Diana Abu-Jaber Adds Arab-Fusion Foods to “Life Without a Recipe”
BY: Nisreen Eadeh/Staff Writer
Prize-winning Arab American author and educator, Diana Abu-Jaber, has just released the paperback version of her 2016 book Life Without a Recipe: A Memoir of Food and Family. In the new edition, Abu-Jaber includes several recipes for readers to try at home.
The author spoke with Arab America about the updated version of her book. “It was supposed to be a literal representation of the title, which I thought was kind of funny. Like, see – life without any recipes! But so many people kept asking about the recipes, that we brought out a series in the afterword of the paperback,” Abu-Jaber told Arab America.
The added recipes come from her Jordanian and Irish family recipes, as well as some of her personal cooking experiments. Growing up in a culturally split household, Abu-Jaber said family members “waged much of their war through their cooking.”
Her childhood was filled with her father’s traditional Jordanian dishes, such as mensef, maqloubeh, lamb, and mujaddarah, while her Irish grandmother wooed the kids with cakes, pies, and cookies from her homeland.
“In part, I wrote the book to reclaim cooking and to share my own recipes which borrow from both halves of my childhood table,” Abu-Jaber stated. This fusion is seen best in her chocolate-chip tahini cookies, which take from both sides of the table to form a delicious union of Arab and Irish flavors. In another recipe, the author introduced her American readers to za’atar as a spice blend for roasted chicken.
Life Without a Recipe was inspired by Abu-Jaber’s “off-script” lifestyle. Abu-Jaber mentioned that it could be hard for people, and women in particular, to break from molded expectations of how our lives should be. Life Without a Recipe was a way for Abu-Jaber to express that “it’s okay to do things differently, creatively, eccentrically -if it feels right to you.”
From both sides of her background – Arab and Irish – support for an “improvisational approach” to living was not always there. “We put a lot of pressure on people, especially women, to follow a standard path: grow up, get married, have babies, raise them,” Abu-Jaber explained. But not everyone finds happiness down this path.
From her own experience of being pressured to accept a certain way of living came Life Without a Recipe, a book written “for anyone who might find themselves in the grip of a lot of well-meaning, terrible advice.”
Since accepting her off-beat upbringing as a blessing, Abu-Jaber has found solace in being both a professional writer and a mother. Her book Life Without a Recipe is an award-winning memoir. It can be bought at most independent bookstores, Amazon.com, or Barnes and Noble. You can also follow Diana on Twitter @Dabujaber and discover more of her work at www.DianaAbuJaber.com
