Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Happy New Year

I want to wish a happy new year to all my Persian Peeps (there are many) who are celebrating New Years today (usually on March 20 or 21st). It's a pre-Islamic custom that clerics frown on, but who cares, it's the start of the vernal equinox! And, it's full of great "rituals" that we do anyways: spring cleaning, buying new clothes and setting the table. Only this table is decorated with seven symbols of life, health and beauty using stuff like hyacinth plants, rosewater, coins, candles. There should also be a gold fish in a bowl, a mirror for cleanness and honesty, decorated eggs for fertility.  It's not green beer or anything, but you might want to get down with a little Persian cuisine which only be found at Rice House of Kabob in Miami Beach. It's not quite as good as Moby Dick in DC, which I'm sure it was inspired by, but it's pretty darn good for a basmati rice fix. Enjoy!
Jujeh and Kubideh combo with sumac sprinkled on top
Posted by at 11:55 AM
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1 comment:

  1. RoxTMarch 21, 2012 at 9:24 AM

    Happy Norwrooz Hadley!

    I'll always remember coming home to your great Persian cooking when we lived together. I'm really surprised you have given up on cooking Persian yourself. We usually eat herbed rice with fish for the new year. I wish you were with us to celebrate. But I will see you soon, thankfully.

    I copied a list of the meanings of the items beginning with S below:

    - Sprouts - sabzi- represent rebirth.
    - Samanu is a pudding in which common wheat sprouts are transformed and given new life as a sweet, creamy pudding and represents the ultimate sophistication of Persian cooking.
    - Apple - Seeb - represents health and beauty.
    - Senjed, the sweet, dry fruit of the Lotus tree, represents love. It has been said that when lotus tree is in full bloom, its fragrance and its fruit make people fall in love and become oblivious to all else.
    - Garlic - Seer - represents medicine and health.
    - Sumac berries - sumag - represent the color of sunrise; with the appearance of the sun Good conquers Evil.
    - Vinegar - serke - represents age and patience.

    Also, a few coins placed on the table to represent prosperity and wealth;
    a basket of painted eggs represents fertility;
    a Seville orange floating in a bowl of water represents the earth floating in space;
    a goldfish in a bowl represents life and the end of astral year-picas;

    Love and light and happy vernal equinox

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