I'm Being Exported!!

But as the Governator says, "I'LL BE BACK!"

It's Cooking Time!

Seeing as we just don't have the opportunity to go outside and purchase ingredients, we've been putting together dishes these days that rival my cooking adventures my first years at Berkeley ("No, the ketchup goes IN the Ramen noodles"). Here are some of my discoveries that actually taste good:

Zucchini with a Tomato and a Potato

Italian cuisine... hawzah style

You will need:
3 zucchinis
A tomato
You guessed it... a potato
Salt
Oil (NOT the sheep fat they sell at the butcher's)
A pot
A metal spoon
A knife

1. Wash the zucchinis but do NOT under ANY circumstances peel them. You don't want to lose any of that zucchini goodness, do you? But do peel the potato. No civilized person wants potato skins in their food. Cube the zucchini, potato, and tomato.
2. Sautee the potato in the oil. (This part will require the metal spoon. If, like me, your metal spoon was stolen again during suhur by someone who clearly missed the "Thou shalt not steal" lesson in ahkam class, you will need to aquire one in the next couple minutes. Be sure not to repay evil with evil and snatch another one, or your food will become haram -- unless of course it is your friend's friend's roommate's spoon, in which case it becomes halal by transmutation; or unless it really really looks like your own spoon, in which case God is forgiving) Sautee the potato well, because this will be the only flavor the food will have.
3. Add the tomato. Sautee the tomato extra well so that no one can tell that there should have been more than one tomato in this dish.
4. Add the zucchini and a bit of water (the drinking kind, not the tap kind). Boil.
5. While the zucchini is cooking, smash the potato bits with a metal spoon. This will give the food a thickish consistency and leave the conissuer to wonder what other delights might have been pureed into the broth.
6. And finally, eat.


Apple Turnovers

When I was teaching Little House on the Prairie, I remember scoffing at the simplicity of the prairie-life recipies such as "Fried Apples" that were included in the teacher's sourcebook. No more.

You will need:
2 cans of Iranian canned apples (like the kind my friend gave me when I was sick)
2 pieces of lavash bread
Sugar or other sweetener
Lemon juice
Oil
Salt
A metal plate
A metal spoon (that darn spoon again)
A knife
A can opener

1. Once you have been able to find it, use the can opener to open the cans of apples. Then, obsessively wash all of the liquid off of the apples since you are paranoid about whatever else happens to have been in the can and because your friend who isn't allergic to anything else gets allergic recations to canned apples.
2. Finely chop the apples on the metal plate. Add the sugar, a splash of lemon juice, and the salt (the salt is actually very important here because it brings out the sweetness of the apples). Cook for a while until any remaining liquid evaporates.
3. Remove the apples from the plate. (This will probably entail putting them back in the can, but oh well) Pour a fine layer of oil (OIL, NOT sheep fat or vegetable ghee) onto the plate. Add one piece of lavash, the apples, and another piece of lavash. Cook at medium heat until the bottom is brown (think tah digh here).
4. While cooking, rescue a styrofoam container from the trash (what a waste). Wash it exceedingly well until you can't ever tell it contained Pakistani food.
5. Flip the apple turnover. If you are like 90% of the population, the lavash will tear as you flip it, but just try to pretend like it didn't happen. Continue cooking until the other side browns.
6. Slide the contents into the styrofoam. The shape should mask any holes.
7. Eat. When done, toss the styrofoam back into the trash again.


Grilled Dates with Panir

This one is my specialty.

You will need:
2 pieces of lavash (getting a pattern here?)
Dates
Panir
Oil
A metal plate
Salt
Optional: Honey

1. As in the Apple Turnover, cover the bottom of the plate with oil. Add 1 piece of lavash. Top with some pitted dates, crumbled panir, the optional honey, and a dash of salt. Then add the second piece of lavash.
2. Fry. While frying, continually squash the lavash with the spoon; remember, "thin is in."
3. When brown and crunchy (not smoking), flip and fry some more. Note: if you do not have a spoon, or potholders, break off bits of the lavash and use them to insulate yourself from the heat. Then, when you are done, you can eat them too.


Huevos Con Frijoles

For some reason, a lot of my food of late has been taking on a Mexican flair. It must have something to do with someone I used to live with....

This is a deluxe dish, requiring many ingredients.

You will need:
A can of Khorak Lubiya Chiti (a.k.a. "Beans")
An egg
Really hot green peppers
A cooked, cubed zucchini
Oil (Yes, oil)
Salt
A pot or metal plate
A spoon
A can opener

1. Finely chop the green peppers. Test them to see if they are actually really hot. (How will you know? Trust me, you will)
2. Fry the green peppers in the oil. Then, add the Khorak Lubiya Chiti and zucchini and refry. Bludgeon the zucchini while refrying so no one who has a vegetable aversion would ever imagine there was zucchini in it.
3. Now, fry the egg next to the beans. It should be roughly yellow in color.

You could eat this with lavash, but I'm sick of it, so I ate it by itself.


Peas and Honey

Exactly what it sounds like.

You will need:
Peas
Honey
(No spoon this time)

1. Mix

Enjoy!!!

Meet Your Neighbors

There are a lot of ways to meet your neighbors -- at the market, at the mosque, or at the cops. But one of the best ways to get a true cross-section of your neighbors -- independent of origin, creed, or thought -- is at the hospital.

The sun had long since set when my friend came down with a fever of astronomical proportions as well as devilish hives, so she and I and an older lady hit a taxi and made for a nighttime clinic. Straight away, we entered what I would call the "Injection Room", because everyone in there was getting an injection. And then we froze in the middle of the room, transfixed. One of the patients was screaming her head off, calling out for everyone from her mother to Imam Husain, and we weren't quite sure what was wrong with her.

A nurse took us out of our reverie and led my friend to a bed, where she hooked her up to her serum (this was a bring-your-own medicine clinic) and left her to drip. I surveyed the nondescript room and realized that being in the hospital in Iran was way different than being in the hospital in America. In America, they do everything they can to keep the patients separate. Here -- like so many other things -- it was more of a social experience. "What's wrong with her?" "Will she get better?" And, of course, "Salaam alaikum!!! How are you??? So good to see you!!!!!" (Small world, eh) Another lady chided the screaming woman, "Quit that wailing, and quiet down now." While I had hitherto been somewhat put off by the local habit of telling whoever is doing something out of the norm to STOP doing it in the most demeaning of ways, I detected an undercurrent of concern behind the lady's words, and I began to look at my neighbors differently.

As we waited (drip... drip... drip... there were 1,000 mL to drip), I realized something else. Incapacitated or otherwise, these women were stylish. I don't know how they did it, but all of the women there (except for this sedate lady) were wearing the most classy mantos, "in" pants, and vogue chadors. They even had elaborate make-up jobs and impeccable hairdos (except for the screaming lady, but that was probably because she was grabbing at her head). I wondered if I would look so together in a medical emergency.

As another 50 mL dripped, I began to get bored (even my friend was bored), so I wandered out to the waiting room. There, everyone -- men, women, friends, relatives, employees -- was literally glued to the TV set, which was showing the hit miniseries Nargis. Since, having missed the first few episodes, I wasn't quite sure what Nargis was about, I tried to ask the lady next to me, but I was met with a chorus of "SSSSSSSHHHHHH!!!" I did however glean that it was about some boy who wanted to marry some girl but his dad wouldn't let him.

With some sympathy for the poor guy, I left the roomful of zombies and returned to the drip. The lady had stopped yelling and was asleep. My friend's fever and hives had subsided too. And then the bill came. When I saw it, I almost had to be admitted to the hospital. Weren't there supposed to be some more zeroes??? Granted, this clinic lacked some amenities that hospitals have back home (such as changing the sheets between patients), but surely sheet-changing can't be on the level of powers of ten. We paid the (to my American eyes) measly bill, and then made our way back.

The next morning, I woke up with a fever that, in my imagination, rivaled our daytime temperature. "Why don't you go to the doctor?" someone asked.

Visions of soaring medical bills, inscrutable deductibles, and overpriced pharmaceuticals danced in my head. "Nah, I'm not that sick," I said.

"You Americans," she laughed. "You never want to go to the doctor."

She had a point.