A story of life, love and food

In addition to being wildly popular among the locals, chef-owner Jay Hajj's Mike's City Diner has been named best diner in Massachusetts by MSN and one of the best in the country by USA Today's 10Best.com, and the diner's signature Pilgrim Sandwich was honored on a Thanksgiving-themed episode of the Food Network's Top 5 Restaurants.

Since Hajj came to the US as a child from war-torn Lebanon, without a word of English and with dyslexia, he has tirelessly tried to sought to prove himself. As a boy of 8, he strove to learn his new language and make friends; as a teen, he strove to establish himself as a tough guy not to be trifled with; and since early adulthood, he has striven toward success with indefatigable hard work and a commitment to serving fresh, delicious, house-made food.

In January of 2000, a little more than 20 years after arriving in the US, Hajj was owner of a successful business, hosting then-President Bill Clinton, Mayor Thomas Menino and Senator Edward Kennedy at Mike's. Now Hajj shares his journey in a unique and personal collection of stories, recipes, pictures and cooking tips in "From Beirut to Boston", a cookbook-memoir that reflects his love for his Lebanese roots and for his adopted home.

Hajj recalls the friends of different ethnicities that he met growing up in Roslindale and what he learned from them, the foods he lived on in Lebanon as well as the cornucopia he discovered in Boston. Guy Fieri, who met Hajj when his show, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives visited Boston, has become Hajj's good friend and collaborator, writing a fond foreword to "Beirut to Boston", and Boston-based luminaries Jamie Bissonnette of Toro, next-door neighbor to Mike's, encouraged Hajj to write the book and referred him to Page Street Publishing. Hajj traveling to Thailand with Bissonnette's Toro partner, Ken Oringer, to Thailand to help open a new location there. "From Beirut to Boston" is written very much in Hajj's own voice with co-author and longtime Boston Herald food writer Kerry J. Byrne.

Growing up in Roslindale, Hajj dove into America's melting pot through his multi-cultural network of friends, learning their food traditions along the way. "From Beirut to Boston" honors those influences with recipes such as Marino's Brickhouse Café Style Meatballs, learned from Hajj's childhood friend, restauranteur Billy Marino, and Billy's Pork Souvlaki with Tzatziki Sauce, a recipe he learned from Billy Papadopoulos, whose parents owned Center House of Pizza in Brighton and who now owns Ultimate Pizza in Easton, Mass. Hajj wrote fondly, "Billy is still the best pizza maker I know."

One might think Hajj would want a break from the kitchen after a long day at Mike's, but he cooks for his family every day in his 300-year-old home in Medfield, which once belonged to one of the town's founders and was a stop on the Underground Railroad. The custom-designed kitchen, which features a pizza oven built into the wall and an oversized island, is a focal point for family gatherings. While Hajj has immersed himself in American culture and married the Irish-American love of his life, Janet, he expresses his Lebanese culture in the meals he serves at home.

"If I'm going to cook dinner, it's got to take me no more than 45 minutes, but on Sunday, if I am going to cook a meal, it's going to take me three hours. I'm going to cook a few things." Given his travel schedule and his children's activities, it can be hard to make time, but Hajj likes to enjoy Sunday as a day of rest with his family. "Sunday is the day for relaxing. I either cook them a big breakfast or a big lunch."

Although his kids, Samira, 16, Mason, 15, Victoria, 12, and Miles, 6, do not speak Arabic, Hajj shares his heritage through family recipes and he lets the children help in the kitchen whenever they wish.

Asked whether he told his children family stories and childhood memories, Hajj said on a recent Friday afternoon at Mike's, "I never did until I started writing the book. I realized I have a story of what my roots are and my kids don't know it. It's always been in my mind, but I didn't talk about it. Now I talk about it a lot. In the last year and a half that I've been writing the book, I talk a lot more about me growing up, how my mother and my aunts cooked."

In the book and in conversation at Mike's, Hajj emphasized his dedication to preparing everything from scratch. He raises some animals as well as vegetables at his 10-acre home and is proud of his homemade prosciutto and smoked mozzarella, as well as the turkeys he roasts upright at the diner as the base of his popular turkey hash, turkey sandwich, turkey sausage and other dishes.

The book includes Hajj's turkey brine recipe. There are foundational recipes such as traditional hummus as well as flavor variants; Moroccan-style harissa sauce; za'atar, a seasoning blend featuring sumac, sesame and thyme; and saj and manakish breads. Back in Lebanon, Hajj ate little meat in Lebanon other than pâté, which was cheap and convenient because of its portability and shelf life, but once in America, he discovered the wide variety of meat, poultry, game, and seafood celebrated in "From Beirut to Boston".

Meat lovers will be tempted by Jamie Bissonnette's Shawarma Lamb Paella; Boston Maple-Whiskey Steak Tips; Guinness Beef Stew from the Dublin Brewery and much more. New England seafood was an especially joyful revelation for Hajj, and he considers it the best anywhere.

Recipes include classic New England clam chowder; Locke Ober's Lobster Savannah; Southern-style shrimp and grits and Turkish-style stuffed mussels. Vegetarians will also find tasty dishes such as Avocado Lime Hummus, batinjan mashwi (smoky grilled eggplant and tomato); harissa-roasted cauliflower and mujadara, a Lebanese lentil and rice dish. Dessert recipes range from booza (pistachio cardamom ice cream) and kaak bitamer (date cookies) to classic Boston Cream Pie.

While he has no great interest in sports, Hajj loves to go to the Super Bowl every chance he gets for the food and the camaraderie. It was there that he met Byrne, his writing partner, and where he gets the opportunity to eat, drink, cook and party with fellow foodies. At the 2018 Super Bowl, he and Fieri will head the tailgate party.

As it does in so many parts of the world, coffee plays a pivotal role in Lebanese social culture. Meals often end with strong Lebanese coffee and telling fortunes by "reading" the coffee sediment at the bottom of the cup is a time-honored tradition, and Hajj describes the practice in his book. "Hajj recalled, "A lot of my good memories are about drinking coffee. That was the only time my parents sat down together, when they were drinking coffee."