chai and conversation's leyla shams on nowruz, new additions to our cph city guide, & more
monthly recs #48
Each month, we ask a writer to share what’s on their minds and in their open tabs for our monthly recommendations. This March’s guest curator is Leyla Shams of Chai and Conversation, a platform for learning the Persian language (Farsi) and culture. Leyla was born in Iran, but moved to Texas at the age of 4. Because she grew up living in the same house as her grandparents (and because her mother Farzaneh Nouri taught the first Persian language class for kids in the Dallas area), she grew up speaking Persian (and loving it!). She started Chai and Conversation as a side project while working at an architecture studio, but has since ventured to working on it full time.
It’s time for Nowruz again, the Persian new year, happening exactly at the moment of the vernal equinox, when the northern hemisphere passes into the spring season. Unlike the western New Year holiday, where the festivities and the resolutions start after the clock strikes midnight, most of the hard work and preparations for Nowruz happen in the days and weeks before. The absolute first thing that happens (starting weeks before the holiday) is the tradition of khooné takoonee, literally meaning shaking of the house. For this tradition, every single bit of your home must be cleaned before the new year, even the dark, forgotten crevices, and neglected corners and closets. But it’s not only cleaning that takes place — there’s also a big purge of anything that is no longer needed, and the washing and honoring and taking care of everything that is.
I always aspire to make the most of the spring cleaning, but I have to admit that I’ve never done it fully. This year though, I’m really feeling it. Our current state of political upheaval is just exacerbating this feeling. I have an overwhelming need to pare down to essentials, to get rid of what no longer serves me — in my house, but also in other aspects of life.
One of the other quintessential aspects of Nowruz is the concept of community and fortifying relationships. Community, and especially family, are revered in Iranian culture, and Nowruz provides an excuse to bring people together and strengthen those ties. And lately, I can’t help but feel this is exactly what we need — an antidote to the constant barrage of chaos and disconnection.
So on that note, I’ve put together a list of recommendations that focus on renewal, community, and the simple but powerful traditions of Nowruz.
leyla shams’
1. Food is such an incredibly important part of the Nowruz holiday, and one that I take seriously. Part of my Nowruz preparation is pickling vegetables, known as torshi, to give as gifts to the whole family. I have an entire bookshelf dedicated to fantastic Iranian cookbooks, but the three I turn to the most are Bitter and Sweet, a new cookbook by Omid Roustaie, aka The Caspian Chef, Bottom of the Pot by Naz Deravian, and Sofreh by Nasim Alikhani.
2. Financial literacy is one of my absolute favorite subjects, and the new spring season is the perfect time to get your financial house in order. One of my favorite financial podcasts happens to be by a fellow Iranian powerhouse, Farnoosh Torabi — So Money just celebrated its 10th year, and I highly recommend listening to find out steps to become empowered with your finances. Another podcast I’d highly recommend is Money with Katie — I first found out about Katie through Farnoosh, and have enjoyed watching her mad queries into why the world is the way it is.
3. Right before the pandemic hit in 2020, I spent a couple weeks putting together a very thorough guide to Nowruz, called ‘The Complete Guide to Living Your Best Nowruz.’ It was funny timing because so many of the instructions I gave in the article were centered around gatherings and community, which became pretty impossible everywhere in the world that year. But, traditions have held strong, and I update the article each year so that it remains relevant. Many of the suggestions here will make more sense after reading it.
4. At the moment of Nowruz, you have to be wearing all new clothes from head to toe (and yes that includes socks and underwear!). I have a few very favorite clothing designers that happen to be Iranian, and they include VVORK VVORK VVORK, LEBĀS NYC and of course Maryam Nassir Zadeh!
5. Right now I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed about all the upheaval and destructiveness and uncertainty going on in the world (it feels like somehow it keeps ramping up even when I think we’ve reached fever pitch already). One thing I do is read classical poetry and take comfort in the fact that the world has always been this way. There’s always been injustice and difficulty, and people have always had to fight for their rights. I recommend checking out translations of Persian poems by Dick Davis, or checking out the book Song of the Ground Jay, with poems from Iranian women. I also have a whole series on my podcast dedicated to classical Persian poetry where I talk about exactly this. One of my favorite episodes is this one on Sohrab Sepehri’s poem dar golestāné, a poem that always brings me great joy.
paid subscribers can scroll down for more recs from leyla, including the movie she likens to a Persian Babygirl, a podcast to fix your finances and your relationship, and more.
more from us
6. Our Women’s History Month recs: The Women’s Audio Archive of sound recordings, primarily featuring women who were in the orbit of the legendary October magazine, a pioneering journal of criticism and theory about contemporary art; the exhibit On Mass Hysteria/A History of Misogyny at Le Bal, a visual archive of so-called “collective hysteria” that imagines these crises as women’s resistance; and the
newsletter’s profiles of once-forgotten women from history, written by (learn more about Julia in our recent community spotlight). Of course, at passerby, we celebrate women’s stories year-round — you can support our work by becoming a paid subscriber.
7. As Leyla mentioned, an important part of the preparations for Nowruz is getting your house in order. We’re focusing on fixing the things we’ve left unattended for too long. This periodic table of tools is a great resource, as is The Feminine Fix-It Handbook (one of the books Clémence turned to after her divorce).
8. As the season starts to turn to spring, we’re seeking out the first signs of renewal with help from this NYC Nature Map (and it’s almost time to start keeping an eye on the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Cherrywatch tracker).
9. We were at Copenhagen Fashion Week last month and added a few new names to our city guide. On the secondhand front, Time’s Up Vintage and OSV Secondhand stood out for their excellent curation, with the latter offering a strong menswear selection featuring brands like mfpen, Another Aspect, and 66°North. Meanwhile, the menswear brand Berner Kühl impressed with its elevated take on everyday staples, and Tourell caught our eye with its signature swirls. We also discovered some great food spots — Dzidra, with its delicious lentil and bean stew, and Barr, where the schnitzel is a must. In an unexpected but welcome find, we came across Kuku, a Persian food truck that added something different to the city’s food scene.
10. In honor of Nowruz, we’re thrilled to be presenting a series of screenings of Sepideh Farsi’s films at Metrograph the weekend of March 22nd, with Q&As moderated by friends of passerby Sepideh Moafi and Nicole Najafi. Specialty cocktails by SAG — inspired by aragh sagi, a raisin-distilled Iranian spirit — will also be available throughout the weekend at Metrograph’s lobby bar. We have limited free seating for paid subscribers and will be sending details later this week, so upgrade now if you want first dibs. We hope to see you there — and stay tuned for our interview with Sepideh next week!
Aragh sagi, a distilled spirit made from raisins that first developed in Iran and flourished in underground circles, is the inspiration behind SAG — The Forbidden Spirit. SAG delivers a bold, authentic taste crafted from California raisins and distilled in New York. Order SAG online.
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1. Persian cinema has always been great, but I’ve recently especially been enjoying all the films coming out of Iran that are completely ignoring censorship laws.