Join us for an extraordinary journey into the heart of Persian culture as we celebrate Yalda, the longest and darkest night of the year. Listen in as we, your hosts Bita and Beata, explore the traditions of this beloved holiday. From staying up late, enjoying music and poetry, to indulging in delectable food, we bring you an intimate look into how Yalda Night is celebrated, also called Shabeh Yalda. Be prepared for personal stories, the discovery of old pre-revolution records, and enchanting poetry and music.
Venture further into Yalda Night’s customs by discussing the holiday’s food and drink. Learn about the significance of the traditional foods associated with Yalda, including pomegranates, watermelon, and winter dishes from Persian cuisine. We also reveal fun recipes for festive drinks – a pomegranate spritz and a Persian mulled wine tea.
We round off our Yalda Night episode by revealing our holiday and New Year plans and reflections on the podcast and press achievements from 2023.
So, gather your loved ones, prepare tea and sweets, and join us as we journey through Yalda Night. We wish you a happy Yalda season and a fantastic start to the new year. Thank you for joining us, and we look forward to seeing you next time.
Episodes mentioned:
Episode 114: Yalda Winter Solstice
Episode 63: YaldaReferences:
Fountain of Light, original score piano by Firooz Mohtadi
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Opening and closing music composed by Amir Etemadzadeh, www.amirschoolofmusic.com
Podcast production by Alvarez Audio
Transcription:
Intro
This is Modern Persian Food, a culinary podcast for today’s food enthusiasts. We talk about classic Persian flavors, modern recipes, and embracing culture and identity through food. I’m Bita. And I’m also Beata. Welcome to our show.
00:25 – Bita
Hello friends, welcome to episode 161. Today we have a really special episode planned for you. We’re talking about Yalda Night in what’s come to be known as our annual Yalda Night episode. We’ll be covering what Yalda is. We’ll also be sharing how we’ll be celebrating the holidays this year. And in the spirit of Yalda, we’re going to share some music and some poetry from our families and from ourselves with you. Be sure to stay tuned until the end because we’ll also be sharing our recipes for some fun cocktail ideas and we’ll be reflecting on some recent live events and chances to engage with the community. So without any further ado, let’s introduce partner and co-host, the other Beata joon. Hey, Beata.
1:28 – Beata
Hi, Bita joon. Thank you for the setup. I am super excited about this episode, our annual Yalda episode, Shab-e-Yalda, the longest, darkest night of the year, where we celebrate by staying up late and listening to music, reading poetry, being together, eating delicious foods. And in that spirit, I wanted to start off with a little story. I have a couple fun things to share with you this episode of Bita joon, that you haven’t heard about so let me start off by telling you a little bit of a story.
2:01 – Bita
Okay! I love stories.
2:02 – Beata
Yes! A while back I was going through some stuff at my parent’s house and I saw, I didn’t necessarily find because I knew that they had them, but I found a whole bunch of old, like, pre-revolution records at my parents’ house. And there was like maybe like 30 or 40 of these like really super old records. And I was always intrigued by them, but I never really did anything with them. My family no longer had a record player. So, they kind of just sat around and in the, you know, in like spring cleaning and trying to get like purge and get rid of stuff, sometimes we would come across the records and it was like we didn’t want to give it away. What do we want to do with it?
2:41 – Bita
Wow. You’re talking about like an old school record album, you know, that you have to play on a turntable?
2:50 – Beata
You got it. Like these records right here that I am showing you on the screen right now.
2:55 – Bita
Oh, that’s just giving me so many flashback memories. Okay, cool.
3:00 – Beata
And some of them are like so old that they have like these little stamps on them. I don’t even know really what they stood for. Or I think it was like prices or something. I’m not even sure exactly what all of that means. But I had these records and I wanted to do something with them. So, I have a friend, his name is Johnny. He lives up into the mountains and every time we go there, he loves playing records for us. So, I told him about these records and he basically inspired me to get my very own record player.
3:28 – Bita
Oh! My brother was really into albums and yeah, it’s just you can picture it in the 70s, the old turntables. Are you going to play it for me?
3:39 – Beata
I love it. This new record player that I have that’s like in a suitcase, it’s tan and it has like a little bit of a handle and has built-in speakers. And I recently learned how to use it and have been playing these records. One thing that I’m planning on doing this Yalda is listening to a bunch of these records with my family and really enjoying it. So without further ado, here is this song and it’s called Shad, which means happiness. And here you go.
04:12
[Excerpt of Shad]
04:34- Bita
Oh, that’s so cool. Well, you guys will have a lot of fun listening to music and the old school way. Thanks for sharing that.
4:43 – Beata
Yeah. And it’s fun. And it’s like, you know, you listen to one song on the record and then you have to kind of switch out the record. So, it’s a fun interactive way to appreciate very special music.
4:52 – Bita
The old classics, like the traditional music, it just really kind of makes you want to move. It’s very melodic and you got the hands going. And it definitely made me want to sort of move and swap which could be another part of your night is dancing!
5:07 – Beata
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, let’s talk about what is Yalda? What is it? How do we celebrate?
5:13 – Bita
We’ve had some previous Yalda episodes, but if you’re new to us, I’d love to share a little bit more about what it is, why it is the longest darkest night in our culture. This has going back like 5,000 years pre-Islam, a Zoroastrian tradition. And really, it’s about conquering evil and darkness and celebrating the longer days to come, the rebirth of the sun. Because in our past, in our history, Iran was definitely an agricultural country that relied on the crops. And so course the sun and the warmer days are going to be better for the agriculture. And that brings us kind of to the traditional foods. The color red is associated with the Yalda night. And I think that we could say that is sort of also tied into some of the foods. The red crimson glow of the sun and the fruits that have become really iconic with this day, pomegranate, in Farsi, Anar, and also watermelon are the two big fruits. The inside flesh of the watermelon to kind of enjoy and bring some of that summer into this night and to also continue to have to sort of ward off the flu and the colds. What are some of the other foods associated with Yalda Night that you know about Beata joon?
6:59 – Beta
Yeah, I love the color red is really represented in this tradition. It reminds me of how the color green is really represented for Persian New Year, Nowruz, with like, you know, rebirth and growth. Red really symbolizes Yalda. And so yes, the fruits that you said, some other traditional foods like ajeel, like a trail mix and just incorporating different seeds like tokhmeh. You can snack on some classic pumpkin seeds in the shell or you can try to roast some of your own pumpkin seeds that we’ve done this season ready in anticipation for Yalda Night. And really like, you know, there’s different soups that you can do. We have the Aash e Anar, which is like a herb soup that has little meatballs in it if you like to do it, but made with pomegranates and lots of really delicious ingredients like split peas. Yellow split peas are in there too and a ton of onions. So that’s always a fun one. Or you can do like additional, like, you know, Aash e reshteh is another traditional soup that you can have for this holiday. So, it’s really beautiful. And what really is special about the foods is that you place them on this beautiful sofreh. We love talking about sofreh. We have a few episodes that are dedicated. And since last year, I do have to say, I called out that we were going to do sofreh episode, specific sofreh one, and we did do it. So, we’ll link to that in the show notes if anyone wants to check it out where we go into the sofreh of all the different occasions that we celebrate. But the Yalda sofreh, beautiful on a red fabric or whatever special fabric like a termeh or anything that you really enjoy or even like a tray, you can kind of set up some symbolic items on it.
8:38 – Bita
One of the things we love doing on this show is to talk about the traditional ways it was celebrated and the modern ways that we can incorporate it into our own lives and our own traditions. Well traditionally before central heating, this sofreh was set on a korsi. A korsi being a low table with a heating element under it so that you’d gather around it and warm up on this dark cold night with these yummy foods all set on top of this table.
09:07 – Beata
Yeah, incorporating kind of nuts and pomegranates into your foods like the Aash e Anar, which is really delicious. Or we love making fesanjoon on Yalda, too, with the ground walnuts and the pomegranate molasses for a really special dish as well to celebrate.
9:22 – Bita
Yeah, I got to actually taste Aash e Anar, the pomegranate soup at a recent cultural event. And in addition to the things that you listed in pomegranate soup, it also has beets. This recipe had beets in it, which also added to the crimson color, this really kind of interesting soup that can be served at room temperature. It also had spinach in it. It was really nutritious and quite delicious and we ran out. And so, any kind of winter food goes. I mean, we love layered lentil rice as well. And you’ve talked about that before. And that’s our lentil date raisin layered rice that’s really delicious and comforting on a cold winter night as well.
10:10 – Beata
Yeah, delicious. All these great things. And I think that the point is really to kind of gather together and whatever it kind of takes to keep you up. So, you know, having some of these foods that you like can sit and take time eating like the sunflower seeds or the pumpkin seeds or, you know, whatever it is that’s like, you can kind of like enjoy them over time.
10:29 – Bita
Sweets, tea. Tea and sweets is big in our culture, but also maybe for the caffeine to stay up all night. Because again, we were trying to sort of ward off evil, stay indoors to get until the sunlight where we’ll have light and bright and hope and love.
10:47 – Beata
Yeah, to bring in the newborn sun. So, before we kind of go into how we’re gonna be celebrating it this year, let’s get another piece of music to come in. And now this little snippet is from my daughter, Sonia. She is going to be singing part of a Yalda song that she’s been learning in her weekend Farsi class. They’re doing a little Yalda performance and she’s been practicing. And here it is for you all to enjoy.
11:17
[Sonia singing about Yalda]
11:33
Good job, Sonia joon. That was so good. I’m so proud of her.
11:39 – Beata
Yeah, she was super excited to be officially on the podcast for the first time. So, thank you, Sonia joon, for doing that for us. We really appreciate it. And to Sonia’s point in the poem, you know, Hafez, one of the famous Persian poets. You can sit around the korsi or sit around the sofreh Yalda and read poetry, get your kind of fortune told by, you know, a book of Hafez and really kind of enjoy those, that ancient poetry.
12:07 – Bita
Wow. And is her Farsi class going to be having a Yalda celebration?
12:13 – Beata
Yep. They’re going to have a little celebration. The kids are going to do a little mini performance and looking forward to seeing all the families there.
12:20 – Bita
Take a video for me. That sounds really adorable.
12:23 – Beata
Yeah, we’ll do.
12:25 – Bita
Well, what are you going to do this year? What do you have planned?
12:27 – Beata
So, you know, Yalda is a tradition that we didn’t necessarily always grow up celebrating, or at least maybe we didn’t really realize it kind of growing up as first generation here. It wasn’t necessarily something that we always as a kid didn’t necessarily recognize. So I’m really enjoying bringing these cultures and stuff that my parents kind of grew up with and introducing them to my kids and to the next generation. So, over the last like several years, we’ve been celebrating it more. And what you do is basically set up this table and gather and have these fruits and have foods. And I really want to have the older generation and the younger generation be able to celebrate it together. So, we’re going to go over to my mom’s house, and we are going to have a night of music. There’s a new piano at the house, so we’re going to be playing around with the piano. My mom has a santur. If anyone would like to hear last year’s episode, who hasn’t, she plays the santur in our episode last year. And I’m going to take the record player and try to just, you know, have some fun, show everyone these old records, dance around, eat some fun foods and really just kind of have a good excuse to gather and celebrate.
13:39 – Bita
I love it. That’s really nice. You’re bringing in music, you’re keeping old and young traditions, and maybe Sonia will sing her song again.
13:49 – Beata
Exactly, hoping that she’ll do that. You know, in previous years, I’ve gone to the kids’ schools before and read books and did little art activities for Yalda. So, if people are interested in doing that, I really encourage people going out into the community and sharing about Yalda, sharing about Persian culture and this really ancient, beautiful culture. It falls right before the traditional holidays, so December 21st when the actual first day of winter is. And so usually the night leading up to it, you celebrate. And yeah, so however way you can celebrate and enjoy and share the love that comes with the light of Yalda.
14:29 – Bita
Beautiful
14:30 – Beata
How about you? What are you doing this year?
14:31 – Bita
Well, I’m gonna do what I did last year with some new twists. Last year at my cookie exchange party that I’ve had near the Christmas holidays every year for as long as we’ve lived in this house going on 20 years. I incorporated the theme of Yalda. I love themes and it’s been really fun to add a new theme to the cookie party. So, over the years we added pajamas as attire. So, it also just kind of goes in with the cozy vibe, staying warm and partying in our pajamas. We’re now also bringing in pomegranates, ajeel, I make little ajeel baggies, I make little cutouts of the pomegranates, and I even give a little speech to my friends, and, it’s been really nice to share it that way, and I think that my friends and family have all been really receptive to learning about it, and it just kind of makes things unique and interesting. My friends have started bringing their moms, so the last couple of years kind of, there’s sort of like this senior group of ladies that are hanging out and having tea and sweets. And then there’s like everybody else in our pajamas. And the older ladies don’t so much love to wear pajamas, but I added the option to just wear red.
15:55 – Beata
Okay, there you go.
15:56 – Bita
I think everybody will be happy. Now my party happens on the 17th, but on actual Yalda Night, I’m thinking that it would actually be really fun to just do a game night. So, In tradition, you know, we talked about music, poetry, dancing. Today, our version of it is playing games. We just want to have fun. We want to stay up. Our younger daughter will be home from college. She loves backgammon. So, we’ll probably bring out takhteh. We like playing cards. We like rummy. We like just about any kind of card game. So that’s what I have planned for Yelda in our family.
16:36 – Beata
Yeah, that’s great. Perfect.
16:39 – Bita
Tying in tradition with modern activities, we thought it’d be fun to invite my father-in-law to read some poetry. So, he’s in his 80s. He loves this particular poem that he shares with us today. He actually read it at our wedding 26 and a half years ago, and he has it framed and up on the wall in their bedroom. So,, it’s in Farsi. I do give an English rendition of it directly after. It sounds beautiful, even if you don’t understand every word. And the version that I give in English is not a direct translation, but the general themes and ideas of love shine through. So, I hope you enjoy that.
17:37
[Bita’s father-in-law reciting Dooset Daram]
18:34 – Bita
A rendition of the poem, Dooset Daram. I Love You by Fereydoon Moshiri.
In a world of hues, love is the crimson flare,
My heart’s red flower blooming beyond compare,
With every beat, your spirit’s warmth I feel,
A gift so precious, my soul’s truest seal,
In enemies guise a friend your heart reveals,
A beacon of light where hope forever heals,
To God’s embrace your kindness gently guides a symphony of souls where love presides,
In this tapestry of words I find my art,
A poem of devotion, a love that set apart,
Say it not once, say it a hundred times,
I love you,
I love you,
I love you.
19:38 – Beata
Wow, Bita joon, so beautiful. I love Papa Gus’s deep voice. He’s so powerful and lovely and I love your rendition. Thank you so much for taking the time to translate that. I know it kind of can take a long time to do. I love it. And then the music that’s just so beautiful, the melody. I love it.
19:58 – Bita
I hope the sentiment came through. He, Papa Gus does have that like deep radio voice, so it works well in poetry reading. But yeah, I hope you felt my heart and that little clip of music comes from a relative of ours who’s really talented with both composing and playing the piano. He actually self-taught. He taught himself. So, in our family gatherings, we would always invite him to play and be blown away by Firooz Mohtadi’s musical talent. So, thank you for listening to that as well.
20:33 – Beata
Yeah, beautiful. You know, I think our Yalda episodes have been super special. I love it. This is our third year now that we’ve been celebrating Yalda together. So very exciting. You know, we’ve had various people come on the show and do features for us. That first year we repeated it. The second year, too, was my dad who has passed away now, but his reading for a really beautiful poem that he read and then also my translation for that as well. So, we’ve had really special Yalda episodes and I’m glad that we are having this one. And, you know, Yalda falls right before Christmas and around Hanukkah and for whoever’s celebrating that and right before New Year’s. So, let’s talk about how we’re going to be bringing in the holidays in the new year. You want to jump in what you’re going to be doing for holidays, New Year’s?
21:20 – Bita
Yeah, absolutely. We’re up in the Bay Area here where the family is. We’re going to be here celebrating with family and friends. And I came up with this cocktail recipe that I already finished. I’m calling it the pomegranate fizz. It’s really easy to make. Want to hear?
21:39 – Beata
Yeah, I’m ready.
21:41 – Bita
Okay! Take some lemon lime soda, basically like a Sprite, a 7 Up would work. I used a sugar free, I don’t love super sweet drinks. You’re going to do one part of your lemon lime soda, one part pomegranate juice. I use 100% pomegranate juice that you could pick up in many places. And I like sour drinks, so I put a little squeeze of lemon in there. And then if you want to spike it, I do put a shot of, I tried it with Absolut vodka yesterday and it was good. And today’s version has London gin. I decided to bring in gin in honor of the Women’s International Women’s Awards and also a really fun girls trip that we had in 2023, a mother-daughter trip to London where we had a gin tour. And it’s really good with gin actually. And then for garnish I have some sprigs of rosemary fresh from my garden that look like a little bit like a Christmas tree. And wedges of citrus. So, I have lemon and orange wedges on the edge of my glass which we’re blessed to also have those two trees and some pomegranate arils, which float to the bottom. So, I’m serving it with a spoon so that then you can scoop it up and eat your pomegranate arils. So, I’ve served this in two different types of glasses. Yesterday I did it in a martini glass. It looked really festive. I actually took out the cocktail maker and I didn’t even know how to use it. It’s been so many years, but I tried to shake it and I did the whole professional thing and then Bobby came home from work in 1950 style. I gave him his drink. He was so happy. He’s like, “What’s going on?”
23:30 – Beata
Oh my God, so cute. I love it.
23:32 – Bita
Yeah, I’m like, yeah, don’t get used to this, anyway. And today I served it up. I actually like the way I did it today. This is my holiday glass. That’s really pretty. It’s got like a kind of a Mediterranean design on it, but you can see through it. And the reason I like this glass, it’s like a high ball glass, is that I put crushed ice in it. So, I started the crush ice and I put all my ingredients and stirred it together. And what I liked about it is that the pomegranates actually stayed on top of the ice so you could see them. At least for a little while. You know, so that kind of made for a nice presentation. Cheers.
24:10 – Beata
Yeah. Lovely. Beautiful. Well, I can’t wait to have one of those. Maybe if you want to do it early at the cookie party, maybe I can have a little taste of that.
24:19 – Bita
I plan to because it goes with the pomegranate theme.
24:21 – Beata
Yeah, exactly. Perfect. Good idea.
24:24 – Bita
What do you got? Did you drink yours already?
24:26 – Beata
This drink that I made, you can have actually for Yalda if you’d like to, because one of the ingredients will help you stay up and enjoy the long night.
24:36 – Bita
Did you name it? Does it have a name or no?
24:39 – Beata
I’m working on the name. I’m working on the name. But what I made is a Persian mulled wine tea. Yeah, uh-huh. It was delicious. I can’t wait to post pictures of this, but this is what it ended up looking like.
24:55 – Bita
Oh wow, beautiful. That looks like that would work on Yalda Night.
25:00 – Beata
Yeah, it would be perfect for Yalda Night because it is this like bright kind of reddish color. So, you take your, you know, whatever red wine that you like to drink. So, the Persianifying of the recipe is that I brewed really strong Persian black tea with cardamom in it. And so I did one part wine, red wine, one part strong cardamom tea, a little bit of orange juice and about a quarter cup of quince syrup. And brought that to a boil with three or four long strips of orange peel. I got the orange and I kind of peeled it with like a vegetable peeler. I just got the skin of it and I threw some of those in there and I let it just simmer for a little bit and I then poured it into these like tea kind of Persian style tea cups with little slices of orange in there. And it was delicious. I love it. And you can kind of play with your ratios if you want to have like, you know, more cardamom taste or less cardamom taste, you know, or more citrus in there. So, you can really kind of customize it to how you like. But I made it and I drank it and I loved it. And I can’t wait to make this recipe like all winter long. Actually, it does have a little bit of the caffeine in there from the tea, but it’s kind of like a nice, you know, balance to like an alcoholic drink and being able to have something nice and warm and cozy. And I’m excited to share that with people.
26:22 – Bita
That sounds delicious. I really want to try that. Good idea. Very creative, Beata joon.
26:27 – Beata
Yeah, thanks! Thanks.
26:30 – Bita
My pomegranate spritz can also be a mocktail, very simply, just skipping, you know, the gin or the vodka. You could just make it with soda and juice and have it be a punch.
26:41 – Beata
Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great. And then besides that we’re going to be around for over the holidays. I’m looking forward to doing my New Year’s Day Aash e Reshteh. I love making Aash e Reshteh on the first day of the year, on January 1st, inviting everyone over, having a little bit of an open house, come have a bowl of soup for a great new year. It’s a Persian tradition that I have incorporated into my hybrid family. We use black-eyed peas, and we have our standard traditional Aash e Reshteh ingredients, and we make a really fun day out of it. So hopefully you guys can come by for that too, if you’re around.
27:11 – Bita
Oh, thank you. I would love to.
27:14 – Beata
This has been like a really great episode. We thought we’d just maybe take a few minutes just to reflect a little bit on this year. We’ve had a really impactful year. We’ve done such great things. Most recently we had a few events in Orange County. Bita joon, do you want to tell us a little bit about the event that you went to?
27:29 – Bita
I got to go to a pre-Yalda event in San Diego and it was put on by Persian Place. Sadri khanoom organized a lovely event. There were artwork stations with Persian arts and crafts. There were dancers, poetry readings, and I was really honored to be invited and included. So, I worked at a food table with a local chef who made aash e anar, sohan asali, which is like a saffron brittle. And I made my ajeel bags and I passed them out, and I was really happy to get to share and kind of give a little speech about Yalda. I tried to make it interactive and I got to meet one of our listeners. Megan from Kitchen Heroics came with her sweet little family, her baby boy and her husband and that was amazing. I really love the community stuff. And I think that you and I, Beata joon, we’ve gotten to do so many cool things this last year when I think back, it blows my mind. Um, you know, the TV appearances and the award show were amazing, but I think that the community events, like really talking to people and engaging and being part of a community event has been super special. And so, I can’t wait to see what we’re going to do next year because we’re a pretty dynamic duo, girl.
28:58 – Beata
Yeah, I know. I love it. Yes. Another cultural event that we did, Mehregan in Orange County. We headed up the food tent and MCed part of the event, which was really fun. The TV presence that you were talking about,
on the show Live in the Bay. We were super excited to be on TV. We set up a beautiful Tirgan sofreh and had a food demonstration. That was really fun.
29:20 – Bita
We pulled that together in 24 hours.
29:21 – Beata
Yeah, we did a really great job. We set the bar high for ourselves for one of our first TV appearances. The award shows, the Taste Awards earlier this year, we were finalists in several different categories and we were actually presenters and went on stage at this red carpet event and presented awards. So that was such an honor.
29:42 – Bita
That was so fun. Really fun.
29:44 – Beata
So fun. A quick little trip that we did down there. And then most recently, the International Women’s Podcast Awards. So awesome to be included in there. We won runner up.
29:56 – Bita
I would say we won. We won second place.
29:59 – Beata
We won second place, which is actually really hard to win second place.
30:02 – Bita
Yeah. It’s hard based on how many entries and, you know, I’m just saying it was a true honor.
30:10- Beata
Right. I think there were 31 different countries represented in that award show in London, and just such an honor to be included with such successful and amazing women podcasters. So, thank you to our listeners for giving us the support. I think with, you know, every episode, we are fine tuning and honing in our craft, and we just love sharing Persian culture and foods and celebrations and really to instill confidence in everyone and encourage people to take the time to reflect a little bit and pull part of the culture into their lives.
30:45 – Bita
Yeah, we hope that you’ve become inspired. If you plan to incorporate any of the things we talked about and a Yalda theme into your holidays, share with us. It’s part of what really makes it meaningful for us to see that our community is getting involved.
31:03 – Beata
Yeah, and that we are able to have impact. And just finally, just wanted to give a thank you to Amir from Amir’s School of Music. We have new podcast intro music that you may have noticed over the last handful of episodes. We’ve worked with Amir to come up with this lovely, fun Persian introduction music. And we are very thankful for him for doing that. And we hope that you all have a really great Yalda season, a great holiday, a great start to 2024 in good health and happiness.
31:33 – Bita
Until next time, bye.
31:35 – Beata
Bye bye.
31:39
Thank you for listening to the Modern Persian Food Podcast with Bita and Beata. Thanks for spending time with us. If you’ve enjoyed what you heard today, consider telling a friend or giving us a good rating. You can subscribe to our show for free on your favorite podcasting app, or find us online at modernpersianfood.com or on Instagram for the recipes and information we talked about today. We’d love to hear your thoughts and see you next time!
Key Word Definitions and Spellings
Aash e Anar, Aash-e-Anar, Aash-e Anar – Pomegranate soup with meatballs
Aash e Reshteh, Aash-e-Reshteh, Aash- Reshteh – Herb soup with noodles
Ajeel, Ajil – Persian trail mi
Anar – Pomegranate
Dooset Daram – “I Love You” poem by Fereydoon Moshiri
Fereydoon Moshiri – Persian poet
Fesanjoon, Fesanjan, Khoresh Fesanjoon, Khoresh Fesanjan, Khoresht Fesanjoon, Khoresh-e Fesanjoon, Khoresh-e Fesanjan – Pomegranate walnut stew
Firooz Mohtadi – Persian American Musician
Khanoom – Mrs/Ms
Korsi – A low table with a heating element underneath it
Mehregan – Harvest Festival
Santur – Persian dulcimer
Shab e Yalda, Shab-e-Yalda, Shab-e Yalda, Shabe Yalda or Yalda Night – The longest night of the year
Sofreh – Cloth or fabric that covers a table. Also used to mean a table decorated for a particular holiday.
Sohan Asali – Saffron brittle
Takhteh – Backgammon
Termeh – A type of Persian handwoven cloth
Tirgan – Summer rain festival
Tokhmeh – seeds
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