Notes from Mom

So I hinted about this before in one of my earlier posts. Every bento box that I send out to my diners are accompanied with a note (pictured above). I think it's nice to send out a personal note to give them some insight into the inspiration and history behind the bento and the recipes. The picture above came from my Persian bento:

I actually learned these dishes from a good friend of mine. She, with her husband, use to own a local Persian restaurant. I trimmed down some of the ingredients to make it a bit more health conscious. You'll no doubt notice that Persian food is similar to many of it's middle eastern counterparts, lots of stews and curry. Persian food is unique in that they focus a lot of attention on the rice, there are whole cookbooks on Persian rice recipes, heck they even fight over the overcooked crunchy bits. The main stew is called Fesenjoon, it's a chicken stewed in a walnut pomegranate sauce, it's got an interesting taste, rich, sweet and sour. Above it is Baghali Polo, a lima bean dill basmati rice. To the side you have Mirza Ghasemi, eggplant with tomato dish that has a good bit of kick from the head of garlic it calls for. We finish off with a little cup of my baba ghanouj, every middle eastern culture seems to have their variant, this happens to be my take. Everything except the Baba Ghanouj should be heated. The Pita bread can be used with all of the dishes. I hope you find the dishes to your taste, I assure you the tastes are authentic.

Starting from the bottom left
#Fesenjoon
#Baghali Polo
#Baba Ghanouj
#Mirza Ghasemi
#Pita on the side

Nooshe John Befarmaeed (Happy Eating!)
IronJack

I usually give a brief introduction and go into each of the items, heating instructions and the like. And of course the final manifest of what's in the bento box.

<yawn> I'm a bit tired from my rushed bentos last night, I have some lessons learned so I'll be posting those when I post the boxes.