top of mind 🇮🇷

Each month we’ll be asking a writer to speak on what’s on their mind and their tabs for our monthly recommendations. With the Persian New Year coming up, we’re honored to have Iranian American writer Nicole Najafi contributing this month.

Hi! I’m Nicole and I write movies/TV and satire. I’m also Iranian and very excited that it’s the Persian New Year, called Nowruz, which is celebrated on the first day of spring. I was chatting with a friend recently, and she didn’t know that Nowruz was a non-Islamic holiday.

Nowruz actually started thousands of years ago, long before Islam was founded. Its roots are in Zoroastrianism, one of the world’s oldest faiths, which is presumed to have influenced Buddhism and Greek mythology. Thousands of years ago in ancient Persia (now Iran), people celebrated the arrival of spring as a victory of light over dark, as spring conquers winter.

If you’re even remotely into anything woo-woo, you’ll love Nowruz, because it’s jam-packed with ancient symbolism and rituals. We have a celebration called Chaharshanbe Suri (Festival of Fire) where we jump over fire and ask the fire to absorb our bad energy and give us its vivacity in return. 

We also create a “haft-sin,” where you arrange the following items on a beautiful Persian tablecloth or “sofreh” to call in their symbolic meaning for the New Year:

1. Wheat or lentil sprouts (Sabzeh) — symbolizes rebirth and growth

2. Wheat germ pudding (Samanu) — symbolizes affluence (it’s also delicious)

3. Dried oleaster (Senjed) — symbolizes love

4. Garlic (Sir) — symbolizes health

5. Apple (Sib) — symbolizes beauty

6. Sumac (Somagh) — symbolizes the sunrise and new beginnings or a new day

7. Vinegar (Serkeh) — symbolizes patience (I keep a massive decanter of vinegar on my haft-sin. I need all the help I can get with this one.)

If you want to celebrate Nowruz, gather these seven elements on March 20th, arrange them on a tablecloth, and keep it out for 13 days to have an auspicious new year. 

open tabs

nicole najafi’s

1. I can’t get enough pistachio brittle (“sohan” in Persian). This brand Fard has the most iconic tin that I plan to use for storage.

2. I ordered these for my haft-sin from Gohar World after many months of debating whether I really needed $98 dessert stems, and it turns out — yeah, I really did. I love them.

3. This book has me planning a very dreamy trip.

4. It’s impossible to keep my cats away from my haft-sin, but one thing that has succeeded in distracting them for extended periods of time are these robot fish. I plunk them into a popcorn bowl full of water and it’s like giving an iPad to a kid. Magic.

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5. Photographer Ashkan Noroozkhani traveled all over the world to show the unknown iconic Iranian female figures excluded from storybooks in a collection of thirty-five portraits.

6. A big tradition leading to the Persian New Year is spring-cleaning, “khonneh takoun” which literally translates to “shaking the house”. We’re doing it differently this year and considering ‘Knolling’.

7. #CookForIran aims to increase awareness of the humanitarian crisis in Iran through food. For Nowruz, they are hosting a series of live cooking with influential Iranian chefs such as Nasim Alikhani (who we profiled), Najmieh Batmanglij among others until this Sunday. We’re signing up for Nilou Motamed’s saffron rice pudding dessert (Sholeh Zard).

8. Author and artist Hannah Darabi takes us to a specific place and time: Rue Enghelab, the epicenter of book sales in the Iranian capital, in the period immediately following the fall of the Shah and prior to the establishment of the Islamic regime.

9. Hushi’s Roses and Hafez top, Pairi Daeza’s zodiac vest and Maryam Nassir Zadeh’s reza skirt in our shopping open tabs in time for the Iranian ‘new clothing’ (lebāsé nō) tradition.

10. This Persian rug from Kermanshah Oriental Rugs Gallery.

from the founder

You are really getting the full Iranian immersion with this month’s newsletter! I bet a few will unsubscribe, but for once, I feel unapologetic about it. I usually steer away from nationalism, or pushing cultural identity… but this feels different. I’ve seen my mom for years embrace assimilation to the point of being ashamed of uttering the words ‘I’m Iranian’. 

Politics often overtakes the narrative about what Iranians and their culture are like, which has caused a lot of beauty to be discarded. Only since the Jin, Jiyan, Azadi movement have perceptions started to shift and allowed Iranians to reclaim representation of their country. I’ve witnessed the direct impact of this in the way my mom has been treated over the past couple of months. She tells me “for years I had to apologize for where I was born, my skin color, my hair, and now whenever I say I’m Iranian, people celebrate me and ask for ways they can support Iranian women.” Last Saturday at the farmer’s market, a white man with a thick southern accent wished me Eid Mubarak with a perfect pronunciation and sweet smile when I was about to purchase my sabzeh/sprouts for my haft-sin table, something I would have never imagined a year ago. I think shedding light on our traditions (like Nowruz), our culture, and the Iranian women who are continuing the fight for the right to choose what to do with their bodies, matter. 

This year’s Nowruz feels all the more important, a tradition that has existed (and survived) for at least 3,000 years! As Nicole highlighted, well before Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. The Islamic Republic of Iran tried (and failed) to curb the popularity of Nowruz for it being “un-Islamic”, and so celebrating it this year is, for some, a form of protest. But even if you’re not joining in the celebration, the festivities’ promise of rebirth and peace bring hope for all.

Clémence Vina Polès

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This newsletter was curated for you by our guest curator nicole najafi and the passerby team

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