A Taste For Small Things

There is a quirky Persian market a half hour away, beloved by my family not only for its delicious grilled kebabs, but for the dry humor of the cranky old-timers who run the register and the take-out counter. I don’t have to drive twelve miles to buy parsley, leeks, and dill, but my list is filled with longing and the herbs are just an excuse. The Rose Market gives me a taste of home; to sniff packets of sumac and cardamom, even cakes of soap; to eavesdrop on the easy banter between the clerks—how I love to hear their voices over the static of a loudspeaker calling the kebab orders like life sentences to guys who man the grill—Two chicken, two koobideh. For here! I linger in the tea isle and study the script on each tin, I fondle jars of fig and sour cherry jam, filling my basket with lavashak - pomegranate fruit leather, pistachio halva, and noghl - sugar coated almonds. If I need saffron, I know the mister keeps it under the cash register like hundred dollar bills. When I tease him about his secret stash, he hands me a tiny cellophane envelope filled with delicate threads, like crimson hay. Here, good things come in small packages.

When I first met my husband, he was a regular at The Rose Market. Every Saturday morning, after a pick-up soccer game, he joined two Iranian teammates for lunch, and there he was introduced to Persian cuisine. Ah, the things we do for love. Eager to please my family, he asked his friends to teach him Farsi and they obliged. Later, while boasting to my mother that they had ordered koobideh, a ground beef kebab, gojeh, a grilled tomato, and dool - penis, for lunch, she howled knowing his friends had set a trap. “You mean doogh, honey. Not dool!” she corrected. “Yes, the fizzy yogurt drink. It’s delicious!” he replied. No doubt.

Passing years have not diminished my enthusiasm for the charms of Rose Market. I anticipate the long drive like a dog wags its tail before leaving for a walk. It begins in the morning as I’m staring out the window at the first blossom on the crabapple tree. By the time the breakfast dishes are done, I’ve composed a list: dried mulberries, sugar cubes, feta, cucumbers, but I’ll come home with much more. I don’t want to leave looking over my shoulder, wondering if I might have forgotten something. Each ingredient yields a twin I would not want to leave behind, tea for sugar cubes, yogurt for cucumbers, lavash for feta. But these trips are quotidian compared to our Norouz pilgrimage. That’s when I make up for all the wish lists I never wrote to Santa.

Norouz, the Persian New Year, coincides with the first day of spring and in my efforts to get it right, to follow tradition and uphold a cherished holiday, I look to my grumpy grocer. The shelves at The Rose are stocked with everything from hyacinth to delicate chickpea cookies scented with rosewater, the owners going so far as bringing in a fish tank and scooping out goldfish for your haftsin, the symbolic table you will likely find in every Iranian household days before March 20^th. I sense the old-timers are on my side. They will send me home with everything I need to celebrate like a pro.

When I’ve marinated my fish with lemon peel and salt, and washed the fresh herbs for sabzi polo, a rice dish as quintessential as turkey on Thanksgiving, I am once again an apprentice to the alchemist, a student of Persian cuisine. No matter how many times I’ve made this dish, after chopping dill, parsley, and cilantro, spooning layers of rice with herbs, cinnamon, leeks, and green garlic, then wrapping the lid of my rice pot with a dishtowel to trap the steam, I still feel the eyes of generations before me with raised eyebrows and their discontent. Humph! Look how coarsely she chopped the herbs. My God that rice is begging for butter! Where is the fenugreek? Did you see how stingy she was with the cinnamon? I drizzle more butter and say grace because an apprentice is never sure if she got it right, always getting by on a song and a prayer with a little help from the fellas.

NPR's Tell Me More is doing a wonderful broadcast all about Norouz on Tuesday March 20th.