What makes a city special?

I had the travel bug planted in me at a very young age, after a complicated immigration story that took my family across many countries. As an adult, I sought to experience and appreciate different places, people, and environments. While I love secluded, natural places, I learned as an adolescent that I have to live in a diverse and complex environment. I spent most of my childhood in fairly homogenous communities, and always felt like an outsider. It wasn’t until I moved to Oakland that I experienced not just acceptance of my life experiences and cultural history, but value in them. And that valuing of each others’ histories and understandings of the world  is what builds community, and community is everything to me. Cities force us to confront difficult issues around equity, mobility, housing, land use, and social cohesion. I serve on various boards and commissions to help work through these issues, and I value the fact that we are trying, even if we have so much work to do. So in addition to the architecture, geography, arts, food, and general access that we strive for in cities, the diversity of people and the communities it creates are what make cities unique and special, and why I love being in a city so much. 

Where is your happy place?

Internationally, I adore Berlin, Ljubljana, the wildest parts of Australia, Budapest, and all of Italy. Locally, my happy place is either alone in some sort of body of water in the Northern California Coast (hot springs in the winter, rivers in the summer), or cooking food for friends and strangers in Oakland (and sometimes DC, and sometimes Brooklyn. I cook for people a lot)

What is your favorite thing to cook?

I grew up in kitchens and gardens. My dad was raised on a farm in Iran, and he brought that love of growing food with him to the US; even when we lived in small apartments, we always had tiny gardens on patios and window ledges. My memories of being with my mom’s family are always centered around the kitchen and food, and even now when we gather overseas, we spend most of our time cooking together, or talking about cooking. I also grew up in a culture that uses lots of herbal and traditional medicines, most of which we grow ourselves. So, even as an adolescent, I always had a small garden, and I always cooked. Growing up mostly in Northern California, where fruit basically falls from the sky, I learned to use fresh, local, and seasonal ingredients (even though seasons aren’t really a thing here). And I worked in a Oaxacan restaurant for many years, where I learned how to meld flavors in new ways. Growing up fairly low income for much of my childhood, and coming out of a war-ridden country, we were taught to never waste food. All of these histories have led me to love what Persian families call “guests of the fridge” cooking. I generally either find produce that looks good and plan a meal around that, mixing flavors that sound good to me, or I combine leftovers with other things I have laying around and make a new meal out of that. My two favorite cuisines are Persian and Mexican, and I ran a pop up brunch restaurant during grad school that served a fusion of the two. I absolutely love to get people excited about new flavors!  But mostly, I like  to cook because it brings people together, and creates a space for comfort and sharing, and building community is my favorite.