About

Hello lovely reader! Welcome to Fig & Quince! My cozy little Iranian-American corner of the Internet where I tell stories and wax poetic about Persian food and the people and culture of Iran.

I share my family recipes and all the tools and tricks of Iranian cooking with you here because it’s my passionate mission to show you how to make good and authentic Persian food — with a modern spin and with creative twists. I’m equally driven by the fondest desire to do what I can to balance the myopic portrayal of my homeland and to promote a better understanding of Iran and Iranians.

Most recent and major bragging right is cooking fesenjan for the New York Times for a Sunday Magazine cover article about Diverse Holiday Feasts From Five New York Families. Fig & Quince’s fesenjan recipe then went on to make it on New York Times food editor Sam Sifton’s Most Popular Recipes, 2014! Thank you Maman joon for teaching me how to cook and passing on your stellar khoresh ‘e fesenjoon recipe. Persian food rules!

Food is the indelible vehicle of memory. I write about food with nostalgia and longing and yearnings … with words that have meanings beyond their names and evoke images of snow-capped mountains, cypress trees, and samavars gurgling brewing tea. Words that breeze with the smell of honeysuckles, orange blossoms and ghormeh sabzi; bringing back memories of climbing mulberry trees, swimming in the Caspian sea, and sitting impatiently around the haft seen table with the gold fish and hyacinth and gold coins and green sprouts, counting down the slow moving minutes till winter ended and Norooz began — finally! Culinary tales that sometimes make me feel the touch of my grandmother’s hand caressing my head in her lap while patiently reciting for me, once again, the fairy tales of the Girl with the Silvery Moon Forehead and the Daughters of Narenj and Toranj.

Food is the edible expression of a culture! And Iranian food is poetic, captivating, and enchantingly delicious! Let’s dig in!

About Me: Your Faithful Blogger

I am an Iranian-American and a (self-diagnosed) late-bloomer with eclectic interests: art, literature, design, law and technology chief among them. I have 2 law degrees. I have passed 3 bar exams. I am nearly trilingual. I love toy robots and graffiti. I enjoy books and words and language and wordplay. I’m addicted to podcasts. I’m ardent, earnest, flawed and full of ideas. I illustrate. I write. I Blurb. I lecture about Persian food and I give cooking classes. I once gave a talk about why Jane Eyre would have loved social media! I am a storyteller. I love food. I love to eat. I cook. I blog: therefore, I am!

I recently went back to Iran for the first time after nearly 3 decades because I was so homesick I thought I was going to burst and die. I stayed for nearly 3 months. I feasted my eyes on the snow-capped mountains of Alborz, I stayed in Tehran, the city of my birth and childhood and I traveled to Yazd, Shiraz, Kermanshah, Isfahan, and the Caspian sea; I visited old friends and family and made new friends; I went to chic art galleries and cafes and ancient mosques and bazaars and palaces; I went and cried at the graves of my grandparents; and I ate and ate and ate! It was a significant and sentimental journey poignant in more ways that I can articulate, and I call it: #My Epic Trip To Iran! I have given a couple of “show and tell” talks about this homesick trip to Iran (here and here) and I plan to take this show on the road! So: stay tuned!

Ultimately, what I’m all about is this: Persian food is amazing and Iranian culture is rich and I’m brimming over with passion about sharing my recipes and stories with you.

Let’s Keep in Touch!

If you want to just say hi, or, if you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or lucrative proposals to turn me into an overnight sensation, please do not hesitate to contact me! I am also available for freelance writing and graphic design & illustration assignments. Whatever the reason may be, I would be delighted to hear from you! Here’s my contact info:

Email | Twitter | Facebook |Pinterest | Instagram | Portfolio

Now, Let’s Meet the Other Cooks!

When my mother was a university student as well as a bright-eyed bride all of 21, she bought a cookbook to fill in the gaps of her cooking. When she left Iran, this cookbook (a tattered copy of which exists to this day – someone alert The Smithsonian!) was among the few things she brought to her new home in the U.S. Lucky for all those destined to eat at her table, my mother turned out to be a wonderful cook. As we say in Farsi: dastesh namak dareh – which literally translates to “her hands have salt.” I learned how to cook from my mom and all the recipes that I share here, unless otherwise specified, are ones that she taught me. She continues to teach and inspire me about food and food styling.

My maman joon is also a self-taught artist. If you’d like, you can check out her collage cutout Blurb Books.

A charming little fellow, let’s call him Felfeli, has also agreed to grace Fig & Quince with select if rather rare guest appearances. We are honored and could not be more delighted! (See him seeding a pomegranate Persian style, like a champ! Juicing a pomegranate in the nifty Persian “ablamboo” style. And here: soaking and washing rice grains to make Persian rice.)

A keen connoisseur of Persian cooking, Felfeli is particularly partial to āsh (thick soups), and also counts lobiya polo (green bean mixed rice), khoresh gheimeh (French fries stew as he calls it), khoresh fesenjoon (walnut and pomegranate stew) and of course tahdigh (crispy bottom-of-rice) among his favorites. He will eat sabzi khordan (mixed fresh herbs which is a permanent side dish of all Persian lunches and dinners) when he is 5 years old and not a day earlier -so please- do not offer him some until that momentous day is upon us.

Felfeli is way into dinosaurs, helicopters, numbers, bunnies, and rainbows.

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