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�Diana Abu-Jaber is the Ambassador of Big-Heartedness.��Patrick Volk, on The Language of Baklava On one side, there is Grace: prize-winning author Diana Abu-Jaber�s tough, independent sugar-fiend of a German grandmother, wielding a suitcase full of holiday cookies. On the other, Bud: a flamboyant, spice-obsessed Arab father, full of passionate argument. The two could not agree on anything: not about food, work, or especially about what Diana should do with her life. Grace warned her away from children. Bud wanted her married above all�even if he had to provide the ring. Caught between cultures and lavished with contradictory �advice� from both sides of her family, Diana spent years learning how to ignore others� well-intentioned prescriptions. Hilarious, gorgeously written, poignant, and wise, Life Without a Recipe is Diana�s celebration of journeying without a map, of learning to ignore the script and improvise, of escaping family and making family on one�s own terms. As Diana discovers, however, building confidence in one�s own path sometimes takes a mistaken marriage or two�or in her case, three: to a longhaired boy-poet, to a dashing deconstructionist literary scholar, and finally to her steadfast, outdoors-loving Scott. It also takes a good deal of angst (was it possible to have a serious writing career and be a mother?) and, even when she knew what she wanted (the craziest thing, in one�s late forties: a baby!), the nerve to pursue it. Finally, fearlessly independent like the Grace she�s named after, Diana and Scott�s daughter Gracie will heal all the old battles with Bud and, like her writer-mom, learn to cook up a life without a recipe.