I Need Your Help

Yesterday I had an idea. One that both frightens me and makes me excited. I thought, why don’t I compile a picture book of my time here? Wouldn’t that be the very best way of closing a chapter? No pun intended. Okay, pun totally intended. What do you think? With anecdotes and recipes and maybe one or two poems (because I hear poems don’t really sell). Not that money is a focus for me whatsoever. I swear to God, all I want to do is create. I have dreamt of publishing a book ever since I was a little widdle head-scarf wearing school girl. Won’t you please help? Any ideas, any contacts, any advice, anything at all because I really don’t know one thing about doing this. Will you buy it? Is it a good idea? What do you want to see in it? Who should I contact? How do I do this?

Eagerly awaiting your comments and messages,
Anisa

 

So This Happened…

I bought a watermelon the size of a Japanese sumo wrestler and made Persian Breakfast for lunch for my Japanese friends.

A friend commented my picture looked like a pregnancy one. I replied, yes and judging by my pants, my water broke too. It IS water by the way. I assure you.

Nothing Beats Persian Food

Nothing. Nada. Nil.

In addition to all of the other food, I have been eating some LEGIT Persian food. And not any Persian food but Persian food made with love by my loving mama and talented sister. And, with local and organic ingredients. Oh my, how I wish you could taste it too!

From top to bottom: Persian breakfast featuring a wholemeal fruit and nut loaf from Vic’s Cafe, khoreshteh gheymeh bademjoon (a lentil, eggplant and beef dish) with saffron rice, salad, yoghurt and pickled vegetables. And last but best of all, ghormesabzi (a green stew made from beef, red kidney beans and a combination of herbs and vegetables). Yum to the freakin’ O.

Christchurch Farmer’s Market

I don’t want to sound too anti-Japan. Honestly, it’s a great country and there’s endless beauty but there have been a lot of things that I have been missing. Like, organic vegetables! Ugly vegetables that actually taste amazing and that are not wrapped in mounds of plastic. Oh how I love the Riccarton Market. It’s the only thing anyone should be doing on a Saturday morning. And, Posh Porridge. So good. We got the banana and boysenberry. The latter, not found in Japan. No boysenberries! Nor beetroots. And fejoias are super rare to find. Fun first day, check. For lunch, mum made soupeh jo (Persian barley soup with melt-in-your-mouth NZ lamb) which we ate with the organic bread and walnuts from the market, goat’s feta and fresh cucumber, tomato and mint.

Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. -Terry Pratchett

 

I Only Exercise So I Can Eat More

God, I love weekends. Especially when they’re not winter! Yesterday was 25 degrees celsius so I biked 20km for local oranges and organic French bread. Oh and I ate a baked sweet potato on the way. These by the way, are amazing. Their season is almost over but in the winter, you’d find them sold everywhere. I don’t know the exact oven they’re cooked in  but whatever it is, it cooks the shit out of them and leaves them all soft and squishy and some places sell it (hot baked sweet potato) with ice-cream! Yum yum oishii.

PS the flying fish are for “Boy’s Day” whatever that means and the last picture is a Persian breakfast. You can read all about that HERE.

Move Move Move

With all the dreadful earthquakes hitting Japan, I’ve been thinking about how important it is to MOVE NOW. I’ve come to realize that if we wait for the “right” time we will be waiting forever. There is no right time. There will always be a better time; when you’re in a better place, more financially stable, healthier, fitter, stronger, with a clearer state of mind etc etc and that is an endless chase. So wear your nice suit and your best skirt, tell your crush/partner/spouse and loved-ones just how much they mean to you or your colleagues, local baker and next-door neighbor, how much you appreciate them. Use your expensive crockery yourself, don’t save them for a special occasion. Today is the special occasion. And if there’s something you’ve always wanted to do, do it. Life is short. So cliche or not, make the most of your life and move NOW. Though your move(s) doesn’t have to be huge nor melodramatic, it doesn’t have to be migrating to a new country or changing your career (though it can be). Movement can also happen in small steps. For each of us these are different. They can be baking a pie, a quiet walk in nature or building a chair. In the words of Miranda July, “don’t wait to be sure. Move, move, move.” To which I want to add: love love love and create create create.

Pictures from top to bottom: morning walks before work in my very rural and very pretty village, Mexican night at Kaori’s with brown rice and slow-cooked boar meat, Persian bento game on point with mayo-free Persian salad olivieh (recipe HERE) and last, a Kiwiana delivery by Anisa sensei for the other senseis.

A HEALTHY Persian Salad Olivieh

Come on Persians, let’s face it, there’s a reason our fathers and uncles have those pot bellies; Persian food. It’s one of a kind, always saliva inducing, forever flavourful and smothered in barberries, pistachios and mayo. Salad Olivieh, our version of potato salad calls for at least 2 CUPS of mayonnaise and that particular recipe claimed to be a “healthier” version of the original. And, as if that ain’t heart-attack inducing enough, we Iranians like to spread even MORE mayonnaise on top. My dilemma is, it happens to be one of my favourites. So, my mission? To healthify the shizz out of it.

First, abort chicken – the original recipe calls for shredded chicken.

Next, abort mayo and use a combination of 100% natural yoghurt and avocado instead.

3 free-range eggs, hard boiled
3 medium potatoes, boiled
2 cups of frozen peas, corn and carrots, thawed
1 cup of Persian gherkins, chopped small

Dressing:
1.5 cups natural yoghurt (I used Greek yoghurt)
1/2 large avocado
juice of half a lemon
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper

Grate the eggs and potatoes and transfer to a large bowl.

Next, add peas, corn, carrots and gherkins then mix well.

For the dressing, combine all dressing ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.

Reserve 1/4 cup of dressing then add remainder to the salad.

Mix mix mix again.

To finish, transfer salad to a nice dish, smooth top using back of a spoon then decorate pretty.

 

So I have a confession to make…

But it is not really a confession. More like a realisation. A sad and rather disheartening discovery of self, if you may. Okay, here it is:

Chef Anisa is not really a Chef.

Allow me to elaborate, in pictorial evidence. The following are “Chef” Anisa’s recent creations: a Mediterranean brunch featuring shakshuka and cannellini-bean dip, a vegan smoothie bowl (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) and a vegetarian lasagna.

Do you SEE what I’m sayin’? I don’t know how to cook. I just know how to cook three/four meals, anew.

Ah, the shame. The utter downright ignominy of it all. I’m Persian for goodness sake. Where is the saffron? The pistachio nuts, the glistening fried barberries atop the fragrant jasmine rice and the mint fried onions swimming in my ASH*?

New Year’s resolution TWO: cook new stuff.

*Ash is an traditional Persian soup. It is green and chunky and full of the good stuff: legumes, meat, noodles, herbs and spice.

Some non-typical Kyoto snaps

Talk of “Kyoto” usually elicits images of temples, shrines, tofu, leguminous dessert and women in Kimono. Here, I share some of my not-so-typical Kyoto snaps all taken and edited on my humble/not-so-humble iPhone. From top to bottom, the images present; a soy chai latte (my favorite drink) purchased at a Starbucks – (yes, I was that person who visits a far-away exotic land and still dines at McDonalds), foodporn from a Persian Restaurant (Arash’s Kitchen) and my fave Asian baby on a train.