With Persephone’s return, comes the spring. But there’s a catch. Starving and unimpressed with Hades’ attempts to woo her, Persephone ate six pomegranate seeds while in the underworld. Those six seeds require her to return to the underworld during pomegranate season (roughly September through February in the Northern Hemisphere). Repeated year after year, Persephone’s place creates our annual seasonal cycle of death in the fall … Read more
With the autumn holidays rapidly approaching many of us are starting to give thought to what to prepare. A delicious main-course for omnivores is my Lamb in a Pomegranate-Cardamom Sauce pictured below. It is an original recipe based on Azeri/Iranian Fesenjan that is the best one-pot meal in town. Tender, juicy lamb is braised in a mouth-watering sweet and sour sauce that is served on … Read more
Chef Miles Collins has just cooked and reviewed one of the recipes – Lamb and Rhubarb Stew – from The Silk Road Gourmet Volume One over on his site. Miles is a talented professional chef, and a brilliant photographer who focuses on subjects from life and work in gourmet kitchens to the nature and wildlife of his native Lincolnshire, England. All in all – a … Read more
The Voyages of Sinbad tell of giant, magical creatures: whales the size of islands, snakes so large that they could swallow elephants, and rukh (roc) birds so large that they could carry a caravan of men on their backs. Tales of these creatures repeated across cultures and through the ages has made most readers assume that they were simply pigments of a colorful imagination – … Read more
We had friends over again, and as usual, I spent a couple of days in the kitchen preparing for their visit. This time I whipped up a regional tasting menu of Caucasian specialties from Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. As they ate and in between the “yummy sounds” my friends kept on commenting that there were, “so many flavors on the plate”. Many thanks to my … Read more
This is an unusual stew from the Northeast of Iran near Mashhad that borders on Turkmenistan. It uses that Central Asian wonder – rhubarb – as a souring agent to complement the earthy lamb, much as sour plums or sour cherries are used. Like many other Central Asian dishes, it also relies on herbs rather than spices for much of its flavor. It’s a great … Read more
For today’s post in celebration of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, we have a guest blogger, Azita from the wonderful site Turmeric and Saffron. Azita is an Iranian who celebrates the cuisine and culture of Iran on her website. In addition to being an accomplished cook, she is also talented in food styling and food photography and regularly illustrates the recipes on her site with … Read more