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Language of Baklava potluck
Aug. 16th, 2015 11:57 pmToday was my turn to host the book club, and we had planned a potluck with Middle Eastern food in honor of out book, Diana Abu-Jaber’s food memoir, The Language of Baklava. Unfortunately, almost everyone flaked out with less than an hour to go before the event, so I now own a whole lot of beverages! Fortunately, the people who did show up were the family I know the best in the group, and the family I’m most interested in getting to know better. So instead of 30 of us, there were 9, but it was quite nice, and we probably got to have better conversations this way, although it certainly wasn’t what I was expecting.
T. made one of the recipes from the book, a grilled chicken recipe, and her son E. made homemade pita and hummus. M. made Armenian meatballs from one of his mom’s recipes; he’s retired so his wife R. doesn’t have to do the cooking anymore. (He’s a neuroscientist who works at the molecular level and is preparing a TED talk on a different understanding of Alzheimer’s; he’s also a tennis coach for the high school. She’s much younger and happily pursuing a career as an ICU nurse.) M’s older son, from his earlier marriage, was in town and interested to meet J. because of their shared interest in Magic, so the two of them played a game with M&R’s younger son. Meanwhile, T’s older son was busy working as a lifeguard, and D. was off starting a new D&D campaign with his friends, creating a drow cleric for social justice.
T. made one of the recipes from the book, a grilled chicken recipe, and her son E. made homemade pita and hummus. M. made Armenian meatballs from one of his mom’s recipes; he’s retired so his wife R. doesn’t have to do the cooking anymore. (He’s a neuroscientist who works at the molecular level and is preparing a TED talk on a different understanding of Alzheimer’s; he’s also a tennis coach for the high school. She’s much younger and happily pursuing a career as an ICU nurse.) M’s older son, from his earlier marriage, was in town and interested to meet J. because of their shared interest in Magic, so the two of them played a game with M&R’s younger son. Meanwhile, T’s older son was busy working as a lifeguard, and D. was off starting a new D&D campaign with his friends, creating a drow cleric for social justice.