duty during tea, fixing the orders Layla brought in to her while rushing to the sink to replenish their dwindling pile of clean dishes, all the while keeping an eye onthe brick oven, which delivered constant rounds of bread and kebabs of chicken, mint lamb, and onion. It was getting to be very exhausting. When she had pointed this out to Bahar, her sister's response had been tepid, offhanded even.
“I don't expect you to understand,” Bahar had said with a quick shrug. “You've got the café and cooking and everything— this is what you've always wanted. But I'll go crazy if I spend every single moment cooped up inside. I need my time as well.”
And so the advent of her afternoon breaks, taken every other weekday.
What she did on her time away, Marjan never asked. And Bahar wasn't terribly forthcoming about it. The only indication that she had accomplished something of substance was the glow on her face when she returned an hour before closing.
It was strange to see her usually mercurial sister so calm, thought Marjan. It was enough to incite some worry.
She knew she should be thankful to have Bahar in such a light mood for the rest of the night, but she couldn't help but ruminate, with some trepidation, on the cause behind her sister's recent demeanor. It wasn't the first time Bahar had been so secretive about a part of her life, after all.
Nine years ago she had changed from a normal enough teenager to a raging revolutionary in a matter of days. Wrapped in a chador, she had taken to the streets of Tehran, joining a pack of women who were protesting the reign of the Shah and his decades of tyranny. To some it may have seemed peculiar, this sudden change that had come over Bahar when she was only sixteen, but Marjan knew it was in accordance with her pendulumlike personality. Bahar had always had an unpredictable mixture of
garm
(hot) and
sard
(cold) coursing through her veins. Its wellspring could be found in the seasons of life itself, the day of the equinox and Bahar's birthday as well, March 21. That waswhen new and old converged, creating an unpredictable nature in anyone born on that date.
Still, even Marjan had been shocked when Bahar announced her engagement to a man twice her age.
Marjan took a deep breath, determined not to let her worry get the best of her. Eager to focus on something other than her sister's mysterious behavior, she grabbed a cup of bergamot tea and sat down at the round table to go over the menu for the next day.
It was one of the moments she most looked forward to, designing her schedule of treats. Planning and listing always cleared her mind of any stresses that had piled on her shoulders during the course of her working day. Cooking required a certain degree of compartmentalization, but it also involved a lot of variables, chaotic moments that were unscripted. With her lists, Marjan could be a lot more simple. Yet still adventurous.
Especially for this season: autumn called for a touch of nuance from every chef.
Marjan bit the end of her pen in thought. She'd stick to the
gormeh sabzi
she had made today: the two batches she had made were gone by one o'clock. But another
garm
dish was needed still, something warming, something like stuffed eggplants with turmeric-encrusted lamb. A poor man's saffron to some, turmeric. But for Marjan, it had much more use than just its ability to give rice a yellowy hue. The spice, when cooked with dark meats, tended to unseen inflammations in the body, which, if left unheeded, could mark the beginnings of disease.
Gormeh sabzi
, stuffed eggplants, and turmeric-encrusted lamb. Yes, she nodded, that would work out just grand.
And she'd have to make some more chickpea cookies as well. She would need a few rounds for the Bonfire the next evening.
As for a soup, she was thinking of a nice noodle with meat and rice dumplings—like the ones their mother used to make before the first frost descended over Tehran. It had been Marjan's job to press the