The Language of Baklava

Back in Syracuse, New York, after over a year in Jordan, the family moves into a big suburban house. Diana initially misses Jordan’s sounds and smells but soon memories of America take over. She meets the neighbors: a daughter of Italian immigrants named Mrs. Manarelli, who bonds with Bud over their shared love of food and cooking; and a new best friend named Sally Holmes, a “real American” girl whose mother’s chocolate pudding “tastes like burnt plastic” (73).

Winter comes and Diana skates on Sally’s homemade ice rink. She catches frostbite and the family are terrified for her frozen toes. Bud calls Aunty Aya in Jordan, and she tells him to make a soup of herbs and fruit. Diana drinks the soup and bathes her feet in it. They recover miraculously.

Diana describes the neighborhood children in Syracuse: “soft and babyish” yet “deliberate, remorseless, and exacting” (78). She compares them to the “good-times kids” she played with in Amman and reflects that society and life in the US are generally more rigid than in her father’s homeland (78). A recipe for “‘Distract the Neighbours’ Grilled Chicken” precedes an anecdote about a picnic (79). One bright spring day, the family decides to have a barbecue in the front garden so that they can share food and “gossip with the neighbors, as [they] did in Jordan” (80).