Pappy's home

My Dad just got home from Iran today. He brought lots of goodies with him, mostly the edible kind. My favorite. He's home just in time for Persian Nowruz (translates to new-[year]-day) which is March 19th at 10:48:19PM, the moment of the vernal equinox. The date and time changes every year.

Back to the goodies that Pappy brought home. First off, you should all know that we Persians invented fruit roll-ups. Its called lavashak in the mother land. Its so sour that the thought of it makes my mouth pucker. Excuse me while I mop up the drool. It comes in flavors like pomegranate and red currant, which I'm pretty sure we invented those too. I've eaten enough lavashak to make my stomach burn and melt the skin off my tongue. So good.

We may have invented cotton candy also, I'm not totally sure and wouldn't want to toot our horn and be wrong, but I'm pretty sure we invented the stuff of which cotton candy is a knock off of. Its called pashmak, and instead of grainy fluff (cotton candy), it consists of fine strands of sweet wispy threads. So good. I found this Australian website called Pariya, that sells pashmak and other Persian stuff in tasty flavors like saffron (the best of which comes from Iran), rose, and pistachio. I've never ordered it from them, but one of these days I plan to. They call it Persian fairy floss. Cute.

Back to my Pappy....he got us some goodies:

The package of baghlava opened in my Dad's suitcase and the stickyness spilled over the other stuff. So everything was sticky and spread out over the kitchen counter so we could wipe it down. We did not invent baghlava, we just pronounce it different (with the gh instead of a kh). See, I'm not one of those types that tries to take credit for everything.

Several packages of lavashak can be seen at the bottom center of the picture above. It comes in a variety of thicknesses and fruits (real fruit, none of that artificial color, flavors, and corn syrup BS) . You can see a package of dried figs (upper right) and a package of white mulberries (yellow bag) and blue box of nougat with pistachios. Mmmm good.

This is sohan. It is like a brittle, but instead of peanut, this one has pistachio and almonds. Really good, you can't just have one bite, you have to eat the whole box. So so good.

This is an assortment of cookies. Rice flour cookies, chickpea flour cookies, almond cookies. Delicious with a strong tea.

Dried white mulberry (toot, that's what its called, toot), ajeel which is a Persian version of a trail mix, dried plum, and dried fig.These are little bottles of liquor that they gave my Dad on the flight to and from Iran. The one on the left is empty because liquor is not legal to consume in Iran. The one on the right is full (you can see the little stopper on the chimney top). They give the ones that are full of liquor to passengers when you leave Iran only.

Tomorrow is my cousin Cy's birthday. More on that and Persian Nowruz through out the week. We're going to party like its 1387.