This lush still life of Mirza Ghassemi (a Northern Iranian vegetarian/vegan eggplant dish) reverently flanked by grapes, cucumbers, radishes and the soft, delicious drapery of lavash bread – all under the watchful guard of a thoughtful lion -  is the fanciful handiwork of Yvonne joon!  Remember I said that the friendships struck up with some amazing people I’ve met via blogging is one of the best rewards of keeping this blog ?  Well, Yvonne, a very funny and fascinating (not kidding, she’s a very interesting person to say the least) American lady who speaks Farsi (fluently, cheerfully, with humorous and elegant nuance; well-versed in even the most obscure slangs to my never-ending surprise and delight) and who I’m tickled pink to have gotten to know and to call a friend is what I call:  Exhibit A!  Trump card!  Now, Yvonne does not blog but she was kind enough to indulge me and accept the task of writing a guest blog post along with the food styling and photography that goes with it.  I salute her beautiful work and without further ado, usher you into Yvonne joon’s engaging narrative: 

My name is Yvonne and I came to the Fig & Quince blog by accident. A happy accident. The word for a happy accident is serendipity. Serendipity comes from the story of The Three Princes of Serendip. The Three Princes of Serendip is a Persian story. Dang. This has Persian written all over it. Back to Fig & Quince. Somehow, through a friend, I clicked a link and was taken to The Land of Ahhhs. Yummy yummy Persian food recipes.  Azita and I chitted and chatted back and forth. Somehow, I ended up here. As a guest chef blogger on my very favorite food blog. OK. That was a little background 411. Perhaps, even too much 411.

But, it gets better.

I’m an American married to an Iranian. I know anyone wise enough to be here, also knows Iran is Persia and Persia is Iran. My oldest daughter’s sixth grade HISTORY teacher didn’t know that, but, I digress. I lived in Iran for three years and I am an ardent Iranophile. Beautiful country, beautiful people…kind, generous, thoughtful people. A culture rich in tradition and history. I was and am in love. My introduction to the cuisine didn’t start out on such strong footing. I should mention, I came to Iran a vegetarian, who didn’t drink tea, coffee or soda. I came during the Iran-Iraq War. There were food rations. I was told I really needed to eat as a local and be thankful for what was offered. OK. I got it. I tried. I ended up eating a lot of potatoes with mast (yogurt), rice with torshi (pickled veggies) and every delicious Persian bread available. I was stubborn. The same courtesy bites I demanded of my children, I forced on myself. Well, some bites, like sheep head (kaleh pocheh), were NEVER gonna happen, but little by little, I became a connoisseur of delicious Persian fare.

My tastes seemed to run most closely with the food of Gilan and its people. Gilan is a state in Northwest Iran. Gorgeous country. People who lead a largely plant-based diet, with rice and fish supplements. So many delicious meatless dishes from which to choose and I choose the glorious Mirza Ghasemi. Follow me on a journey of taste sensation, from a basic, simple, “Say What?” recipe, to a contented being, unencumbered by the exhaustion some dishes insist upon. A grilled eggplant, garlic, tomato and egg dish which melts in your mouth, as you scoop it in with fresh Persian bread. Oh, you can eat it with rice and using utensils, but, where’s the fun in that?

Oh. Have I mentioned I’m now vegan? It’s been almost a year. Uh huh. Ey va. (A Persian expression of exasperation or disbelief.)  So, here’s the thing. If you’re vegan, just omit the last step with the eggs, if not, do your egg thing. Either way, “Nooshee Jon et!” (Bon appetit in Farsi.) If you have leftovers, I’m available. Who are we kidding? Leftover Mirza Ghasemi? Kheili khandeedar. (Very funny.)

MIRZA GHASEMI (Simplified with Vegan Option)

• Eggplant (2) medium
• Tomatoes (2) medium chopped
• Garlic (1/2 of 1) medium garlic clove diced
• Turmeric (1/2) tbsp
• Eggs (2) medium whisked (omitted for vegan option)
• Tomato Paste (2) tsps
• Olive oil (2) tbsps
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Bake or broil the eggplant until soft to the touch. A knife should go in and out easily or the eggplant begins to look like it will explode. Choose your option. Remove the eggplants from the oven and let them cool. Cut the tops, peel the skin off and cut into small cubes.
2. Fry garlic in turmeric and olive oil over a medium heat until nicely golden. Add eggplant and fry for another few minutes. Add chopped tomatoes and tomato paste, salt and pepper (initially, a tbsp of salt and tsp. of pepper, increasing at end, to taste.) Cook until all liquids have evaporated. While cooking and stirring, (careful to scrape bottom), whisk eggs well and add to eggplant/garlic/tomato mixture. (Unless, you’re vegan or cooking for one. Then, OMIT eggs.)  Another few minutes of stirring and cooking, tasting for needed salt or pepper additions and beeya nekakoneed. (Come look.)

This is a party in your mouth. Eat it with flatbread, herbs and salad. I like to scoop it with a good sangak. (A crazy-delicious Iranian bread. If you buy it in Iran, beware of the hot rocks on which they are baked still in the bread. No one told me how hot they were. I think it’s a game in Iran. Watch the kharajee, foreigner, dance. Still love you guys. If you buy your sangak outside of Iran, rocks are removed for your convenience.)   Heck:  pita, taftoon, lavash…any of them will gratefully do.

Feeds (2) . Well, it should. You can increase the size of the recipe by simply multiplying the ingredient amounts by guess how much? TWO. For each additional TWO people.  Uh huh. That easy. Baleh, joon’am. (Yes, my dear.)

Well, that’s my contribution. Being a food blogger is much harder than it looks! I think I shall once again step back and be the humble admirer I was destined to be. Just feed me. Persian food. Upon demand. Kheili mochakaram. (A BIG Thanx!)

_____________________________________________________________________________

The pleasure is ours Yvonne joon!  Bee nahayat lotf kardi!  Thank you for a healthy, simple and delicious recipe and a superb post!

The one pictured here was a Mother’s Day token gift with a little Brooklyn blossom and a couple of gourmet tea-flower-balls inside.

Speaking of Mother’s Day, I have to share not 1, not 2, but 3 of my favorite posts by fellow bloggers for your reading pleasure.

[Judge not this not-food-centric interloping post, as the recipe for a yummy shomali (northern-Iranian) vegetarian fare (Fig & Quince's very first guest-post written by darling Yvonne) is a bright star twinkling in the future of this ol' blog.]

A delightful reader of this blog recently requested a recipe for stuffed peppers.  I have a terrifying backlog of posts and chores and what-nots, but how could I say no?  Specially as the query coincided with a fridge busting out at the seams with a bounty of red, orange and yellow bell peppers.  Captivated by the bright toy-like colors and the practically graphic-designed architecture of the peppers, I admit that I had basically hoarded a whole bunch of them.

But look at how banamak (cute, that is) and photogenic they are, how meant to be gazed at and admired – putting the “belle” in bell pepper.  Who could resist hoarding?  Someone with more fortitude than bandeh (yours truly, that is) — that’s for sure.

In Farsi, peppers are felfel, a word I enjoy saying, and stuffed peppers are called:  dolme ‘ye felfel.  In the West, people only think of stuffed grape leaves when hearing the word dolme, but in Iranian cooking, dolme is the name of a genre of stuffed food that could be anything from stuffed leaves (like cabbage leaves or the ever-popular grape leaves) or stuffed veggies and fruits (such as eggplant, potato, white onion, tomato, apple, quince, squash or pepper.)

Dolme ‘ye bargeh kalam (stuffed cabbage leaves) and dolme ‘ye bargeh mo (stuffed grape leaves) are always made as autonomous dishes, but it is not at all unusual to combine different stuffed veggies or fruits in the same pot — a classic combo being that of eggplants alongside with peppers and tomatoes; or quinces alongside with apples — thus allowing not only for an eclectic display and variety of textures but also a fusion of flavors as the juice of one type of vegetable or fruit mixes in with that of its stuffed neighbor, thus creating a uniquely mouthwatering taste.  (This slow-cooking flavor-fusion technique is beautifully employed in another genre of Persian food called ta’s kabob which consists of intricately and intimately nestling layers of fruit and herb and vegetable and meat in a pot, and cooking it slowly, slowly, slowly; thus yielding one of the most pleasing textures and most flavorful and aromatic types of food and broth one can taste.  Making mental note to make some and post its recipe post haste.)

I chose to do a purist stuffed peppers dish – no intermingling with potatoes or tomatoes or eggplants or some such – primarily because my pretty peppers were starting to lose their looks (ah, capricious beauty!) and so I wanted to use up as many as possible before they went bad.  For me, the highlight and perhaps even the raison d’etre of this dish is the broth – which is oh so very flavorful and happily even enhances upon reheating – but of course it is tasty in its entirely, and it is a healthy, visually fun and playful food to serve.  The cumulative merit of which makes up for the fact that it’ll take at least two hours to make this dish.

I used a slightly modified version of the stuffing we earlier made for the stuffed quinces (using chopped peppers in lieu of quince pulps for the sauce.)  The stuffing can easily be revamped as a vegetarian one by simply omitting the ground beef and using a combination of 1 cup cooked rice plus 1/4 cup cooked split pea plus 1 cup coarsely ground walnuts instead. (I’ll make some type of vegetarian dolme in the near future.)

Speaking of future posts, for those of you keeping score, the promised guest post (a terrific one that I know you’ll enjoy) and the ones for homemade rosewater and halva are in the works down the pipeline and coming to a theater near you before you know it.  (Also, I have found fresh grape leaves – score! – and can’t wait to post its recipe sometime soon.)

Ingredients

• 7-8 large green, red, yellow or orange bell peppers (number depending on how many fit in your cooking pot, chop one for the sauce, stuff the rest)
• 6-12 small peppers (optional – stuff some and chop up the rest for the sauce)
• 1/2 pound ground lean meat (lamb, veal, or beef)
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 3 tablespoons chopped scallion – about 3 stems
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh mint – about 3 sprigs (or substitute 1 teaspoon dried mint)
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon – about 3 prigs  (or substitute 1 teaspoon dried tarragon)
• 1 medium-large onion (thinly sliced)
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• pinch of ground saffron (optional)
• 2 tablespoons or more sugar
• 1/3 cup or more freshly squeezed lemon juice (approximately 2-4 lemons)
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste (divided into two portions)
• 1 cup boiling water and 1 cup tepid water
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• salt and freshly ground pepper
• yogurt and bread (optional – to serve with the dish)

Direction

1. Leave the stems intact but slice off the top of each pepper and save.  Remove the white membranes (with a sharp knife) and the seeds (with your fingers and by tapping the pepper upside down on a board.) Take care to not puncture the flesh of pepper but if you do, use a bit of chopped pepper to patch it up when it comes time to stuff it. Coarsely chop one of the peppers (color of choice) and set aside for later use (in step 9) in the sauce.  Blanch the remaining bell peppers in a big pot of lightly salted rapidly boiling water for at least one and up-to-but-no-longer than 3 minutes.  Remove peppers from water and turn upside down on a board to drain.  (Note: I had a dozen small peppers at hand, so I stuffed a bunch of them which came in handy to fill in the gaps between the bell peppers in the pot and chopped up the rest to add to the sauce.  To follow this optional step, omit blanching but cut off the lids and remove seeds same as with the bell peppers.)
2. Combine the freshly chopped parsley, scallion, mint and tarragon (or the dried substitutes when necessary) in a bowl and set aside for now.
3. Season ground meat with 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper, and 1/2 teaspoon turmeric in a big bowl.  Gently knead to evenly mix.  Set aside.
4. Combine 1 cup of boiling-hot water, 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice, 2 tablespoons of sugar, a pinch of salt, and 1 tablespoon tomato paste.  Stir to mix and dissolve. (Taste and adjust to your liking, adding either more lemon juice or more sugar.)  Reserve half to later add to the browned meat (in step 6), and half to later add for the sauce (in step 9.)
5. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil on high heat until it sizzles. Add sliced onions and saute/sizzle for a good 10 minutes or longer until the onion significantly shrivels (to approximately 2 tablespoons in size) and turns translucent and ideally somewhat crispy.  During this process, keep a watchful eye and stir onions (once in awhile when necessary) to avoid burning but do not over-stir as it will cause the onions to release liquid thus thwarting the optimum results.  (This process is called making piyaz dagh in Farsi, a.k.a. “translucent/fried onion” and it is a crucial step — I can not stress what an essential step this is in Persian cookery.)
6. Once satisfied with the state of your fried onions, add the ground meat and brown (for approximately 5 minutes) on medium high heat.  Add the chopped herbs, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 tablespoon tomato paste, and 1 cup of tepid water to the browned meat.  (Optional:  add up to 3 tablespoons of chopped up peppers if you have enough to spare.) Stir gently to mix and bring mixture to a soft boil, then lower heat, cover pan with lid, and simmer for 20 minutes or longer until almost all the liquid is absorbed, at which point add half of  the sugar/lemon sauce made in step 4 to the ground meat and stir to mix.  (Optional: You can now add a pinch of ground saffron to the mix as well.)  This is your stuffing!  (Taste and adjust with lemon and sugar and salt and even a pinch or more of tomato paste to enrich the color to your liking.)
7. Fill peppers with stuffing and top with their lids. (Tip: press down the stuffing with the back of a spoon to pack each pepper as full as possible.)
8. Layer the bottom of a roomy pot with 1 cup of tepid water, 1 tablespoon of olive oil, and the remaining chopped up peppers.  Arrange stuffed bell peppers in a neighborly fashion in the pot so that they fit nice and snug- it’s OK if they squeeze each other as long as none are crushed.  (If you made the small stuffed peppers, use them to fill up the empty spaces between the bell peppers and help secure them in place.)
9. Once satisfied with the arrangement of the stuffed peppers, bring pot to a boil on high heat, then reduce heat to medium and pour the remaining lemon juice and sugar sauce (as made earlier in step 4) over the peppers.  Cover the pot with a lid (ideally a glass one) and cook for 45 minutes (or a bit longer) on medium-high heat.  When cooking is complete, taste the sauce and adjust if necessary with lemon or sugar or salt to your liking as a final touch.

Note:  To know when to stop cooking, check the texture of peppers which should be malleable and tender but neither al dente nor too soft.  This dish actually gets more and more delicious upon reheating so err on the al dente side which can be fixed with additional cooking time and avoid overcooking which leads to the dreaded (and irreparable) mushy, falling apart and murky-colored peppers.

Serving

Serve hot! Arrange peppers in a serving dish – ladling the sauce over and around and even inside the peppers. Allow at least one bell pepper per person.  (Don’t eat the stems!)

Dolme ‘ye felfel is delicious with yogurt and bread (lavash or pita or flat bread) and can be served as a side-dish, appetizer, lunch or dinner.  This is one of those dishes that improves on the second or third re-heating and is quite delicious as a left over.

Noosh’eh jan!

Pictured here is what we call chaghal’eh badoom in Iran — known as fresh (or green or spring) almond here in the U.S., that is if you can find it.   Nestled inside its fuzzy green hull lies the young skinless almond, sleeping the sleep of the just – not yet hardened and soft in texture.

Chaghal’eh badoom arrives on the scene in early spring in Iran for a mere few weeks — greeted virtually by delighted clapping of hands — just like its kindred spirit and friendly rival, the other favorite Persian bounty and symbolic synonym of spring:  goje sabz.

You remember goje sabz, right?  Unripe sour green plums:  juicy, tart, crisp and crunchy. You snack on them raw, crunch munch munch crunch, sprinkled lightly with salt.  How do you eat chaghal’eh badoom you ask?  You eat it like so:

That’s right!  You eat the whole kit and caboodle.  Only the stem remains!  Chaghal’eh badoom is crunchy with a soft center, tastes somewhat like a quite tartly-delicious apple, and makes for a very refreshing and nutritious (not to mention addictive) snack that is also wonderful in a salad or as a garnish to brighten up a meal. 

I recently met someone who informed me that in Turkey it is customary to pile a plate high with spring almonds and eat them (sprinkled with salt) while drinking beer.  Which actually makes perfect sense taste and texture wise — I can imagine that the accompaniment of sat and crunch and fresh burst of tangy flavor is a very pleasant chaser for beer.  I predict that a hip NY or Brooklyn bar will get wind of this soon enough and offer these !

Goje sabz and chaghal’eh badoom are also used to make khoresh and preserves and some-such in Iranian cuisine but since they are scarcely available here, I am reluctant to cook them and prefer to enjoy them in their natural glory and savor their unique refreshing burst of taste and ultra-satisfactory crunch that needs nary an embellishment save for the sprinkling of some salt.

Who knows how the idea of eating unripe almonds and unripe plums got started but whoever got the ball rolling created a fad that has lasted for thousands of years!  Once you experience the fresh and crunchy taste of the spring almond and sour green plum for yourself I reckon you’ll jump on the bandwagon as well.

That’s it!

Happy Earth Day. Life is our gift. Earth is our home.

ps.  Coming attractions:  Halva (a type of Persian sweet that is made with rosewater and cardamom and other nice things) recipe post + how to make homemade rosewater!  Stay tuned.

A year ago my mom and I posted our very first Persian food recipe — for a huge rice-meatball stuffed with prunes, caramelized onions, raisins and walnuts, served with its own tangy and savory broth, otherwise known as the yumalicious koofteh berenji.  It feels both like yesterday and also forever ago that we started on our excellent adventure of blogging.  It’s a happy milestone and I’m a bit verklempt.

Starting this blog has been a rewarding experience – no doubt about it.  It gives me and my mom (who was the muse and catalyst for creating Fig & Quince) a stimulating venue to bond and it has triggered (and I hope it will continue to trigger) precious stories from my father (ordinarily a man of a few words) that otherwise would have remained hidden treasures.  It has also offered me a positive way to express and channel my love for Iran — to trade saddening homesickness for a passionate mission of cultural-exchange and a happy pursuit of recipes and stories — and into the bargain, it has even rekindled my romance with an old flame – photography – big time.

A huge pleasure of this venture has been that of getting to know many interesting & diversely delightful people, bloggers and non-bloggers alike, that I’d never have had met otherwise with the cherry-on-top bonus of forging and fostering meaningful connections and budding friendships. Continuing in this corny manner (once I get mushy this way there’s no going back till I get on the subway and am promptly cured of my infatuation with humanity) I have to say that I’m grateful to-the-core for everyone who reads this blog and keenly appreciate your emails, comments, links and any-other-way (including telepathic) gestures of support.  It’s definitely fuel for keeping on with keeping on.

Let’s have a virtual slice of cake!

While you are enjoying your sugar rush, I’d like to tell you that Fig & Quince will have its very first guest post (by one of the aforementioned fascinating people I have been lucky to meet via this blog – so excited!) and that also we’ll have our very first giveaway (something made by moi as a token of saying thank you to toi) in the coming week or two.

And oh, the amazing rainbow cake with the marzipan bunny decorations?  My sister made it all from scratch with her very own delicate hands for the birthday of a special quelqu’un fond of bunnies and rainbows — impressing young and old and ageless.

Khoda hafez till later.

ps. This is a tadigh cake!  Invented by my father as a little joke on someone’s birthday.

Of significance regarding Queen Porandokht’s brief tenure, one is that she signed a peace treaty with the Romans (spoiler alert:  it didn’t last) and another is that she inspired a craze of yogurt-based vegetarian food.  This came about because the Queen did not care for meat but liked yogurt, so the court’s cook, trying to tickle the royal palette, made up a series of dishes, all of which were variations on one theme:  a vegetable mixed with yogurt. In the bargain, inventing a new genre of Persian food initially called porani in a nod to the Queen (whose name you recall was PoranDokht) but which then down the road morphed into the word borani as we now know it.

At least, that’s the story one hears. Maman, resident part-time cynic, says:  “Who knows if it is for real?”  “Ein chiz hayee ‘yeh keh mardom mighand.“  (This is what they say.)  Maman may have her doubts, but I believe.  I.  Believe!

The star in a borani dish is a vegetable that may be either cooked, steamed, or sauteed — and it could be anything from eggplant to zucchini or mushroom or pumpkin, or one of my favorites, beets –  combined with yogurt dressing.  Super simple!  Super healthy.  Super tasty!

Borani ‘ye esfenaj or spinach borani is a snap to make and you’d be surprised by the complexity of taste and texture found in such a simply prepared dish that calls for so very few ingredients:  you only really need fresh spinach, strained yogurt, and salt.  Walnuts and saffron and garlic are nice, but optional, and in a pinch can be done without. Since the spinach wilts to almost nothing in size and is mixed with creamy yogurt, this is a good dish to trick kids into eating tons of spinach.  They’ll be distracted by the creamy texture while unbeknownst to themselves, they are consuming a ton of spinach, and you can watch them, twirl your mustache, and enjoy your tricky  ways.

Integral to the success of this dish is to completely drain the spinach once you’ve blanched it.  Otherwise it’ll weep – and then you’ll weep as well.  To rid it of excess liquid, you are supposed to “wring” the blanched spinach, much as you would a freshly washed shirt.  At least that’s the literal translation of “chelondan” in Farsi.  But that doesn’t sound like something the poor spinach would like.  So do as my mother does:  drain wilted spinach in a soft-mesh colander and press the back of a wooden spoon against the spinach, as many times as needed, to force out all excess liquid.  It works like a charm and if you do it gently enough, you won’t feel like such a brute against the poor wilted spinach.

Ingredients

• 10-12 cups of fresh baby spinach (wash and trim stems)
• 1 cup thick strained yogurt – ideally whole.  (I used Greek Faje 2% since that’s what was available in store and it was delish and creamy and just the right consistency)
• 1 small clove of garlic (crushed to smithereens)
• a few walnuts – coarsely chopped (optional, but in truth, would be a shame to go without)
• a smidgen of saffron – ground and dissolved in a thimble of hot water (optional, but a luxury you deserve)

Direction

1. Blanch the spinach. (Bring a pot of lightly salted water to a rapid boil; add spinach and blanch for approximately 30 seconds but absolutely no longer than a minute.  Immediately remove spinach and drain in colander.   Pour a cup of cold water over the lot to stop spinach from continuing to cook.)
2. Place wilted spinach in a soft-mesh colander on top of a plate or bowl and allow it to drain for at least 15 minutes.  Then, press the back of a wooden spoon against the spinach, as many times as needed, to force out all the excess liquid.  You’ll be surprised by how many times you’ll have to do this to effectively rid all excess liquid.
3. Once spinach is “wrung” effectively, chop it – either coarse or fine – texture to your taste.  ( I prefer the nether region between the coarse and fine – soft but still providing texture and chewiness.)
4. Saute crushed garlic in a pan with just a dollop of  olive oil till golden. Then, in the same pan, with the heat on medium, add spinach, sprinkle with a dash of salt, and give it a few whirls (no more than that) in the pan. (You can skip this step entirely if you are fond of a more simple and raw texture and taste.)
5. Dilute yogurt with 1 tablespoon cold water, and stir with a fork.  (It may seem perverse to use strained yogurt then attempt to dilute it but that’s how it goes and the process improves the texture of yogurt.)
6. Transfer spinach to a big bowl, add yogurt, season with salt and pepper to taste, and gently mix all the ingredients. (I like to use a fork instead of a spoon to mix – for a gentler more delicate touch.)
7. Cover bowl and place in the fridge for at least half an hour – allowing the borani to get well and cold and set.  (If you have properly drained spinach, you can do up to this steap ahead of time and store for a day or so. If spinach is not drained completely though it will weep and ruin the texture if left unattended to its own devices.  In practice, however, borani is best made close to serving time, so just aim for that.)
8. When ready to eat, transfer to a serving bowl.  Gently fluff it a bit with a fork to revive. Decorate with a drizzle of saffron water.  Garnish with ground almonds.  Serve.

Note:  10-12 cups of spinach may sound like an awful lot for two servings.  But once spinach wilts and is “wrung”, it shrinks to almost next to nothing.  Which makes this a great dish to trick kids into eating a ton of spinach while they are distracted by its creamy texture. 

Serving

Borani is often meant to be a side dish or appetizer.  Some people serve it as a dip.  But allow yourself a hearty garnish of chopped walnuts and serve it with bread, and you’ve got yourself a light lunch or dinner bursting with nutrition and taste.

Make it, thank Queen PoranDokht for her fine and discerning taste, and noosh’eh jaan!

Last year when coloring eggs for the Norooz haftseen, I pledged to make homemade dye next time around.  Before I knew it a year went by (wow so quickly like WOOSH) and it was once again time to color eggs for Norooz. And, guess what, I actually kept my vow to make natural dye at home.

It is possible that in the process I may have gone a bit overboard … behaved a tad over zealously even … felt somewhat excessively exuberant (please note that I did restrain from saying eggsessively eggzuberant) … but that’s because making dye was an interesting experience, dare I say thrilling at times, and the eggs came out so pretty that I couldn’t help but geek out and admire them this way and that.  [Although one crack, and boo:  they stink!] Next year, maybe I’ll throw an egg decorating party like the one design sponge had.

Thick rubber bands and colorful mesh bags (souvenirs of various produce-purchases saved over the course of time) played a key role in this fun game of egg-and-dye.

It is not hard to dye eggs naturally but unless you already know how to do it, the instructions online are a little hither and thither.  I started with and ultimately ended up back with Martha (Stewart that is, of course) and after some practice in the trenches on the home-front I can lay claim to some firm preferences and a fair amount of eggspertise (please do forgive me, I truly can not help myself) when it comes to coloring eggs with natural dye.

I experimented with four dyeing agents (black coffee, red cabbage, beets, and turmeric) and colored two dozen eggs — a mixture of white and brown ones.

Ideally, you’ll also need an egg drying rack.  I re-made the same egg-drying-rack that I’d improvised out-of-necessity last year. It worked beautifully, so saw no reason to reinvent the wheel.  If you’d like to make one of your own, it’s super simple:  a) Take a cardboard box, b) stick 3 push pins on the surface so as to create a triangular rest-stand for an egg, and c) taking care to space out the stands, repeat to create rows and columns.  See?  Easy!

I’ll ask you to kindly mosey on over to the original post on Martha Stewart’s site for the full, detailed instructions on how to make various dyes and create a palette of hues using each individually or in combination with each other.

Meanwhile, if you’d like summarized instructions as well as my two shiny cents gained from the trial and error and beauty of it all, please

I basically followed Martha’s instructions to the letter but there’s an essential tip not mentioned in the post:  to add a tablespoon of salt to the dyeing agent.  It makes all the difference in the world and I only found out about it from reading the comments section after a failed attempt.  It’s a mystery why this pivotal info is omitted in the instructions.

Thoughts re the dyeing agents:

• Turmeric:  The resulting yellow color is quite pretty but I found out that when boiling turmeric, especially with vinegar, that the aroma is quite pungent and irritant, at least to this nose.  I sneezed quite a bit (a lot!) while this potion was brewing and wonder what the neighbors thought I was cooking up.  Another drawback about turmeric as a dyeing agent:  despite repeated straining, I was unable to fully rid dye of the powdery turmeric remnants which then clung to the egg and prevented it from having a smooth surface. I guess that won’t be a problem with a cheesecloth but I didn’t have one handy at the time.
• Coffee: I did not have the best of luck with it and found it a bit tame and lame as a dye.  I expected rich hues and instead it made the brown eggs a tad-bit-darker brown and turned the white eggs into a pale muddy brown.   Verdict:  not worth the hassle and using up delicious, delicious coffee that I could be drinking instead.
• Beets:  Nice!  You’ll get pale pretty pink eggs by soaking white eggs for 30 minutes in this solution.  Drawback: it didn’t really do much for the brown eggs.  At least not on my watch.
• Red-cabbage:  I am in love!  This dye is so perfect, I want to write it a sonnet.  It is a versatile workhorse of a dye — as generously reliable as daffodils.  If I had to take only one dyeing agent with me to a deserted island, it would be me and my little red-cabbage dye.  Soak eggs in this dye for half an hour and it turns white ones a nice pale blue and the brown eggs a robin blue.  Leave eggs overnight and wake up to a stunning and gorgeous miracle:  white eggs are now a very rich and dark royal blue and brown eggs turn into an intense forest green hue, so dark as to pass for a stone! Can’t say enough good things about cabbage.  In fact, if you are short on time and don’t want to mess around with too many different dyes, just go for the this dye and simply by using a mixture of both white and brown eggs and playing with the the length of time you leave the eggs soaking, you’ll end up with a gorgeous palette of pale to the darkest midnight blue.  Love, love, love it!
• Onion skins:  The thought of cutting up enough onions to gather 4 cups of onion skins made me cry and I gave up on this dye without even giving it a try.

Happy Norooz & Easter & Passover & spring.  Have fun coloring eggs!

Tut. Toot. Toote!  However you spell it, it is the little adorable mulberry-fruit-shaped Persian treat made from ground almonds, cardamom and rosewater; dusted with a glittery coat of granulated sugar; stemmed with a sliver of pistachio; typically served at weddings and for Norooz; and generally gobbled up with fingers, relish and gratitude.

Since I’d already posted tut’s recipe, I had good and ardent intentions to make a few different types of shirini for Norooz.  Good intentions are like beauty queens:  pretty hyperboles of niceness but somewhat glib.  I need concrete intentions that are weighed down with a heavy-duty tool-belt bulging with every gadget, crouching under the bathroom sink, getting dirty and fixing the leak – not up on the stage hamming it up with a sparkling dress and tiara, waving beautifically.

Which is my long-winded way of telling you that much like a one-trick-pony I ended up making only the tut for Norooz.  So that if you didn’t know any better you might have thought that tut is the only Persian shirini.  And that would have been so very wrong. To remedy that theoretical wrong, behold the following show-and-tell exhibits:

Exhibit A: A plate of goodies made by the hands of a lovely and ravishing khanoom (that is, lady with capital letter “L”) including:  1) noon nokhod’chi (chickpea flour cookie); 2) noon berenji Kermanshahi (rice flour cookie sprinkled with poppy seeds – Kermanshahi style); and 3) my favorite:  sohan ‘e assal (almond brittle.)  So good! It was rough going keeping paws off of these to take pictures.  Suffice it to say they did not last long once the prying eye of the camera lens was shut down.

Exhibit B:   Specimens of Iranian sweets typically served for Norooz – purchased from a store.  The gaz (pistachio nougat) was no gaz ‘eh Shirazi but it was delicious, the noghl was rather a travesty of what it should be (that is: it was not a glorious and fragrant hard-candy-covered almond sliver) but it was nice to behold and served its festive purpose.   The noon nokhodchi and noon berenji were pretty decent actually. I like how they look like hearts – a traditional shape for these types of cookies. 

Exhibit C:  To see this one, you have to stop by and check out Turmeric & Saffron‘s inspiring and lovely Persian desserts.  She actually has the recipes for the almond brittle and for the Kermanshahi noon berenji among other things.  Personally, I most covet making her Persian rosewater cardamom pudding.  Looks wonderful.

Exhibit D:  And finally, if you’re in the mood for drooling uncontrollably and thus making a notable spectacle of yourself, do check out the lovely Fae’s gorgeous Iranian style baklava and baklava cake.  Why must you torture us so, Fae?   Why?

And on this rather cruel note, I bid you farewell till we meet egg-ain!

Here’s a handy-dandy guide to what you would find in a haftseen display and the idealized wishes it symbolizes for the new year:

Candles, a mirror, a bowl of gold fish, fresh flowers, rose water, a holy book of one’s faith or the poetry books of revered Persian poets Hafiz or Rumi or Khayam, decorated eggs, and a mixed plate of traditional Iranian shirini (pastry) are “non-S” items that have carved an indelible niche at the haftseen table for themselves.  Some also float an orange in a crystal bowl of water to symbolize the planet earth.

People are of course at liberty to add other objects of delight as a personal touch to the setting as well.  (See how different people have put their own spin on the traditional template of this Norooz staple on this Flickr page.)

I’m biased of course but not alone in finding the making and setting of haftseen to be a truly poignant and poetic custom. The heart of the new year’s celebration.

It is at the proximity of the haftseen display that a family gathers to await the exact moment when winter ends and spring begins; and thus dawns the  “New Day” or Norooz.  This year Winter ends tomorrow at approximately 7 am Eastern Standard time.

So when we meet again, winter will be over. It will be spring.  Norooz.  A new day!

Until then, Happy Spring!

And if you observe this beautiful holiday:  Dorood bar shoma!  Norooz  ‘etoon Pirooz!

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming (on Persian food and Norooz and spring and all that is blossoming and sprouting and delicious) to bring you this spontaneous rant about the travails of creating content — tenderly with joy and care — and releasing it into this cyberspace of ours.   Here it goes.

I don’t watermark content for aesthetic reasons and I do not put up neon signs all over this blog announcing that “all the work here is created by Me Myself and Moi and protected by copyright law” because it is not my cup of tea. But the fact is that the photos and illustrations and all these little words strung together with various degrees of coherence and grammatical soundness are done by the hands of truly, yours.  Not magically sprung into existence.  I don’t expect to be showered in gold and Japanese quince blossoms in return (although I will gladly succumb to both) but I do harbor delicate hopes that the copyright ownership of the work is respected.  Partially to keep that illusion, I refuse to Google search my copy and images (as I know some bloggers vigilantly do to find people who lift their works.)  I would rather not know as I’d rather spend the time I would use up kvetching over every such instance on either writing a line, or drawing one, or doing one.  (Just.  Kidding!  I do not do any lines except for laundry and I don’t smoke anything except for fish.)

But back to our story, I happened by sheer happenstance to find out that an entity, a commercial entity, was using one of my images on one of their social media channels.  It wasn’t a major use but it wasn’t entirely minor either.  It is somewhat flattering that they liked my work.  It is mucho less flattering that they felt it was permissible to co-opt said work without so much as a God bless.  I went back and forth on this but ultimately realized that I was bothered.  I was surprised by how much I was bothered.  The bother was aggravated by the realization that they were using yet another image of mine in a perhaps not illegal but certainly irritatingly usurping way to get traffic to their social media page.

While trying to nurture the possibility of a future working relationship with them (us freelancers have to always hustle, don’t you know!) I asked that they either pay for this usage or remove the image.  After some time I received word that “out of respect” they had removed the image.  It suspiciously sounded like they were doing me a favor.  I want to understand where they are coming from but to be clear:  I am supposed to be grateful for their favor of ceasing to infringe my copyright protected work.  A work that I literally spent days working to create.  It’s rather … demoralizing!

Lincoln advocated the protection of  intellectual property law, specifically patents, as adding the “fuel of interest to the fire of genius.”  Thomas Jefferson championed a balanced protection to encourage creativity but not discourage the creative use of ideas. A view I admire.  In a way, intellectual property protection is the Goldilocks of law – too robust and it stifles, too little and it is meaningless, but just the right amount and it is perfect — rewarding creativity yet also allowing for the free exchange of ideas.

As they say, there is nothing new under the sun and we are all inspired by and influenced by all that we see.   A truism … because it’s true!  Fair use is fine with me.  It is more than fine, it is dandy and I herald it. FAIR use.  Not being used.  Thomas Jefferson wrote: “He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.”  Beautifully put.  No one could say it better.

I wrote this last night when I felt considerably hotter under the collar but with Scarlett O’Hara’s sage advice in mind I waited till today to post because after all, tomorrow is another day, and fiddle dee dee, I do feel much less bothered today.  Edits:  they were made! I strongly recommend sleeping on angry posts.

But I’m curious:  I know many of you who read this blog have your own blogs (and Tumblrs and other online-what-nots) with personal work that you painstakingly make and compose and share. I wonder:  how do you deal with this?  This balancing act of wanting to openly create content and put it out there without any expectations and/or putting up barbwires — and yet not wanting to be taken advantage of?  Do you search out perpetrators or do you let karma take its course?  Do you feel petty (as I do to my own astonishment) when feeling upset by unauthorized use?  Let’s not even discuss (or should we) the nefarious marketers who imagine that they can demand flouting FTC rules with blatant disregard of the value of our time, reputation, and work.   (It is amazing how so many people feel they are doing writers and photographers and other content-providers a bloody favor by “exposing” their work.)

I would really like to know what you think about this and how you handle your IP rights.  If you don’t like to publicly comment, please email me, I really want to hear your thoughts.

ps.  An illustrated guide to Norooz (the Persian New Year) coming your way before you know it.