About Me

Hi, my name is Rustam. I grew up in a multicultural family. My mother was a nice Jewish girl from Queens and my father was born in Iran. My mom’s mother was a librarian and worked many hours. She was the sweetest grandmother you could ask for but could not cook to save her life with a few exceptions. Marnie’s chopped liver was to die for.



But she loved to feed her family. For family gatherings she made sure we had the best bagels, cream cheese, lox and whitefish money could buy. And, of course a batch of her chopped liver with wonderful Jewish Rye bread.

When my mom was a young girl, she took on the cooking for the family. She had a natural knack for it and loved to make tasty meals. She learned to cook dishes from other cultures and nations. When I was growing up we would have homemade Chinese and Italian almost every week.

Mom was a very good baker too and we had pie very often, especially in the summer: blueberry, peach and apple pie in the fall with raisins sometimes, a personal favorite. Those little bursts of sweetness blended with the tartness of the apples and the earthiness of the cinnamon were like a bite of heaven.

I would often watch what mom was cooking and ask her questions. Eventually I really liked the idea of cooking myself. Mom worked one night a week, so we were on our own to get dinner together. Omelets and salad were a staple, as my sister and I learned to cook. Spaghetti with canned, White Clam Sauce also become a common Thursday night meal. Eventually I decided to find out how to make the clam sauce and found a recipe from a NY Times food critic. Yay, no more canned sauce!

As a kid I hated Julia Child but loved Graham Kerr, the Galloping Gourmet. Any time we didn’t have school I would avidly watch his show. One night we were watching Julia Child where she demonstrated how to cut up a whole chicken. She said something about taking the chicken by the head. I started to do an imitation of her, saying “Now take the chicken by the head” that I would often use when we were preparing a chicken dish. Eventually she grew on me and I became a fan. While I haven’t become a French cook, I have since then enjoyed hearing her thoughts on other cuisines and other chefs, particularly when those chefs share how she influenced them.