On language: dough, baklava, farewell party and all

Katy is now known as the baklava lady, her making apple pie made her Americanization nearly complete. But her picking up baklava is beyond me; baklava is a Greek cuisine, not a genuine American food. Sandra said she tried but failed to find a recipe of making baklava online; I said it may be much easier to order it direct from Katy’s kitchen and she also has delivery (外送) service.

We attended a farewell party today (Dr. Cheng-Hung Lin is moving on to Johns Hopkins Hospital, taking his research to another level, before Christmas) and everyone present “with good behavior” (only 14 days to go) so far this year were all rewarded with Katy’s baklava. We also brought baklava to 慰勞 (comfort and reward) the people from Tzu-Chi (慈濟) who’re distributing stuff (blankets, scarf, gloves, stockings etc.) to the less fortunate and less privileged (冬令救濟) in downtown Pittsburgh. Waynesburg friends and neighbors also marvel at Katy's tasty and crunchy baklava.

In addition to the chopped walnuts, Katy uses fillo dough (phyllo pastry sheets) to make baklava (see photo), since this post is part of my “On language” series, I’ll digress to use Holden Caulfield’s (of The Catcher in the Rye) language again.

Holden used dough for ‘money’ (such as a pile of dough); a character (a parent of a student) “made a pot of dough in the undertaking business." After Pittsburgh Steelers beat Baltimore Ravins on Dec. 5, Jerry Hardy vented his complaints about the unfairness of the NFL officiating at FB; he “is tired of the crap officials they assign to Steelers games” and said it’s destructive to his language; to which I responded with Holden’s language.

“If this is your language, here is Holden Caulfield’s language: Damned the referees/judges; the goddam phony morons; Harrison got a big fine; it cost him a pile of dough. Steelers Miller was knocked unconscious; the bastard didn’t even call a penalty. It made me want to turn off the goddam TV and all. I cannot take it; I wanted to puke or something if you want to know the truth. Old Polamalu is good as hell; when he knocked off the goddam ball; he knocked me out”.