It's been a roller-coaster of a week, I'll say. I have gone through what probably is the widest range of emotions someone could have in just a week! You guys must be exhausted just reading about me (and you don't know some of the things I didn't report!). I feel overwhelmed. To add to the situation, whenever I get really sad, I start getting nostalgic and homesick for Tehran. Bia o dorostesh kon! I wander its streets and roads in my daydreams, and dream about being in Tehran in my sleep. This is Modarres Freeway or Parkway in Tehran. It starts in Haft-e-Tir Square in Central Tehran and runs all the way to Northern Tehran. It is the second oldest freeway in Tehran, so the shrubbery and the trees lining it are mature and lush and gorgeous. It is a road I used to take home from work everyday. On smug-free days like the one in the picture, you can see the mountains located to the North of Tehran. I miss my Tehran today, on top of all the other things going on around me. Right now, all I want to do is to take this freeway South and go down to Jomhouri Avenue, get lost in the crowds and the loud traffic of it, find my way to Pirashki Khosravi, have a pirashki (or two) with a bitter turkish coffee, the like of which no one else makes in the world. The store is now owned by an Armenian family, though there are pictures inside of the man named "Khosravi" and his Armenian staff in the 1950's and 1960's. There are no chairs for you to sit at Pirashki Khosravi. You must eat standing up and leave, though no one ever rushes you to leave. You can stay if you want and watch the hundreds of different people who come in every hour. I have done this so many times--just standing there in that small shop, watching people come and go. I miss it today, my city.
3 comments:
Nazy Joonam
Your note about Tehran brought tears to my eyes. I am not from this city as you know, but have spent exactly half of my life here. I can’t say I like it, but apart form Shiraz, my beloved Shiraz, I think it’s the only city I can live in. that is, as long as I live in Iran, which would be for the rest of my life.
Your city looks lovely these days. I was hanging clothes to dry in the balcony today, and I thought heaven must have been pictured with a weather like this in mind.
These last two days it has been sunny in the mornings and raining like crazy in the afternoon. Our home in Shahrake Gharb faces north, and when it is not raining, you can see snow covered mountains from the living room. Tall Sepidar trees dance with the breeze, and Abshar talaiees are in fool blossom. I wish you were here, and I could go to Pirashki Khosravi with you.
Hi!
I'm writing from New York.
When I googled Pirashki Khosravi just to see if *ANYONE* had written about the beloved food of my childhood, I came upon your blog! Does it taste the same?! Is it still as good? Or like many other memories of yeasters the memory is by far better than the actual thing? A few years ago I asked a friend going to Tehran to bring me some Pirashki Khosravi just to celebrate the years. I don't know if it was stale or what, but it tasted awful. So I just stepped back in time to hold on to the good ol' memories before they faded with the new awful taste in my mouth!
Maybe it was never that good. Maybe I was just a kid and even the blue sky of Tehran tasted good to me!? Could that be true?
Maybe! Perhaps your friend Fariba can answer this question from Tehran.
Mitra Jan: What an honor to have a new visitor to my humble blog, even if quite by accident! Obviously, you and I have a lot more in common that we would think! Tastes and smells of our childhood are hard to match with tastes and smells of today--I know that feeling. I went back to the house in which I grew up and the joob that ran next to it, which in my childhood had appeared wide and deep and full of raging water, appeared so small and narrow and shallow! Pirashki Khosravi still tastes the same, though. It is delicious when served just off the pan, and warm. Pirashki is not a food that travels very well Mitra Jan. Even if you buy it on Jomhoori (formerly Shah Avenue), and take it uptow and wait a few hours, it doesn't taste like it did in the shop (could have something to do with the fact, that though I don't want to think about it, it is a FRIED food!). I have had good Iranian style pirashki in Los Angeles, which for all intents and purposes, might be more feasible for you to do, than making a run to Tehran just for it! Though the ambience and feeling that surrounds you in Pirashki Khosravi is not attainable anywhere but there--I hope I don't romanticizing it too much Mitra Jan, it is not in any way a chic or receptive place at all. It is just about the business of Pirashkis and that bitter turkish coffee, no more. That means something to me, though. Shad bash Mitra Jan. Please come back and visit me. Part of the reason I write in English is to be able to connect to many Iranians who live in the US who have an easier time with English than Farsi. Take care.
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