Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation11 Mai 2022

Interview | Growing Up Irooni- Caspian Chef discusses returning to his Iranian roots after decades of assimilation

In this Growing Up Irooni we talk to Omid Roustaei, better known as the Caspian Chef. In this conversation, we discuss the process of coming to the United States on his own and figuring out his own path for assimilating into American culture as a means of survival. Omid has has a very rich and varied path, first studying biotech engineering, and then becoming a personal chef and yoga teacher, to pursuing a career in psychotherapy, to returning to cooking and his Iranian roots only in the past few years.This was one of the most fascinating conversations I've had- and we really go into some territory that I think will resonate with so many of us- life is certainly not linear, and we can see that in Omid's story. We talk about career and pursuing your dreams- he first went down the ‘traditional Iranian path' of becoming a biotech engineer and worked in that field for a while, before pivoting to the perhaps more American notion of pursuing his passion- cooking and psychotherapy. We also talked about the process of assimilation as a coping mechanism- what it means to arrive in a country and need to fit in. And finally, what led Omid back to the path of rediscovering his Iranian roots- from cooking Persian food, to becoming reacquainted with the Persian language, and to ultimately seek out and become part of the Iranian diaspora community again.I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did!

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Episoder(223)

Interview | Raising Neem-Roonis- An Interview with Reza Aslan

(Originally published May 12th 2020) In this Raising Neem-Roonis edition of Chai and Conversation, we talk to author, commentator, producer, professor, and many other hat-wearer Iranian-American Reza ...

18 Mai 202230min

Poetry | Saadi's bani ādam Part 3

In this final part of the discussion of Bani Adam by Saadi, we go over the last two lines of the poem, and review the entire poem in its entirety as well.

31 Jan 202211min

Poetry | Saadi's bani ādam Part 2

In this lesson, we'll go over the first part of the poem bani ādam and learn the individual words and phrases of this section of the poem.

23 Jan 202218min

Poetry | Saadi's bani ādam Intro

In this poetry episode, we go over one of the most famous poems of the Persian language, bani ādam, by the poet Saadi. We will learn about Saadi and what made him such a unique voice, and then we'll g...

9 Des 202126min

Poetry | Rumi's beshnō een nay Part 4

In this lesson, we're going to go over the final part of the poem beshnō een nay by Rumi. We will go over the Persian words and phrases learned in this part of the poem.

5 Jul 202116min

Poetry | Rumi's beshnō een nay Part 3

In this third part of our discussion of Rumi's beshnō een nay, we go over the middle part of the poem, and learn the words and phrases associated with this part of the poem.

28 Jun 202119min

Poetry | Rumi's beshnō een nay Part 2

In this lesson, we're going to go over the first four lines of the poem beshnō een nay, (also known as beshnō az nay- we explain this in the lesson) and learn the vocabulary and phrases associated wit...

21 Jun 202120min