Date and time: Sunday, May 24, 2020, 4 to 6:30 pm Eastern Daylight Time (UTC-4)
Tickets ($60+ $5.28 fee) here [1].
Learn to make Persian rice with Tahdig and dill-scented lima beans topped with poached eggs!
Since Mab can’t physically welcome you into her home, she wants to do so virtually!
Our online classes are designed to be special, meaningful opportunities to share cooking, culture, and connection – just like our real-life experiences. We want you to cook along, and we promise there will be plenty of time for questions, conversation, and stories. It will all end with a virtual dinner party where you’ll get to share in the fruits of your labor, apart, but together!
In this 2.5 hour interactive online experience Mab will guide you through making Zireh Polo Kateh Ba Tahdig, fluffy basmati rice mixed with sautéed red onion, cumin seed, and turmeric and topped with a crispy, delicious Tahdig, Baghali Ghatogh, lima beans cooked with dill, garlic, and turmeric, topped with poached eggs.
We encourage you to sign up with friends and family (they can live anywhere!), and we encourage you to cook along with your partner/roommate/kids! (The price is per device)
Mab is a women’s rights activist, documentary filmmaker, and educator who believes food provides a special opportunity for connection and empowerment. Mab was born in Khorramshahr, a city with a large Arab population in southern Iran, but her parents have roots in the Azeri region of northern Iran, an area whose cuisine Mab knows well. She learned about ingredients from her dad, who owned a restaurant, grocery store, and tea importing company, and about the importance of cooking “low and slow” from her mom. Mab’s mother, who was often homesick for the northern region where she grew up, also taught her daughter that cooking is the best way to bring back the flavors and smells of home. As a young woman in the late 1970s, Mab became involved in the Iranian Revolution, but later, when she became a vocal advocate for women’s rights in Iran, she was persecuted by the Islamic Republic. After being imprisoned three times during the 2000s for organizing peaceful protests, she fled Iran and moved to New York City. Before joining the League of Kitchens, Mab managed the nonprofit organization Zanan TV, and she continues to work as an educator in schools around New York City. She feels that food, like activism and education, is an important way to express herself and to connect with and understand others. Mab was a featured chef at Queer Soup Night and has been a guest on Julia Turshen’s podcast, “Keep Calm and Cook On.”
Here is the shopping list for your class:
- 1 cup dried lima beans or dried northern/cannellini beans (soaked overnight)
- 3 eggs (optional – for topping the bean dish)
- 1 medium red onion
- 1 1/2 cup basmati or jasmine rice
- 1 10″ flour tortilla
- Extra virgin olive oil
- 2 bunches of fresh dill, or 3 tablespoons of dried dill
- Garlic
- Turmeric
- Ground cinnamon
- Fine sea salt
- Cumin seeds
- Optional:
- Cinnamon stick
- Cayenne or aleppo pepper
- Butter, or ghee
- Dried rose petals or rose water
Here’s how it works:
Within 24 hours of registration, you’ll receive an email with the Zoom link, shopping list, equipment list, and recipe packet.
At the scheduled time of your class, you’ll click on the Zoom link and join your class live! Afterward, you will receive a link to a video recording of your class that you can revisit at your leisure.
We are very excited for you to learn Persian cooking with Mab!