For Naz Deravian, who fled the Iranian Revolution with her family at age 8, Persian cooking always delivers on its promise to draw friends and family around a table to laugh and share memories. In her first book, Bottom of the Pot: Persian Recipes and Stories (Flatiron Books; $35), Deravian—an actress and writer now living in Los Angeles—adapts Iranian home cooking to American kitchens with clarity, zest, and joy. “What does Persian food taste like?” she writes. “Fragrant, flavorful, fresh, elegant, cozy, unfussy … certainly never shy.” But it’s her particular take, influenced by years in the West, that we admire: “My cooking … simmers with its own multicultural accent.”
PERSIAN EGGPLANT and TOMATO FRITTATA (VARAGHEH)
SERVES 6 TO 8/50 MINUTES
Varagheh means “layers,” which, says Deravian, perfectly describes this…
