From KCRW, I'm Evan Klyman, and this is good food. All over the world, Iranians are preparing

to celebrate Nauru's, the Iranian New Year's Spring Festival. Omid Rustai is a Seattle-based

Iranian-American chef and culinary instructor who's been deeply involved in the culinary world

for more than 20 years.

He was born and raised in Tehran, and at the age of 17, he immigrated to Sedona, Arizona,

where he finished high school.

His path toward food wasn't linear, though, and all his different jobs, from biotech to

therapists, then private chef and teacher, come together in a lovely

cookbook, bitter and sweet. I'm thrilled to have Omid on good food. Thank you, Evan. It's a pleasure

being with you today. You speak very movingly throughout the book about experiences you've had

at different parts of your life. And one thing that

really hit me, given our politics today and how divisive everything is, is you talked about

at the onset of the revolution, how so much of the conviviality and that happened around the table and at your home and with your family

started to break apart.

It was particularly a difficult time.

I think maybe a lot of folks can relate to that as what's happening today here in the U.S.

It's just different political perspectives and taking sides.

And so what was once a very tight-knit network of friends and family

became a little divisive and more divisive to such an extent

where there were indeed family ties that broke and maybe never repaired.

So that was one of the notable experiences when you have a sense of disconnection with your own family

system.

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