I sped through this book, and experienced difficulty in putting it down. Diana Abu-Jaber writes with great humor and endearingly conveys the pains of growing up in a multicultural family. There where times while reading this book that people in the surrounding area stared at me because I was laughing to the point of nearly falling out of my chair. The stories in the book seamlessly act as an introduction to the recipes. I've tried a number of the recipes in the book; the hummus recipe is THE best you'll try!