“Here you go, everyone take a recipe book,” said Ms. Tamara Gidanian, math teacher by day, Persian chef by weekend. She handed out small homemade recipe books to the 20 people who attended her Persian Cooking class Feb. 21. The class was held in the kitchen of the Ellenhorn residence, home of freshman Jacob Ellenhorn, and raised about $900 for the senior Poland-Israel trip.

As the lesson proceeded, everyone gathered around the kitchen either drinking Persian tea or Persian wine, or snacking on grilled tomatoes and eggplants. Ms. Gidanian, who teaches Algebra I, Algebra II Honors, and Calculus BC, is originally from Iran and has been teaching at Shalhevet for three years.

Guests were mostly parents of freshmen, along with other Shalhevet parents and a few teachers. Ms. Gidanian started off the class explaining the three foods they would be making: gondi and aboosht; polo; and baghali polo. 

When she got to the cooking portion, Ms. Gidanian began with gondi and aboosht. She explained how these matzah balls are a traditional Persian food which are mostly eaten on Passover because Sefardim can have rice on Passover. 

While people took turns blending the chicken broth, Ms. Gidonian told the story of how her husband was the one who taught her how to cook. The chefs-in-progress were extremely quiet and focused as they learned how putting a drop of lemon in your matzah balls makes it all the better. Ms. Gidanian also showed everyone how to mix the foods to cook it better.

“It was useful and my daughter made a whole Persian meal afterwards, so we actually used the stuff that we learned from the class,” said lower school General Studies Principal Dr. Deborah Parks.

“I thought it was a great success and I feel that everybody enjoyed it including myself,” said Ms. Gidanian after the class was over. “People who have been to cooking classes before told me this was one of the best!” 

Features Editor Rachel Lester also contributed to this story.