The Baklava Dude

My first memory of eating Greek food was during a childhood family road trip through California, at a Daphne franchise location in San Diego. The clear blue summer skies made for ideal outdoor dining weather. There was slow, vaguely operatic vocal music playing in the background. Every bite of golden rice pilaf and zesty Greek salad felt like I had been transported across time and space to an bucholic Ancient Greek meadow. For dessert, we ordered a piece of their baklava, which was refrigerated and wrapped in a cupcake wrapper. The smell of buttery, flaky pastry dough mixed with honey syrup and chopped nuts cemented my memory of Greek food. I've been fascinated with Greek and Mediterranean food ever since.

Fast forward to my second year of college at the University of Washington, when I started experimenting with cooking and making my own food in the on-campus dorms. My worldly, Singapore-born high school friend who went to UW with me first suggested making baklava together in the cramped communal kitchen on our dorm floor, which I was very eager to help out with. They and my other ride-or-die baked their first batch of walnut baklava on a Sunday afternoon while I was busy being someplace off campus. By the time I got back, they presented me with a freshly made pan of baklava to pass around the residents of our dorm floor.

As the three of us went around holding paper plates crammed full of triangular pieces of syrupy, buttery ambrosia- it dawned on me that the greatest joy of baklava wasn't how it tasted, it was how nice it felt to share it with other people. After we finished, we talked about how handing out pieces of baklava helped us make small talk with some of the ladies on our dorm floor- not that any of us realistically thought we were going to hit it off with anyone. But being known as the nice guys next door who baked exotic treats was better than being completely unknown. I personally felt like it made us seem cultured and sophisticated, which hits a certain way if you're a mildly socially awkward 19 year old male college student wanting to be known as somebody who stands out and does cool things.

So when I heard about a fundraiser my MEDLIFE chapter was doing for our mobile clinic trip to Peru, I decided to make another batch of walnut baklava in the community kitchen, and go through the steps myself. I wasn't there at the actual fundraiser, but the people who went told me my pan of baklava was one of the first items they sold out. And after I had a falling out with my ride-or-die friend when they unilaterally decided to cut off all contact, the thing I did to process the experience was to walk all the way to the Safeway near campus, buy some frozen phyllo dough and walnuts, head back to the community dorm kitchen, and make another pan of baklava. I was already really socially isolated at the time, and didn't feel comfortable reaching out and talking to people about it, so I processed the emotional trauma by getting lost in layering phyllo dough sheets, cutting the uncooked pastry into squares and triangles, and stirring sugar and honey in a saucepan to make the syrup. Getting lost into the process of making baklava helped me escape the stress and loneliness I was going through, and deal with the fallout on my own terms.

Making baklava eventually became a monthly ritual while I was at college, even after I moved off campus and started teaching myself how to cook for myself. I ended up eating most of the baklava myself for breakfast, but occasionally shared some with my dorm/house mates, study buddies, or fellow club members when the timing was right. I kept making baklava every now and then, even after my friend and I reconciled. Even now, several years after I graduated, I still make a pan of baklava every now and then, to get back into the college spirit of discovering your own identity and reveling in the joy of spreading happiness and positivity through simple acts of kindness.