Being Syrian has always been about welcome–about having something delicious to eat when someone arrived, about making room for friends, family, strangers, visitors. Sitto would joke, “If I knew you were coming I’d have baked a cake,” as she was pulling out homemade Syrian bread, tabouli, meat pies, along with midwestern corn on the cob, sliced tomatoes, watermelon, cookies. Sitto didn’t speak a lot of Arabic around me and my brother, but “ahlan wa sahlan,” was definitely something we heard growing up. It means “welcome.”
