Hello from Kebabistan

What an incredible time we had on Saturday, at @archdeli_e11 , raising money for @cookforiran , enjoying generously donated meat from @swaledalebutchers and groceries from @eat17stores
🔥 🔥 🔥

I wrote this for @oliahercules a few years ago, and while I didn’t make koobideh on Saturday at @archdeli_e11, it seems appropriate to share all the same.

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The 1980s were a hard time to be Iranian in America. I remember my father dancing around in his underwear the day Ayatollah Khomeni died, and I remember not being invited to sleepovers because other kids’ parents in our Detroit suburb didn’t like where my father came from. I didn’t understand prejudice and fear then as I do now, but I did understand that my family was “different.”

Thanksgiving dinners had turkey, sure, but also saffron-laced basmati rice and crispy potato gazmakh (in addition to—not instead of—mashed potatoes). Our Fourth of July barbeques included hamburgers, hot dogs and potato chips, as well as juicy, lamby Iranian kebabs and salad olivieh. My father’s best friend from medical school in Tehran, Dr. Frugh, was always in charge of the koobideh—a seemingly simple kebab of ground lamb, onions and spices.

Thirty plus years have passed, and I can still taste Dr. Frugh’s koobideh. I can still see it, oozing with fat and greenish yellow turmeric (?) juices, as he cavalierly sprinkled sumac on top, and I can still taste it—the best koobideh I have ever and will ever have. Every time I eat koobideh, I want it to be as good as Dr. Frugh’s and it never is. It never will be. It never can be. All koobideh has lamb, onion, turmeric, but Dr. Frugh’s koobideh was more than that. And every time I have the dish now, I think of a lazy summer’s day in metro Detroit. I think of childhood — of running around barefoot, catching lightning bugs in mason jars, hands sticky with watermelon juice, hair stiff from our undoubtedly over-cholorinated swimming pool. I chase that feeling, that flavor, that memory with every bite of koobideh, each of which is nowhere near as good as Dr. Frugh’s, but also tastes just enough like it to keep me coming back for more.