Read & Feed: Diana Abu-Jaber's 'Crescent' pairs well with goat cheese and fig pizza

BOOK: Sarine, a 39-year-old half-Arab chef in a Lebanese restaurant in Los Angeles, equates food with love. In Crescent, author Diana Abu-Jaber tells the story of the chef's love affair with Hanif, an Iraqi-born professor, who must live without knowing if his brother or sister have survived the brutality of Saddam Hussein's regime. Their affair, which begins quickly and passionately, "flaming, blooming," like the mejnoona tree behind the restaurant, falters as Hanif's guilt over his family's fate clouds their happiness.

WHY READ? Abu-Jaber deftly mixes private emotions with global politics, vividly demonstrating how the fate of her characters depends on social and historical forces far beyond their control. For Americans, Saddam Hussein may have become a caricature of cruelty and evil, but Hanif finds nothing cartoonish about the culture of brutality and death he brought to the Iraqi people. The author also reveals her knowledge of Middle Eastern cuisine, mixing into her prose luscious descriptions of almond cookies, black tea with mint, and other delectables she serves at the restaurant where she works.

MAKE IT: Goat Cheese and Fig "Pizza," a simple snack, mixes ingredients familiar to Middle Eastern cuisine — flat bread, figs, cheese, honey and toasted seeds. Like miniature pizzas, these piping-hot treats will help explain Sarine's enthusiasm for the cuisine she enjoyed as a child.

TAKE IT: Instead of cooking, you can create a Middle Eastern buffet containing hummus, olives, feta or a similar cheese, and flat bread or pita cut into wedges. Although alcoholic beverages are not exactly a Middle Eastern staple, such a buffet would go well with a nice chardonnay or a bold beer such as Bell's Two-Hearted Ale, Dogfish Head Raison D'Etre, or Red Seal Ale, or something with a citrus accent, such as Blue Moon or Shock Top. For a non-alcoholic alternative, try strong decaffeinated coffee brewed with cardamom.

Tom Valeo, special to the Times

Read & Feed is a monthly column in Taste that matches popular book club selections with food to serve at meetings. If you have suggestions or would like to share what your book club is cooking up, send e-mail to features@sptimes.com. Put BOOK FOOD in the subject line.