2. Terroir: An offering

Action 2 | Grad Studio I
My teammate: Melanie Camman

My Offering | دلمه فلفل
After I heard the title of this action, I was going through all the Persian foods in my head to see which one I should choose as a meaningful offering; Ghorme-sabzi, Mirza-ghasemi or even Tahchin. All the foods I had in my mind were either pretty difficult to make, or took a long time to prepare or had crazy ingredients that I was not sure she could find in Vancouver. So after a lot of overthinking, I came to the realization that Persian cuisine is generally not the easiest to make, and a key ingredient in most of our food is actually patience! With that in mind, I chose one of my favorite meals called Dolma.

Melanie’s offering | oatmeal
On the other hand, Melanie’s offering to me was her own version of lazy oatmeal. When I first saw the title of her instruction, I actually said Yaaay! Oatmeal is something I already love and it is my absolute go to breakfast during winter time. She said that this is a recipe she has developed over years and it’s her favorite to have on cold rainy winter days in Vancouver.

So there I was, in 30 degree sunny and still summery Tehran, making a warm Canadian breakfast and thinking that with all the travel restrictions in place, this is probably the closest I can get to Canada for a while, so I’d better make the most of it! 🇨🇦
The result was as good as I had expected it be! Warm, filling and delicious!
I tried my best to follow her instructions exactly and even did some yoga (as she had suggested) while I was waiting for the oatmeal to get ready in the oven, which made the whole experience even more pleasant and calming. A great way to start the morning!

My feedback of the process

Reflection:
After we presented our feedbacks, we decided to have a zoom call and share out thoughts on the whole experience as a way of reflecting on the action.
It was so great to have this talk and get to know her a bit better. One thing that I really loved about the experience was that I had a chosen my offering as a food of nostalgia; because it connects me to my grandma who I haven’t been able to see for a while. During our talk, I found out that the mint that Melanie had used in her Dolma was actually from her grandmother’s garden that she had brought and planted in her own garden. The fact that this food and that one ingredient somehow managed to tie us both to our backgrounds was such a beautiful moment to experience.
Thanks Melanie! 🙂

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