♪ Music We’re Cooking To ♪
I expected food, culture, and a unique culinary guide to the city – my adopted city.
I didn’t expect the tears.
I was invited to a screening of the documentary film City of Gold about Pulitzer Prize-winning Los Angeles Times food writer Jonathan Gold, directed by Laura Gabbert. It was a mid-week event right around dinner time.
Yeky bood, yeky nabood…
‘Twas the longest night of the year.
‘Twas the darkest night of the year.
‘Twas the most magical night of the year.
Soak the rice as the split peas simmer away. Immerse your hands in the cold water and gently break up the rice into bits and pieces. Feel the familiar beat of nostalgia course through your body. Memory knocking at your door. It always begins with a gentle knock.
Azadi? What does Azadi mean, mama?
It means Freedom in Farsi, Luna.
The day before Nowruz – Persian New Year. We are at the Persian Bazaar – aka Westwood Blvd. – doing some last-minute shopping. The girls pick out the sonbol – hyacinth – a purple one, of course. Happily they crunch on the ajeel – the nut mix the store owners keep offering them.
Mama, this is the best soup in the whole wild world.
Soleil is right, Mama. Make this soup every day and every night and every afternoon.
Can we have this for lunch tomorrow, Mama?!
Allow me to explain.
Although I’d like to take full credit for all the glowing adulation of my-soup making abilities, I also need to extend a big thank you to my not so silent cohort – sugar. The white, refined, not-so-natural variety.
How has this winter been treating you? We’ve managed to stay pretty healthy. Well, except for that terrible chest cough that everyone seems to be sporting. You know, the one that overstays it’s welcome by about a month. Both girls got it. Soleil was hit especially hard for a couple of days. Each time she coughed she sounded like an eighty year old man who has spent sixty of those years puffing cigarettes.
Copyright 2021 Naz Deravian. All Rights Reserved.