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Who doesn’t love Cakes?

Cake is one of the most popular sweet foods around the world. People celebrate important days in their lives such as wedding, birthday, baby shower, anniversary, etc. with serving cakes. They Share cakes together and make happy memories. Cake can be made of different flavors. Some people love it to be vanilla cake with cover of chocolate some other like chocolate cakes with cover of strawberry flavor.  I personally like the vanilla and chocolate flavors the most but what I care the most is to be fresh. Homemade cakes are my favorite. they feel so soft and fluffy. You can have control on how sweet you want your cake to taste. In addition, homemade creams taste different. They melt in your mouth, and you can decorate your cake in any way you like. I bake Vanilla cupcakes occasionally when I get a chance. I eat them for breakfast when I am in a rush and not have enough time to make breakfast. What you need to bake cupcakes (12 cupcakes): 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp fine salt, 2 eggs (at room temperature), 2/3 cup sugar, 1 1/2 sticks unsalted melted butter, 2 tsp pure vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk, and you can add any flavor such as chocolates for topping. Vanilla cupcakes instructions follow as: - Preheat the oven to 350-degree F. - Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a bowl. -Take another bowl and beat the eggs and sugar with a mixer for 3 minutes until it gets light and foamy. Then pour in the melted butter and the vanilla. - While mixing slowly, add half of the flour mixture and all the milk followed by the remaining of flour mixture. - divide the batter into 12 muffin tins. Put it into the oven for 20 minutes and then let them cool fir 10 minutes. Now you can decorate it with any flavor for topping.

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Fruits Facts

I love fruits. They are coloring, tasty, and fun to eat. I eat fruits every day. Fruits develop from the flower of a plant, and they contain different vitamins. They are healthy and can be used for different medical reasons. For example, red-colored fruits keep your heart strong; yellow-colored fruits prevent you from getting sick. Eating an apple is more effective to keep you awake than drinking a cup of coffee. It is interesting to know that apples are a global fruit and there are 7000 kinds of them around the world. Although, we should be careful to not mix some fruits with different foods or medications. For instance, we should never drink grapefruit while taking medications because it can cause us to die or overdose. Fruits are used in different holidays and festivals around the world. People by sharing fruits in their holiday season, share memories, traditions, and happiness. In Iran we celebrate the longest night of the year on the last day of fall. This Ancient Persian celebration calls “Shabe Yalda”. Or Yalda Night. In Yalda night, people gathered with their family relatives at their grandparents and share fruits such as pomegranates, watermelon, red apples, persimmons, dry fruits, etc. I love mixing different fruits together. You can create a new taste out of them. For example, I mix pomegranates, natural orange juice, natural lemon juice, and some salt together and it tastes sour and sweet. It is very easy to make. If you are making it for 4 people you only need 4 pomegranates, 2 oranges, 1 lemon, 1/5 tsp salt. The instruction follows simply as: - Cut pomegranates to 4 pieces and try to remove the seeds by taping a spoon on top of its skin. - Cut the oranges and lemon in half and try to squeeze them into a glass - Add the salt to the juice and mix them together - Finally you can add the mixed juice to the pomegranates’ seeds and mix everything together.

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Friends as Chiefs

After living 6 years in Boston, I made good connections with a lot of people from different nationalities. Each of them taught me something new about their cultures and cuisines. I used to be very picky about food, but my friends helped me to be flexible and try different type of foods. The memory you make while trying new food can impact the test of the food and make it special to you. One of my favorite dishes that I have tried was for when I met my friend Hussam. Hussam is Egyptian and a great cook. After telling him about my favorite Iranian dish, he told me that they have similar dish called “Molokhiyah”. Molokhiyah is a very traditional dish for Egyptian. It is unbelievable tasty, and it takes lots of effort to be made. Molokhiyah is cooked with lots of garlic, dry coriander, butter, white vinegar, cubed chicken or beef, bay leaves, onion, frozen or fresh Molokhia leaves. Molokhiyah served with rice and its instruction follows as: - Boiling beef, onion, bay leaves in a large pan and add salt and pepper to it. - Reduce the heat to an average heat and cover the pan for one hour and let the meet to get tender. - Add Molokhia and coriander and reduce the heat to a low heat and uncover the pan for few minutes. - Meanwhile in a different pan melt some butter and fry garlic until it is golden and pour into the Molokhia pan. Stir it for few minutes and it is ready to be served.

While Hussam was making this stew I helped him to make “Tah Deeg” with his rice. Tah Deeg means bottom of the pot in Persian. It is made with fried rice or potatoes or sometimes flat breads. It is so easy to make. Its instruction follows as heating oil in the bottom of the pot, add some rice or potatoes and let it to fry and then add the cooked rice on top of it and covered it for 30 minutes.

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• What proportion of the food/drink you purchased during the week came from “fast food” establishments? What meals were “slow food” instead?

I do my best to not have fast food as much as I can since it not a healthy choice. The only reason that makes me shop from fast food maybe twice in a month is not having enough time to make breakfast or just to get some French fries. Otherwise, fast food is my last choice of food. I usually choose slow food for lunch or dinner. I often eat very light foods such as vegetable salads or fruit salads for dinner. Fast foods usually have lots of fat and calories and raise cholesterol and sodium in our body. Eating too much of fast food can cause health problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease, etc. Fast food is usually made of meats, eggs, breads, and cheese. Fast food can be addictive like junk food if you cannot have control on what you eat. The fact that they are so inexpensive and fast to make, lead lots of people to order them repeatedly. A lot of college student eat fast food because they do not have time to cook, and it will help them to save money compared to other type of foods. My salad is usually made of different type of vegetables such as lettuce, tomato, broccoli, cucumber, spinach. For the sauce, I either use olive oil or lime juice with a little bit of salt and pepper. I always add a half of avocado as a protein portion. You can also use breast chicken or boiled eggs instead. This salad is very easy to make and makes you feel satisfied. To have a fit body, it is better to have a heavy breakfast and a light dinner. Because you can burn more calories during the day than at night and we need the energy of food during the day. Having light dinner helps us to control our weight and sleep better.

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• How much of your food has global rather than local influences? Would you like this to change or remain the same?

Living in Boston gives me the opportunity to try different cuisines and get to know other cultures. I have mostly tried Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Mexican, French, etc. One of my favorite cuisines is Asian cuisine and I have Asian food at least once in a week. I love having hotpot with friends. It brings a lot of laughs and joy. One of my co-workers never wants to try hotpot because he says you pay to the restaurant to make food for you not to cook yourself. However, I believe if you enjoy cooking you would love doing hotpot. Because it only takes few minutes to cook any vegetables and meat. In addition, you have a lot of varieties of food of your choice. Most hot pot restaurants offer different broth flavors such as vegetable base or meat base that you cook the foods inside of the broth pot. You can have meat such as beef, lamb, chicken, pork, seafood, etc. If you are a vegetarian hotpot is the best place to go because despite of other food places that have a limited choice of food you can have many choices of vegetables such as baby bok choy, cabbage, spinach, broccoli, potato, corns, different type of mushrooms, etc. You can also have choices of noodles and rice on the side. Hotpot serves with a lot of tasty sauces that are also by your choice such as sesame sauce, soy sauce, chili sauce, garlic sauce, etc. It is important to not let the food get overcooked; different food have different cook time. For instance, it takes 5-8 minute to cook mushroom and only 10 seconds takes to cook sliced meats. You should use the handheld baskets to dig in and take out the food from the broth pot for safety purposes. Hotpot with friends is like a group cooking and try the food at the same time.

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• Was your food mostly home prepared? By whom? Who did the grocery shopping? How much did you eat out? What are some of the recipes of the dishes you prepared?

I grew up in a family that despite of the society we had that time my parents believed in equality for men and women. My dad and my mom both worked outside and inside home, and they both were great cooks. They taught us family is everything and we should do everything for each other with no expectations. Most of the food we had were home cook. However, when I moved to the US, I had to cook for myself and at the same time work full and study as well. I try to cook at least twice in a week however the rest of week I have no choice than ordering food from either Uber eat or food places around me. I currently live with one of my sisters and she also have a busy schedule. However, she helps me with the grocery shopping. Sometimes we walk to the Star Market that is 20 minutes walking away from us and shop together. And sometimes we just order online by amazon fresh. One of my favorite dishes is called Gheyme stew. Gheyme is a traditional and popular main food in Iran. It tastes and smell amazing. Iranian people usually cook stew in copper pots. The reason for it is because copper conduct heats very well and it really impact the taste of food. Pictures above is showing how Gheyme serve with saffron rice and Salad Shirazi. It is optional to add fried eggplants or French fries on top of the stew plate to decorate it. If you make Gheyme for 4 people you need to have: 500g cubed lamb or beef, 2 eggplants, 1 onion, 3 cloves garlic, 100g yellow split peas, 3 cups of water, 2tbsp tomato paste, 1 tsp salt and black pepper, 1 tsp turmeric powder, 1 tsp lime juice, 1 tsp cinnamon powder (optional), 1 tsp rosewater (optional and it gives nice smell to the stew). Gheyme’s instructions follows as: - Fry chopped onions and meat together in a melting butter or oil and mix them together by adding turmeric and black paper for 10 minutes. - Add 3 cups of water and cover it and let it cook for half hour on a medium heat until the meat is cooked. - Meanwhile wash split peas carefully with cold water and fry it in a different pot with oil and tomato paste and lime juice for about 7 minutes over medium low heat - Add the split peas to the meat pot, mix them with adding salt and Cinnamon powder. Cover it and let it boil for another half hour. At this step you can start frying eggplant and French fries with oil, salt, turmeric and keep it for decorating the stew.

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• What is your attitude towards cooking? Describe experiences of cooking for yourself versus cooking for/with friends or family. You can include photos of any food you cooked if you do have cooking facilities! The more “global” the food you make, the better!

My cooking attitude definitely is different when I am cooking only for myself versus family and friends. When I cook for myself I do not follow any recipe. I mix different foodstuff depends on what I have in the fridge and what I believe would make a good mixed. However, when I make food for friends or family, I try to follow recipe and make sure that they also look and taste good. I always design my food when I am cooking for someone. I usually spend more time when I am cooking for others. I love cooking and my family and friends believe that I am a good cook and that is because I cook with passion. 

The picture above is a dessert I made for my friends on a potluck gathering. It is called “Sholezard”. Sholezard is an Iranian traditional saffron rice pudding dessert that it is made of rice, saffron, sugar, rose water and it always serve with cinnamon powder. It is optional to design it with almond or pistachio pieces. Iranian make Sholezard in a large quantities on some special occasions and holidays and they most of the time share it with their neighbors. Sholezard take a long time to be served. It takes 1 hours and half to cook and 2 hours to get chilled. 

Sholezard instruction follows as: 

- Adding rice in a bowl and was it in cold water for couple of times and let it boil 

- Reduce the heat to above the low marking without covering the pan

- Do not stir it for and hours and 15 minutes until most of the water is cooked off.

- Add 2 1/3 cups boiling water, 2 cups sugar, 1/4 cup rosewater, and 1/4 tsp saffron. Increase the heat and let it boil until it get thickens

- Use a wooden spoon to stir it several times and remove it from the pan to a different bowl and let it cool down and keep it in the fridge with having a cover on.

After staying in the fridge for 2 hours you can design it with cinnamon powder and nuts. Sholezard taste sweet and delicious. The color of it really depends on the amount of saffron you use. It is really important to stir it enough to prevent sticking. 

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• Does anything strike you about how, when, or what you eat or drink usually?  What are the most important factors in determining what and where you eat (i.e. taste, cost, family heritage, national background, convenience, health, moral or religious choices, etc.)?

As a full time student who work full time as well I get very short amount of time to eat with a very limited choices of foods. Even though my preference is to only have home cooked food, I am forced to order foods due to my busy schedule. My current situation really effected on when and what to eat however I do my best to make the healthiest choice out of it. The healthiness of food is more important than the cost of it. I always remind myself that I am working hard and I deserve to have a good meal to keep myself strong and have enough energy to do all the tasks I have during a day. For instance I try fast food maybe once in awhile and try to order foods that is made mostly with vegetables. Of course the taste and design of the food is important. I used to not even try a food if they did not look good.

I grow up in an Iranian family. My parents always want us to have food with all family members together. This was just a practice to show us how family is important and we should support each other all the time. We have three meals in a day and breakfast and dinner is very important to Iranian family. I remember my dad did not let me leave the house to go to the school without having breakfast. He would always say if you do not have breakfast you will learn nothing at school. And at night if I fell asleep early without having dinner he would wake me up to have dinner and would tell me never sleep hungry.

Persian food is my favorite food not because it is from my country but also because the amount of time they take to be made. Most of our traditional dish takes hours to be made such as Ghorme Sabzi, Gheyme, etc. Iranian use coloring plates that has traditional design on them to serve food. They always design the food to look nice. Most of the Iranian dishes serve with rice, breads, vegetables salads and yogurt. It is really important to have fresh vegetables and fresh breads. They also use flavors such as Saffron, turmeric in order to have a good taste and good color. I highly recommend everyone to try Persian food at least once in their lives.