Bread and Stories
Reminiscing about his childhood dream of becoming an astronaut, my friend Larry said, "Back then, everything was possible." That wistful statement resonated far beyond its context. Back then—however far back you want to plant that bright flag of possibility in your or the nation's history—
Bread and Stories
A chance to cheer on —and cheer up — a remarkable family.
Things Invisible to See
“Beware of first-hand ideas!”
food
It's such an odd little word: short but drawn out, comical yet faintly sinister.
friendship
Spring is time for feasts and festivals of renewal and rebirth—Easter, Passover, and Iran's Nowruz (literally "new day")—but this year it was hard to get into the spirit. [I link to Inhinan's post below, but I'm putting it here, too,
Enlightenment
Pondering the Enlightenment while defending the castle.
American
I was sitting here thinking about the kinds of love—how no matter what the movies try to sell us, nobody can make it on eros alone.
Bread and Stories
I told a version of these friends' love story for Valentine's Day two years ago. They are always the first people I think of when trouble boils over within Iran and between Iran and the U.S. It seems like a good time to retell their story...and to share Solmaz's world-famous walnut cookie recipe.
Jewish grandma
Food and stories: in the case of my old Jewish relatives, it's impossible to separate the two.
Bread and Stories
I think we tell and hear too few kinds of stories about ourselves...
chicken soup
In our digitally intertwined, always-on lives, one of the more startling windows into another person's day is the accidental connection: the butt-dialed call, the mis-addressed email or text. Yesterday I answered the phone and heard a friend cussing at some "moron" in traffic.
stories
I was born in Misrata, a city on the Mediterranean coast of Libya, but I took my first steps in Tripoli where I grew up and spent most of my life. From an early age I was bilingual, speaking Arabic and Tamasheq, the Tuareg language. The two languages embody vastly different ways of being...
