Appetizers

Thank Yew, Thank Yew

We’re throwing a party tonight! The first of MANY, don’t you worry. If you didn’t get an invite, consider upgrading your subscription—membership has its privileges! If you did, get ready for our first-ever piece of deeply did-it-ourselves merch; supplies are limited to our first 100 guests, but if we have extras, we’ll offer them here next week. We would like to extend an extra special thank you to Murray’s Cheese, MX Morningstar Farm, and Mel the Bakery for hooking us up with some of the delicacies we will be feeding to attendees this evening. Nice people! Patronize their businesses! —A.B.S.

نوروز پیروز

I asked everyone I spoke to for today’s story on hashoo mahi about their plans for Nowruz tomorrow. I’ve assembled the traditional haftsin table, but like many diasporic Iranians, I’m still wrapping my head around how to celebrate the new year in the midst of the US-Israeli war on Iran. The chef and cookbook author Najmieh Batmanglij is keeping things simple. She’s making baghlava and her sisters are cooking sabzi polo and mahi. “It's a very low-key gathering. Hold hands and pray for our country.” Ali Saboor, head chef at the Brooklyn restaurant Eyval, said that “Honestly, this year I just don't have the heart to do much. Not as much as we usually do.” Ghazaleh Avarzamani, an artist whose fish recipe we’ve adapted, often procrastinates on setting up her haftsin, but not this year: “I think we need to keep our traditions no matter what. I am inviting a lot of non-Iranians to my house. I feel like I am responsible to spread the word and let people know who we are.” Nowruz mobarak, and if you hit reply on this email, I’d love to hear how you’re welcoming 1405 tomorrow. —N.S.

Maternity? Leave!

A fact I hope you know: Gourmet is a cooperative. But as the child of hippies who grew up in one of America’s most progressive enclaves (Western Mass, known to some as the Tofu Curtain), I am also keenly aware of how the deliberative cooperative spirit can devolve into something bureaucratically, often delightfully, absurd. 

Which leads me to a fact I just learned: Over drinks with a dear friend a few nights ago, I inquired about my favorite recurring drama in her life: the Park Slope Food Coop. This New York City establishment, founded in 1971, is famous for giving members access to some of the cheapest produce and bulk food in the city, for being the hardest membership to nab, and for self-ruling its equally-owned members with the most militant zeal. Usually, my friend would tell a story about the hamster wheel paradox of requiring every member to work a shift (lest they risk being suspended) while the coop doesn’t have enough work for everyone to keep busy. But this time my friend, a new mother, told me that she had (rightfully) taken the last year off for her new mothering duties—but not without a fight! Indeed, the Park Slope Food Coop does not take members at their word that they “had a baby” and thus would like a short hiatus. (In some circles this is known as maternity leave.) The powers that be require cold hard proof: a bona fide birth certificate. 

This brought me to my knees. I need to know what led to the rule! Was it the usual bylaw minutiae that emerges from hours-long meetings? (Which! I am in favor of! For the record!) Or were there actually Brooklynites boasting about fake babies to take an extended trip to Tulum?

Or was it simply a trap? The friend told me the Coop gave her birth certificate a thorough inspection and asked about the other parent on the document. Why hadn’t he been contributing to member hours? While trying to comply with one rule, she fell afoul of another. She hasn’t been back since. —C.G.W.