Syrian refugee turns to food to rebuild his life in US

NEW YORK (AP) — When he came to the United States as a refugee from Syria, Diaa Alhanoun was pretty sure his new life was going to include food. The 48-year-old has been working in restaurants since he was 15, and has opened a couple of his own.

He was right — he’s now cooking up a storm in a place of his own. Sakib is a small outpost in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood, where Alhanoun turns out the Mediterranean food he learned to cook as a teen.

Alhanoun had left Syria in 2012. He and his family had been living in Jordan when the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees resettled them in the U.S. in 2016.

Of all the places he’s lived, Alhanoun thinks New Yorkers have liked his food the most.

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Deepti Hajela covers issues of immigration, race and ethnicity for The Associated Press. Follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/dhajela . For more of her work, search for her name at https://apnews.com.