2005 book 115/spiral-bound/bpal

diana abu-jaber's the language of baklava
this was a moving, witty, and mouth-watering memoir, akin to ruth reichl's books, but with a cross-cultural component (abu-jaber's father, a jordanian immigrant, periodically took the family to live in jordan throughout her childhood). she really has a knack for describing her relatives--they're all what some might call characters--and her own growing-up-in-america story, with food drifting into and out of each chapter. now i'm hungry!

i also finally read spiral-bound today--it was an adorable and compelling story of a bunch of little animal kids finding themselves and trying to discover whether the pond monster really exists. eek! cute! be sure to check out the blurb from lemony snicket in that link.

also today was the bpal sniff-fest, as described by sarah. we'll be getting together again in november to compare halloween scents! awesome.

ETA: whoa, jsut discovered in another window whilst waiting for this to post that rehnquist died. wurg. [not that any supreme court nominees could be more conservative than rehnquist, but who wants to deal with even thinking about the supreme court when we should still be trying to save new orleans?]