Hello and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold your host of cookies is coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan the Rockefeller Center at newsstand studios joined as usual with John Mahoney hey don't tundra thanks. Yeah, doing well done all this weird we can't decide what kind of spring it is day.

Yeah, it's really strange but whatever. As long as not dripping sweat heat again. I'm good. Yeah.

All right. Got Joe Hayes and rocket panels How you doing Joe? I'm doing great man. How are you? I'd say a good I think. Yeah, look good, thanks. Well it's been a weird I was taking me know my younger son DAX around to look at the colleges that he has to choose between which is you know, everyone you know, it's nice to be able to choose but then he has to choose. And so I feel like it's a Monday even though it's a Tuesday that were happening, you

know, Sunday, Mondays are my Sunday so today always feels like a Monday everyone's workweek is

so messed up these days. John that like I always when I'm when I'm seeing someone I try to gauge the look on their face. Like when I'm at a store. I was like Is today your Friday? You know what I mean? You got a hero, Jackie molecules over there? I'm assuming in Los Angeles.

Yes, I am in LA. So

get this check. So we're at this college place yesterday. Right? And you know, parents, every parents have to ask goofy questions. It's kind of like what you do. And there's always a couple parents who are like, me, me me. And so there's one person was like, I'm from LA. How are how are my kids going to be able to handle the weather out here? We're all like every week literally, my entire section was like you don't go home. Go home. Anyway, because it was in Northeast College. Yeah. Got Mr. Garcia in. I'm assuming in coastal Connecticut. How you doing?

Good. I'm good. It's windy here.

Yeah, it was windy down here. But like so. You know, Anastasia, for those of you that don't know, she's like, in this like, like weird little house like literally right on the water on the sound and used to like, like wind I guess. Right. But now you hate wind.

Yeah, I really hate it. I can't stand it.

Yeah, but it's like that's kind of problematic.

Yeah, I know. The stasis house

is so windy. I mean, like, okay, so it gives us not like the ocean ocean because it's Long Island Sound right? So it's like you do have like that like, you know, little pile of rocks Long Island, like kind of breaking the breeze coming off of the I guess the wind for us goes the other way. Anyway, right comes from behind your back, but it's so windy where Anastasia is that like, it's kind of a regular thing where someone will call or be like, Hey, your windows are shattered. Right? I mean, like, just like a regular thing for you. Know, ya know,

also when traveling. Any questions not one. Realize that when comes from lots of different direction

where you are you mean? I mean, like generally where we live? They come from the West, like overall overall. Overall, what do you mean? That's prevailing westerlies? I'm not making this up. Like that's a thing. But yes, I mean, obviously, it can come from any direction at any given time, right? That is how you mean like any given time, it can switch to where you are, it seems like you can get beaten from any direction.

Now but the rest of the world has named for the winds for the different direction winds were the only like country that doesn't know our wind names.

mean like the prevailing westerlies?

That's the only one you know, what are the rest of them called?

We don't have any here we have like, certain things like nor'easters that come in from different directions but like, you know, we we don't you know, that's that's what we got. We're kind of a boring joint. You know what I'm saying? Like, well, what do you what are you what do you have? What do you name them over there? But like over there, like 180 miles north of me or whatever? It's 30 miles north of me.

Oh, no, no, no, nevermind. It's complicated. Okay, nevermind.

I like a complicated story.

And we have the Santa Ana winds over here. That's

in down south we have El Nino Yeah, we don't get that. No, that's so tropic. I mean, it affects us hugely, but we don't get it. You know what I mean? We're you know, hey, Connecticut. Interesting. Geologically. Very interesting state. Super geologically interesting. Anyway, whatever. Got Quinn in Vancouver, Ron, how you doing?

I'm good. Yeah, really?

You sound good, man. Yeah. All right. Your now's your chance to say no, actually, you know, anyway. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And you know, in keeping with the past I'm it's been a year since we've been doing it so I don't even need to say it's like a new thing anymore. Right, John? Because it's like how we do it now. Yeah, yeah. Like to welcome our guest owner, founder of white moustache, yogurt, author of you yogurt and Way Home Adarsh taki how're you doing? I'm good. Thank you. I met you recently at a talk you gave for Mofaz museum food and drink at the Essex Street Market upstairs, which was nice. And I guess was that set up by by Nazli our fearless. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Part of the part of the kind of Iranian food mafia as she says her her words not mine.

Yeah. Follow her off a cliff. That woman Yeah. Happily. Nice.

Alright, and then also, though, introduce your book because we share an editor. Yes, we do. Yeah. Melanie from from Norton.

She matchmade here today knowing that I had this ingredient and she finds various centric esoteric homes for me and this is a perfect one because I've always loved the cocktail world.

Yet with this is gonna be a little weak because it's so funny. Okay, so people who know me know me as kind of inhuman monster. Right, John? Yeah. Yeah. Like, it's not that I'm not human. It's that like, I don't know. How do you put it stars? It's like, what I don't I don't like, like, the feelings don't work or something like this. What is it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so in reading your book, but we're gonna get back to our normal shooting the breeze but in reading your book, like your book is very much about having feelings. Yeah. And so like, like, a lot of his conversation for me is going to be like working around, like someone who clearly like has feelings about things and like the way that I think about things so it should be fun, should be good. It's not that you don't have feelings. It's just whatever what we'll get into it. So like, so now is the point a part of the show where we mentioned if we anything interesting happened in the past week in the food, usually in the food realm, but not always, like I already basically said I went around to you know, where DAX was considering going to college, but, you know, I did have good ice cream at UConn? No, no, UConn has very good ice cream flavor. I had so when you're at UConn, I don't know if you have to be in the ag department. But you can take a class in ice cream. Right? Which amazing, right? So like to me like the the ones that I know of the great ice cream programs are? Penn State. UConn and Cornell right. As far as I know. I'm sure there are many others. These are the ones only that I know about. I've never been to State State College Pennsylvania. So I've never I've never had you Penn State's ice cream. Even though my grandpa was a Nittany Lion anyway. But Cornell's ice cream is good, but Yukons ice cream like they milk their own cows, they have their own cows, they milk them and they make it and the seniors get to make a flavor. And so like whatever like the best one of the suggestions is like it's called senior scoop. So I got senior Scoop it was it was good is like almond. It was like an like an amaretto kind of a flavor with chocolate chunks and some nut forget what not whether it was more almonds or something better like pistachios, northern almonds are worse than pistachio, you know, they they'd start but it was good. A little too little to unravel from a little too little too, too much of the extract. But the texture was good. It was good. And I like to support a senior flavor. Yeah, so that was great. Yeah.

Great. So my weird food thing for the week. Sure. Yeah, actually, something super weird did happen to me. I boiled a gallon of milk, and it didn't boil over. Hmm. It just sat in the pot and gurgled. And the core of me was shook that this you know, like the whole thing is to worry about that moment. Yeah. And, and now I'm on a quest to buy a gallon of every possible type of milk, spoil them side by side and try to replicate it and understand why and I'm not even a scientist. I'm almost like repelled by science and foods. Which, you know, I know this is difficult. But I was I couldn't believe it. Like, I was like, How is this milk not behaving in the way I'm accustomed to milk behaving?

And so was it a different milk?

There was a different milk than I normally use, but it was like, of the caliber. And I won't name names until I like until I until I can confidently name names. But I was it was really upsetting. I was like, Why isn't this doing what is supposed

let me ask you this. So it's boiling, right? It didn't. It didn't form up at all.

It. It just kind of girl. It's sort of like it's kind of Cappuccino Latte. It'll Let it all but that was it. It didn't like come up. It didn't start rising. I don't even

understand how it's possible. I don't exactly make yogurt from it.

I did. It didn't work. It didn't work. So it wasn't like these ultra pasteurized milks that don't work. It was it was just baffled. I'm just fully baffled.

Yeah, cuz that's not something and like, you know, you did, like a spiritual crisis, you didn't have like a bunch of like silicone compounds rolling around you weren't like boiling down like bicycle lubricant in that thing that's minute before something like this now, and

I even got access to like a fancy copper PA. So like everything felt very legit. And didn't have

was it in front of a bunch of people. And were you embarrassed.

And now you're talking about it or really doubled down on,

this happens to me, it doesn't have to be as much right when I used to do a lot of like, kind of on the road demos, like a lot of them. And I always love using like local ingredients or whatever. But like, often, you know, something that you think is always going to happen. someone hands you an ingredient and you're like, oh, like, oh, you know what I mean? Like, I had a milk problem once but with you know, UHT like they brought me the UHT milk. And I was trying to break it with like alcohol and acid. I was trying to break it into curds and just wouldn't break for a huge group of people. And I was being translated because I don't speak Spanish was a nightmare. You know what I mean? Yeah, another time also in front of a Spanish speaking audience, also being translated. I've got these awesome bananas that were like really sweet tasting, like super like, you know, not the Cavendish, like we get. And I was like, Oh, these are really right, these are gonna work no problem, because what I do is I blend them into liquor, rum. And then I put them in a centrifuge and I spit them out. And the you know, a Cavendish banana when it's fully ripe, has no starch in it. These bananas, even though they were delicious, still had starch. And so it wouldn't clear out so like, perfectly in front of everybody, you know what I mean?

But this, like, I mean, I hear you and I will try to be forgiving, but I feel like this is milk like milk needs to behave a certain way. Otherwise, I'm gonna be very mad at it. Yeah. So I need to I need to kind of understand what happened.

So how far away was it and without obviously not going to name it, but like, this was can you source it again, with windy,

Connecticut? I'm going to source the wind.

You know, maybe you know, maybe maybe Anastasia has a stink eye zone around where she lives where she can throw the stink eye onto the milk and have a deep boil over?

I Yeah. And Mercury's in retrograde. So we may we may need to take all these factors into consider. Yeah,

yeah. Well, you got to source that milk again. No. Well, and, you know, somehow get word back, you know, to us. What have I Well, yeah, because repeatable weirdnesses are super interesting, super interesting. I didn't know that. lightful I actually had another non repeatable thing. i Okay, my, my family is against microwaving things in plastic, which whatever, I don't really want to get into it. But like, like, quart containers are made of polypropylene. And you know, they can withstand, like a good bit of temperature as opposed to polyethylene or these other things. Right. So I was melting butter, because that's what I do. Get a pan dirty women get a pan dirty for that. Find a mug. I don't know, what do you do, John?

I'd probably put in a quart container and put in the microwave.

Dang. Yeah. And so like I put it in there. But you know, I'm also super lazy. So I'm a one button microwave guy. I hit the go button and then I walk away. And I must have hit the wrong Go button because like three minutes later, I was like, why is the microwave still going? And it hadn't boiled over which of course butter typically does, but it boiled up the sides and it turned to brown butter. I had accidentally made brown clarified, clarified brown butter in the microwave. And then, um, I've never do this again. I'm never gonna do this again. But I was still like, you know, it was a nice it was a nice thing to brush on top of my biscuits. You know? didn't melt the plastic. Depends on who you ask. Right? I don't think it melted the plastic saw like all I mean, yeah, yeah, the biscuits were good though. I was using Sonora white which is one of my favorite wheats. I've been now experimented with a lot of snow expensive though. It's expensive wheat What about you guys? Were stars you got anything?

No, no,

no, just the wind. Just you in the wind? Yeah, yeah. What do you like to eat on a like a windy night pasta? Let me guess.

Oh, I don't I really I don't know. I don't know. It all sucks because of the wind.

What about what about a rainy night? Do you still love a rainy night? Did I put that song in your head? If I poisoned your mind with that song.

That's fine. They will Right now we're not. We're not really eating. I'm not really we're, we have other problems than like me thinking. I knew

our business. Yeah, but not from after this one hour a week. This one hour a week. We don't have those sorts of business problems. Well, I really

indulge myself on rainy night. And yeah, go like full.

Yeah, yeah. Nice. Good to hear. Yeah. Good to hear. Yeah. What about you, Jack?

I, my I impressed my girlfriend with this year as well, too. That's what just happened. Nice. She's always looking at it. Like what? I don't get it. Yeah, Susie, but why would I want one? And then we had sort of, you know, woodfired pizza at a restaurant and came home with some leftovers. And I was like, Aha, the perfect moment to flex to why you need Sears all and everybody does the pizza and she was like, oh my god, this is better than it was at the restaurant.

I appreciate. There you go. I appreciate you Jack. Although for like one small moment. I thought you were gonna whip out of like, like you had some sort of like fanny pack or something with the whole torch rig in it. At the restaurant. You're like, Oh, man. And like doing it at the restaurant. That'd be that'd be intense. Get you kicked out but it'd be would be intense. For sure. 100% even like Anastasia and I at the height of our like, bad behavior at Roberta's pizzeria. Never went that far. Right.

Although, that would have been great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hold on. Let me fix this for you. Because the thing was inside pizza, especially like, it's so time sensitive. If you don't eat that thing in the first like, five minutes. It's chewy. I don't know. So do you use that needs the Sears all tableside

to use that inherent flaw? Or is that couple of minutes? Where is the way it is before it had that happens to it worth the worth it to you?

For me inherent flaw? I'm like, funny enough, like not a huge fan of that selfie stick for that reason.

Okay, I think this is something you know that, you know, reasonable people can have disagreements about, I think, you know, no, right answer. Wrong answer. What about Ukraine? You got anything for me?

Oh, I got two little things. Okay. Well, I actually gave a little yogurt project yesterday, kind of. I had some homemade, like, heavy heavy stream yogurt. And I actually used that as the curdling acid for a mini batch. ricotta, and it was really good. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Like a whole milk like, you get good milk up there. In the

West, I didn't get I didn't get the fanciest milk. I got like, mid tier milk. But yeah, it was good. So and I also made right Oh, yeah, go ahead.

What's mid tier milk to you?

Okay, it's like the big brand, but it's the organic one.

Sweet. Okay, can I tell you something that people are gonna get really pissed off? Booker bought with my credit card, an organic milk. And when I looked at it, I said to him, you just paid extra money for a label. Those people don't care about their product. And he was like, what? I'm like, you just threw money into a toilet? I don't know. But I think I'm not the right person. Because I get like I only I only will pay extra if I feel somebody cares about their product. But that's me. But you think these people cared about them in order for you mid tier is it means that you bought organic or you think you bought something where they at least moderately cared?

Yeah, both. Again, there is a like medium sized brand of grass fed milk is relatively local. I usually try to get there if I'm doing like a serious milk project. But they didn't have it in stock at the time. Okay.

All right. Don't leave anyone out. anyone's got anything. John. That leaves you out.

Yeah, I went out the other night. I don't know this more like a question. I guess. When does a martini stop being a martini? So specifically, I went to this place. I have this whole Martini menu. Vodka, vanilla clarified passionfruit lime, Sherry and sparkling wine. Like that's not a martini, right?

No, no, no, that's yeah, no, no, no. Oh, listen, there's a couple of things. There's few things that I hate more than semantic discussions of cocktail names. Especially as it relates to what is what particular cocktail or what isn't, because then like, you know, at the end of the day, everything is either a martini. Yeah, sometimes people split things into well, there's there's a martini in Manhattan and then Everything else is a daiquiri, basically, you know, or maybe some people split off a margarita, because it's got a liquor modifiers like they were bad. So I'm like, No, you're all done since it's, it's like, you know, certain combinations of like sugar, acid and alcohol. You know? I don't know, but like to me like, a martini should be something that is a martini. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It's just there was like to me and Espresso Martini. Not in a martini, not Amartya. Nothing to do with the Martini. Glass. I think for like, like, the thing is like people. I think a lot of people think of Martini is anything. It's served in that glass, which I also hate that glass. Oh, I hate that glass. Homey. Like those glasses, martini glasses.

I'm, I'm a big traditional, like, I like a show. So that glasses so shall we? Yeah, yeah.

It's a it's a spill waiting to happen. Yeah, yeah.

But like a coffee cup is is more waiting for me to I'm not to be trusted.

That's fair. You know what the one good thing I'll say about a martini glass is that it is relatively if you are mixing while you are intoxicated, it is relatively insensitive to you messing up your measurements because you can add a little bit more or a little bit less to a martini glass. And because it is such a cone, right, that last little bit of glass can absorb a lot of extra stuff. And so it's easier to get a passable looking wash line in martini glass. Everything else I hate about oh, do you like when they have goofy goofy stems like little zigzag goofy stamps?

I find that tacky hard. Yeah, right. That's that's a bridge too far for me. Good. Yeah.

I'm glad that there is a bridge. I have

a line. I have one line. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. Yeah, so I'm with you. Did whoever you were with disagree with you, John.

No, no, they were all kind of agreeing. But it was just I was Yeah.

I mean, look, I think that you can take something like a martini, and if you'd like put a splash of sherry in it, as opposed to like the vermouth depending on which share you use me. Whatever. That's close. You know what I mean? Like sparkling Prosecco. No fruit. Oh, no, no, I thought you're gonna say when is it Martini? Stop being a martini? And it's like after about five minutes when it warms up. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, then it becomes filth. You know what I mean? Which is why I feel that Martini should be short. And then you know, drunkeness snappy fashion. Yeah. But you Joe, you got anything for us. Now, Slow, Slow Food Week. All right. All right. I feel like you know, sometimes you come in with like, with like, like a strong. Sometimes you come in with like a strong food. Something. You know what I mean? Not this week? No, just you know, usually, you know, I've been making a lot of food for my son. Oh, yeah. Like, do you know that this dossier and I believe that there is a market for our centrifuge in baby food, but because I'm terrible at making claims for things. We haven't figured out what that market is. Would you say it's right, Anastasia? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it is. Okay, check it. So like, if you take, so you know, how you strain yogurt, obviously, since you have a yogurt company. Yeah. So, you can do the same thing to fruit, where you blend the fruit up. And I know you're anti centrifuge, we'll get into it in terms of taking away out of yogurt. But you can, you can blend the fruit. And then instead of juicing it even like purees you can spin it in a centrifuge and the juice comes off the top and what's left over is like God's baby food. It's like, Yeah, but yeah, but like the pectin has been wiped out. So it's like, I are smooth makes makes makes Gerber look like fools. You know what I'm saying? But it's just like, it would only be for the fanciest of babies. Of course everyone wants to think their babies bouncy,

every every baby's fancy. Yeah. But I find it kind of

repugnant to try to make people feel guilty about one more thing when they're a parent. You know,

that you're not giving them the fanciest you're not doing your you didn't centrifuge your baby. Yeah, so

you're a bad mom. Yeah. Oh, my God is there's fewer, fewer things worse than putting more guilt onto a mom. You know what I mean? And let's face it, it's going to be the mom. Nine times out of 10. Nine times out of 10 You're making the mom feel guilty because as sexist but Dad's not gonna give as much of a crap as the mom. It's just historically true, I would guess.

Yeah, just by being here. My kids are eating crap right now. All right. All right, Michael is doing his best.

Okay, so let's get to the book. Now. The book is called. But first of all, let's let's How am I going to get into this? How am I going to do this? So first of all, talk about the company because a lot of you You will know or you don't ship far right? So you have to be kind of in this region to know. white mustache. That's part of the the shtick, first of all named after your dad's. Apparently Your dad has a luxurious, amazing mustache.

Yes. Yeah. He has a big white handlebar mustache. He's had it my whole life. I'm 44. And if you got rid of it, it would be heartbreak. I wouldn't even recognize them.

Does it look similar to the one that's on the yogurt? Yeah, it's identical.

It was like, you know, totally molded after his his look.

Does he have to does he have to apply what you have a picture to apply wax or anything to it?

He he uses a special silver shampoo. Now we get it for him so he can just keep it up. could kind of see it here in profile picture.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But he always

like regularly has Tumeric or beet juice stains on it. It's he's he's not very. He's not very on brand.

So it could be a yellow mustache type areas. Does he ever Oh, that's so strong. That is a strong. Yeah. Does he ever eat beet juice on one side of his face and Tumeric on the other and do like a harlequin kind of a situation?

No, but my kids have recently watched The Lorax. And so now he's very committed to getting some color in there. Oh, yeah.

I only did the Lorax that How old are your kids? Three and four? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. haven't watched that. The original Lorax or live BS new one with the songs?

I don't know. I don't know if it was new. It was I thought it was good.

Do they have a lot of songs? And a lot of modern animation? Or was it more like 22 minutes long? And you know, on the Lord xSP for the trees, and that's pretty much it?

I don't remember. Yeah.

I'm very. I like the old Lorax. But I'm old. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's how it goes.

I only watched like, in the background, I was like, This is my one chance to do laundry. Yeah,

yeah. Yeah, I get you. I get him. All right. So you have this yogurt company. And although it's like super fancy, I'm just gonna say that. I know that. Like when I was talking to our publisher, to our editor, rather, I was like, you'll they she's like super fancy. And in. And Melanie, our editor was like, no, no, no, no.

She's real basic. fancy.

Fancy in a bad way. I guess you know what I mean? Like? So? Yeah. Yeah. You know, it costs what it costs because of how you do it. Yeah. And it's in a nice glass jar. So it has the appearance of being it has the hallmarks of being a very fancy product.

Yeah. And I appreciate that. And I, I think I love the process so much, and revere the process so much that fed every decision on how to present it, because I also didn't know how to like, bring it to your house in like a big tub, which is what I actually want to do. And so if I'm going to put it on shelves and ask you to have this be a part of your DNA, I'm gonna make it really as special as the three day process that it takes to make it is and that was, you know, that was what informed it. And I could see how it comes off as being very special. And the price is also like very luxurious. And there have been times during my journey and making white massage, I've been able to afford my own yogurt on the shelves. And I get that I've learned a lot about how groceries are priced. Much of it is not in my control, especially what I can't supply the amount that is on demand. So just a lot, a lot of factors that go into it. But yeah, I am a little upset that the impression is that it's fancy. When my whole life This was made as common. And you know, me you even make it as as a very special thing. But to make it regular to make it normal.

I mean, maybe that's just maybe that's just me, but because, as I said earlier, well known bad person. But like, I think it's interesting to hear you like talk about it. But it's also kind of reading the book you get in the first section as an interesting kind of history of one of the histories you bring because there's several histories in the book, but one of the histories is the history of the company itself. Right? So, you know, quickly, you're a lawyer in 2008, like, you know, you get laid off and you are trying to figure out what to do. Tell me when to get this wrong. And you're like, Oh, you reconnected with starting to make this yogurt. You're living in California at the time. Right. And, like you got to tell you gotta tell this next story. So you basically have been out of, you know, a normal job other than working on an avocado farm or whatever you were doing. You really worked on an avocado farm in the offseason. I did. I did what workers are doing on because one of the offseason,

I just changed smoked and was really depressed for three months. It was terrible. It was a pay you to do that. No, they I mean, if there was work they would have, but like I just kind of was like hanging and like the owner was this like older couple and they were lonely and they were like, cool. Somebody wants to hang out on this little casita on the property. And it was just all very poorly informed, and I was just looking for something different. So I wouldn't get sucked back into like, a legal career. In New York City.

Yeah. And he was like, court, you were like a corporate as a

corporate, like a couple blocks away from here. Yeah, I was doing securities and derivatives. I was really bad at my job, actually. But I enjoyed it. Like I thought like, like, you know, this was my hallmark of having made it and go work in a fancy office with a fancy salary and fancy clothing. And I just once I got laid off, I was like, Please don't go back there. Like, don't do it. Like, find something else. Well, avocado farm was just my portal into, right, that

just seemed such a random portal. Fun. Interesting. But you think it's going to be interesting? I guess it is not?

No. Yeah, it was it was it was it was very disappointing.

Also, you know, you said in the talk that I saw you give in in the book, the various reasons why you think you felt compelled to succeed in a very public visible way, as a lawyer, right? I don't know how much you want to talk about that and how like, because now you have, obviously a very good success and what you're doing now. And how you see that is kind of different. Like, in terms of what you write in the book, it seems that your success in this is built around something that is important to you and to your core as a person and not as just an external sign of success, which is, you know, my impression of what you felt about what you were doing, somewhat self imposed, someone societally imposed, didn't seem to come from your parents in the book

now, I think, yeah, I wish it came from my parents, I could blame them for and this would be really easy and fun for me. But I think I internalized an idea of what success meant and what made me and I just like, I came here from Iran at the age of seven. And I immediately developed like, almost like a chip on my shoulder that I had to prove that I belonged here that I prove that I was worthy, that I prove that I deserved a seat. And like that just led to overachieving at school over to get like the a plus to get like, you know, into a good school. And I like latched on to this identity as an attorney or this identity as like, you know, a lifestyle. And I achieved it. And it was, it was like, almost like blindly following that. And then once I got laid off, like, I looked for any reason, like it was almost like a spiritual thing for me, like the avocado farm was a desperate plea for help. And the yoger is one, like, it just weaves every part of my very complicated identity and background and skill set into something that is, I feel like it's so worth sharing with others and is so rewarding and is so difficult to do every day, but kind of like it just completely consumes me and I feel so grateful having it's like finding someone you've like fallen in love with and you're like, holy crap, this is incredible. And I never gave myself that chance before because I just had this tight iron grip on some, like, weird notion that I imposed on myself. I mean, it's kind of sad, kind of happy, kind of whatever it is what it is.

Well, it's also interesting, you write that when you were, you know, casting about for things to do in, you know, between 2008 and 2011 that, like, you know, you hadn't considered yogurt before because it was just like, it was like, always there for you, you know, for you know, culturally in your family, it's just always there. And so, like, it wasn't, but then it became kind of this amazing thing to kind of reconnect these stories with your dad like sitting around like you know, him telling you about, you know, the sandwich shop that he you know, gets used to work in or you know, and so like it became this way and so part of what I think's interesting what the book is really about is like here's you know, you starting this business reconnecting yourself to yourself and to your past in fact, and we brought this up and even though there's no cursing on the show, at least not if we can help it. I like also that you have this amazing on your these are endpapers right? Yes. Yeah. This amazing, right. And you said you held up publication of the book so you can get rights for it.

It what Yeah, and this is a very traditional like tablecloth I think I've seen this in every Iranian household. And it just like screams food to me like put food on this table. So you see this and you're like, I'm getting ready to eat. Yeah. This like tablecloth to me. Yeah. And I think it's from the Victorian Albert Museum. Love the VNA? Yeah. It's just beautiful and paper and we waited. And yeah, Norton was incredible. What were we talking about? Yeah, cursing myself. And

you helped me most the time when I forget my train of thought people can't help me. They don't remember what my train of thought was. But you do know

I'm come back anytime.

Alright, so this book, well, you want to read about all of us, you say? Just Oh, right. I understand. Yeah, yeah.

Alright, so this is dedication to the book says this book is dedicated to all immigrants who are with humility, grace and relentless sense of humor, constantly explaining themselves to others. And to my daughters in whose strong and beautiful hands I place the responsibility, joy and privilege of carrying on our traditions. Don't eff it up?

Yeah. And so like, and that's, you know, throughout the book, it's, it's that mix of like, tradition, self deprecation. And also but this I'm serious. Like,

yeah, and I think I struggled with the don't eff it up. Because I was like, One day my kids are actually going to read this, and what kind of relationship am I going to have with them when they do. But I also think so my family is Rastafarian and it's a, an Iranian Zoroastrian, and it's a group of it's a religious minority. And also, like an ethnic identity. Like there's a language, there's a food, there's music, there's songs, there's history that are very particular to this group of people. And I have felt like the, whatever the positive word for burden is of carrying these traditions on and knowing that they're going to be either diluted or disappear with me, like I might, my, my kids are probably not going to speak the dialect of Daddy that I speak and no, and I've felt this pain my whole life, and this, like sadness around this my whole life. And I, I don't know how I'm going to teach or talk about it to my kids. But I wanted to be light a little bit. And it's almost like, I want to share my story and the stories more for you, and for my peers, and for people I've grown up with, and other Americans to just like, share the stories that you might another otherwise not have access to. And how I bring my kids into it, and how I decide to hold on and teach and carry and preserve is like a journey that I'm still figuring out, and we'll figure out but like, as I was, I was like, you know, I want to write this book as authentically, authentically, authentically as this like Iranians or Austrian experience as possible, to honor my other peers who I think have have felt this way, in the Iranians restaurant community, but then also, like, give you kind of like a fly on the wall look into like this world. And you know, I have, I have the tool of food, and I have the tool of language. And that's kind of it. And, you know, I hope parts of it are funny, I hope parts of it are, you know, skeptical. I you know, I just wanted to just add the feelings thing you said earlier was like, I was like, yeah, exactly. Like, I just want this to be sappy and cheesy and like really about, about like, the human experience that I can only, like, safely tell my story through the language of food.

Right? I mean, I know, almost nothing about Zoroastrianism, like, almost nothing. Why would you mean like, and you know, what I didn't realize is that even though it hasn't been the state religion there, you know, in, what is it 1700 years, 1400 1400 years, 14 years about it hasn't been the state religion, they'd still a lot of the cultural underpinnings of like, the culture of Iran is still Zoroastrian based. Do you want to talk about that like a little bit? Because I didn't know about that, like, at all? Yeah, I mean,

yeah, so Zoroastrianism was one of the first monotheistic religions of the world and it was the religion of the Persian Empire, when it was like this vast empire. And now the Persian Empire is dwindled into modern day Iran. And, you know, this is why, like, Iranian culture, Persian culture is different than its bordering Arab cultures. It's very much rooted in it's our Austrian heritage. So something like Notos, which is the first day of spring which marks are like the first day of our calendar is based on the seasons. It's the spring equinox. And every Zoroastrian holiday is about the seasons, there's six Gam bars, which celebrate harvests every equinox and every Solstice, we have a big holiday on. And these were ways for people in the past to like Mark time to just get through the darkest night of the winter to think about food and feeding each other to get ready for spring, you know, to slaughter their animals to harvest their pomegranates, and to mark the time together as community.

Right, but you know, that when you were talking before, you're saying there's like a lot of things that are just without taking on religious aspects, kind of good things to do, like a new year that that you were talking about visiting?

Yeah, yeah. So the Persian New Year, there's a tradition. And so the New Year in Iran lasts like a whole month. And there's a very lovely tradition called Deedle balls, deed, and it literally means, like, see and be seen. So we invented that long time ago. But like, you go, first, you go to the homes of your elders, and anybody who's lost a family member, so any home that's in mourning, or in grieving, and you know, so you visit them first in your community. And then it's just like a free for all of visiting and being hosts. So like, both a guest and a host, kind of like have equal weight. And it's an honor to be both of those kind of roles. And that lasts for a whole month. And, like to me it's just so obvious, like a, an obvious behavior. Like it's springtime, you've spent all winter like and you're like, just like the sprouts come up, you go out and you visit and it's just like, it's very in tune with nature, which I mean, even I myself have lost track of over

there's also like a treat yourself aspect, right? Like get a parent get some clothes. Yeah, you get

your brand new clothes treat. Treat yourself. You get good food. Yeah, the rice and the fish to mark the the first day of the new year.

So you know, to get the book you had this or the like, the interesting of I think these are the same thing also not to the same level they get what's the name for the the culture of refusing and being offered like millions I was taught off?

Yeah, yeah, my husband doesn't like he refuses to do Todorov. And I'm, like, horrified by like, he'll take the last piece of like a cake or, or someone offers him something, and he'll immediately take it and I'm like, Oh, God. But then I like I tried to explain it to him. I'm like, You know what, this just is not gonna make any sense. But you have to say like, you know, like a little bit of a dance.

We used to do it just like two or three times depending on like how formal things were going. Yeah, I mean, yeah, you want some more? You want some more? No, no, no. Yeah. Oh, I could. Like, yeah. But

then have some Yeah. And then like, eating wheat, like three plates of it. And I offer you a fourth and us and like, Oh, you don't like it? Yeah, like, Oh, you didn't like that yogurt jar? Oh, you don't like it?

Do you take offense when people don't fully clean out the yogurt? Especially because you had to work so hard to make it? Well, it's because I've

seen people lick the yogurt jars. So now when I see them not do I was like, wait, what? Like, but I'm crazy.

Yeah, that's fine. Well, so and so back to this like one more time. Yeah. The other thing that kind of runs through it, and you were saying it kind of you know, telling telling your kids they have to carry on tradition, Don't f it up is this sense of sadness of the dwindling of the community. There are only you say, I'm going to say I've probably had around 20,000 So Rastriya is left in Iran. More worldwide, but And from what I can gather on the internet, it's not a proselytizing religion. So not growing. Really even in the diaspora. Yeah. So this like worry, as you say that this kind of like old vibrant culture and whose food you know, highlight here so well, along with some new recipes, because you need to use the way we'll get into that in a minute. Right? Yeah. Yeah, it's got to feel like a big responsibility. No,