Food_Traditions_Laila Sabzi

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- Laila Sabzi: My grandmother came to the U.S. in the late seventies, because there was a revolution in Iran. We grew up pretty much on the same block as the house that her and my grandfather lived in. She was just a kind individual.

We would go to her house instead of going to daycare, and I would hang out and watch her cooking food in the kitchen. This is Ghormeh sabzi. Some might call it the national dish of Iran. This was something that my grandmother would make on Friday nights for Shabbat. We are Sephardic Jews. We definitely tried to assimilate and not be Jewish outside of doing things with our family. We didn't want to be weird. We wanted to go to football games on Friday night and not be at my grandmother's house, eating the foods that I now cook. We wanted hamburgers and hot dogs and just to fit in. 
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My father owns a Persian rug store, and he's always worked six days a week since I was a little kid, so Sundays were the only days that he has off. We have our family gathering on Sundays, based sort of on his work schedule.

I wouldn't be here if I didn't have my family with me. I think there's forces at work here that, you'll always end up finding us having dinner together.