"I do a lot of cooking. I've always cooked for my family and my father and I cooked together. It's just one of the things I like to do. If you came around my house for dinner, you'd watch me cook as we sat around the kitchen and cooked and talked. For me, that's centralised... friendship and family around food and cooking."

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The obsession with food filled my childhood - that's what happens when your parents are from a place or time where people really might starve. In America, my Jordanian father spent decades cooking professionally and pursuing his dream of a restaurant, and it was one of the central ways that he explained himself to his American children. Even though he's a passionate talker, he has a hell of a time with listening. His cooking gave him a way of having a conversation - which was a really interesting thing for a writer to look at.

— Diana Abu-Jaber