Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation11 Maj 2022

Interview | Caspian Chef on 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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Avsnitt(234)

Culture | Attar's Conference of the Birds, Part 3

In the third part of our discussion of Attar's Conference of the Birds, Leyla is joined by Omid Arabian of the YOUniversal Center as hundreds of thousands of birds set out on the road — only to falter...

9 Sep 23min

Culture | Attar's Conference of the Birds, Part 2

In the second part of our discussion of Attar's Conference of the Birds, Leyla is joined by Omid Arabian of the YOUniversal Center as the Hoopoe finally names the king the birds have been seeking — th...

2 Sep 18min

Culture | Attar's Conference of the Birds, Part 1

In this lesson, Leyla is joined by Omid Arabian of the YOUniversal Center for an overview of Attar's Conference of the Birds. Working through selected verses from across the poem, they trace the birds...

27 Aug 29min

Poetry | Simin Behbahani's dobāré meesāzamet vatan, Part 6

In this final part of the discussion of Simin Behbahani's dobāré meesāzamat vatan, we go over the end of the poem in detail.

2 Aug 21min

Poetry | Simin Behbahani's dobāré meesāzamet vatan, Part 5

In this fifth part of the discussion of Simin Behbahani's dobāré meesāzamat vatan, we go over the second-to-last part of the poem in detail.

29 Juli 17min

Interview | Sasha von Oldershausen on the Crown Prince of Lubbock, Texas

In this episode, Leyla sits down with Sasha von Oldershausen — an Iranian American journalist on the news and politics team at Texas Monthly, and soon to be the New York Times' first-ever Texas cultur...

29 Juli 1h 11min

Poetry | Simin Behbahani's dobāré meesāzamet vatan, Part 4

In this fourth part of the discussion of Simin Behbahani's dobāré meesāzamat vatan, we go over the next six lines of the poem in detail.

20 Juli 19min

Interview | Yasmin Khan on Food, Culture & Compassion Across Borders

In this episode, Leyla sits down with Yasmin Khan — the acclaimed British-Iranian-Pakistani food writer, activist, and author of *The Saffron Tales*, *Zaitoun*, *Ripe Figs*, and her newest cookbook, *...

13 Juli 59min