern Cuisine
Book:Crescent
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“The night before, Um-Nadia came over with her small wooden box stuffed with handwritten recipes, dishes Um-Nadia hadn't prepared or eaten in the thirty-five years since she and Mireille had left Lebanon. Some were recipes for simple, elegant dishes of rice pilafs and roasted meats, others were more exotic dishes of steamed whole pigeons and couscous or braised lambs' brains in broth. And they discussed ingredients and techniques until late in the night. Um-Nadia eventually fell asleep on the hard couch in the living room, while Sirine's uncle dozed across from her in his armchair. But Sirine stayed up all night, checking recipes, chopping, and preparing. She looked up Iraqi dishes, trying to find the childhood foods that she'd heard Han speak of, the sfeehas- savory pies stuffed with meat and spinach- and round mensaf trays piled with lamb and rice and yogurt sauce with onions, and for dessert, tender ma'mul cookies that dissolve in the mouth. She stuffed the turkey with rice, onions, cinnamon, and ground lamb. Now there are pans of sautéed greens with bittersweet vinegar, and lentils with tomato, onion, and garlic on the stove, as well as maple-glazed sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, and pumpkin soufflé.”

ThanksgivingMiddle Eastern CuisineArabian Cuisine
Book:Crescent
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“She looks over, still smiling, to Sirine behind the counter, and says, "Roasted lamb, rice and pine nuts, tabbouleh salad, apricot juice." Then she blows a kiss. Hanif glances at Sirine. She looks down, quick, a bunch of parsley pinched in her fingertips, rocks the big cleaver through a profusion of green leaves, onions, cracked wheat. Suddenly she remembers the leben and hurries to the big potful of yogurt sauce, which is just on the verge of curdling.”

Middle Eastern Cuisine
Book:Crescent
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“All morning Sirine winds the bread dough in and out of itself, spins cabbage leaves, fat and silky, around rice and currants. She puts new ingredients in a salad, a frill of nuts, fresh herbs, dried fruit. Um-Nadia samples her salad, which tastes of ocean and beach grass, and she seems startled. "It's so good," she murmurs. Sirine hums and stirs. She sifts through bags of wild rice. While Victor rushes around, assembling the usual plates of hummus and tabbouleh, she makes a mustard out of crushed grapes, a cake with lashings of cinnamon and pepper.”

CookingSaladMiddle Eastern Cuisine
Book:Crescent
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“While Han sits and gazes into his private distance, she assembles a meal: chunks of lamb grilled directly over the gas flame, gleaming skewers of onion, tomato, zucchini, a scent of lavender in the oil. There is a bag of frekeh in one of the cabinets and she considers this for a moment but then shuts the door. The aroma of garlic, grilled lamb, and open fields fills the kitchen. She brings it to the table on a big plate with rice cooked with saffron and toasted pine nuts.”

Middle Eastern CuisineArabian Cuisine
Book:Crescent
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“Deep, fluting emotions were a form of weakness. She'd seen the softening in her work over the years, she'd started making the lazy, homey treats like apple crumble, chocolate muffins, butterscotch pudding, and lemon bars. They were fast and cheap and they pleased her children. But she'd trained at one of the best pastry programs in the country. Her teachers were French. She'd learned the classical method of making fondant, of making real buttercream with its spun-candy base and beating the precise fraction off egg into the pate a choux. She knew how to blow sugar into glassine nests and birds and fountains, how to construct seven-tiered wedding cakes draped with sugar curtains copied from the tapestries at Versailles. When the other students interned at the Four Seasons, the French Laundry, and Dean & Deluca, Avis had apprenticed with a botanical illustrator in the department of horticulture at Cornell, learning to steady her hand and eye, to work with the tip of the brush, to dissect and replicate in tinted royal icing and multihued glazes the tiniest pieces of stamen, pistil, and rhizome. She studied Audubon and Redoute. At the end of her apprenticeship, her mentor, who pronounced the work "extraordinary and heartbreaking," arranged an exhibition of Avis's pastries at the school. "Remembering the Lost Country" was a series of cakes decorated in perfectly rendered sugar olive branches, cross sections of figs, and frosting replicas of lemon leaves. Her mother attended and pronounced the effect 'amusant.”

ArtBakingFrenchPastriesPastry ChefAvis Muir
Book:Birds of Paradise
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“Broccoli branches, mashed potatoes, spools of gravy, sliced pillowy white bread. It slides on to Sirine's plate, glossy with butter. The meat loaf is oniony and dense under its charred crust, dressed in sweet puddles of ketchup. On the counter there's a food-stained copy of The Joy of Cooking and a red-plaid Betty Crocker cookbook, both from the library. She's impressed. No one ever wants to cook for her; the rare home-dinners at friends' houses are served with anxiety and apologies. But Han just seems excited- his skin slightly damp and pink from the kitchen heat- and intrigued by the new kind of cooking, a shift of ingredients like a move from native tongue into a foreign language: butter instead of olive oil; potatoes instead of rice; beef instead of lamb. He seats her on a pillow on the blue cloth and then sets the dishes before her on the cloth. He sits across from her, one knee skimming hers. They touch and she makes herself lean forward to reach the bowl of potatoes. Their knees graze again. Han tastes each dish while looking at Sirine, so the meal seems like a question. She nods and praises him lavishly. "Mm, the rich texture of this meat loaf- the egg and breadcrumbs- and these bits of onion are so good, and there's a little chili powder and dry mustard, isn't there? It's lovely. And there's something in the sauce... something..." "You mean ketchup?" Han asks. "Oh yes, I suppose that's it." She smiles. "That's remarkable." Sirine smiles vaguely, tips her head, not sure of what he means. "What?" "The way you taste things...." He gestures over the food, picks up a bite of meat loaf in his fingers as if it were an olive. "You know what everything here is- I mean exactly." "Oh no." She laughs. "It's so basic, anyone can do that. It's like you just taste the starting places- where it all came from. Unless of course it's ketchup." He gazes at her, then carefully takes her hand and kisses her fingers. "Then I think you must be of this place." Sirine laughs again, disconcerted by his intensity. "Well, I don't know about that, but I think food should taste like where it came from. I mean good food especially. You can sort of trace it back. You know, so the best butter tastes a little like pastures and flowers, that sort of stuff. Things show their origins”

OriginsTastesMeat Loaf
Book:Crescent
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“Dad says that everyone invented baklava.” It occurs to me now to wonder what that means. Aunt Aya rolls her eyes. “Your father? He is the worst of the worst. He thinks he cooks and eats Arabic food but these walnuts were not grown from Jordanian earth and this butter was not made from Jordanian lambs. He is eating the shadow of a memory. He cooks to remember but the more he eats, the more he forgets.”

ThinkingMeanMadeEyeEarthRememberFatherMemoriesForgetWonderWorstDadEatingShadowCooksHer EyesAuntLambsWalnuts
Author:Diana Abu-Jaber
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