Thursday, March 17, 2005

and iran, iran so far away...

To a lovely little Persian restaraunt on S. Grand called Natasha's Cafe. I very much enjoy middle eastern food...I mean c'mon...hummus for godssakes! This was my first foray into Persian food specifically. So this weeks links will be all about Persian food.

First, the food we had.We shared four appetizers; Baba Ghannouj (check out alton brown's recipe), Kashke-Bademjune (like Baba Ghannouj with chick-peas and other yummy additions), Hummus (some hummus recipes with beans other than chickpeas: butter bean hummus, lentil hummus, black bean hummus), Walnut-Olive Feta Cheese Spread. It all came with pita bread, some toasted some not.

On to the main courses...Kelly had the chicken kabob, which was very flavorful. Chris had the Beef Kabob, which was also flavorful and prefectly cooked so it was super-tender. Jack had the Chicken Fessenjoon stew, which was very interesting, and yummy (a recipe). Ron was the adventurer of the night, ordering the Beef Tongue (which I had read was one of the places best dishes). I tried that and was pleasantly surprised. It was like an extremely tender roast beef. I forget what james had. sorry. I had the Lamb Biryani Pilaf, which was pulled lamb meat on a rice pilaf with chickpeas and all other kinds of goodness. Everyone wanted to be me :) (Lamb Biryani recipe).

What's neat is that while researching for this post I found out that Tuesday night was the celebration of the Persian New Year, called Charshambeh Soori. This is the blog where I read about it. More about Iran from this blog. I love the Persian New Years saying she posts ""Zardee-eh man az tow, sorkhee-eh tow az man", which means "Give me your healthy red color as you take back my sickly pallor".

A good source for Persian recipes. Mmmm...stew.

Iranian food culture.

Mmmm...more stew.

I love trying foods from different cultures. It's a beautiful, enriching experience. Eating is more to me then plain ol' nourishment. It's a way of connecting to the world, to your fellow human. Opening you taste buds and opening your mind at the same time. It's beautiful...and tasty!

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