Chef, herbalist, and culinary guide — weaving together the wisdom of food, herbs, and seasons to help people find nourishment in daily life. For me, food has never been “just fuel.” It’s story, memory, company, ritual, and most of all, medicine.

My love for food began in the world of pastry — I trained at Le Cordon Bleu as a French pastry chef, drawn to the beauty and precision of that craft. From there, I followed the flavors of my Persian and French heritage, and traveled through Greece and Turkey to study old-world food traditions — from village kitchens to pastoral communities, where herding and shepherding shaped the meals, rituals, and ways of life. Along the way, I had the privilege of working across a wide range of culinary endeavors — from plant-based to meat-focused — gaining a deep respect for the dynamic world of food.

But alongside my passion, I was navigating my own health struggles: gut imbalances like SIBO, parasitic infections, iron deficiencies, and hormonal challenges. These experiences taught me that food had to be more than beautiful or delicious — it had to be deeply nourishing. Through food and herbs, I found the most powerful tools for transformation.

I studied many healing modalities — from medicine and somatic therapy to dance, yoga, and movement practices — but food was the one that made the most sense. It was food that brought me back into the ecology of being human, of belonging to the land itself. Every moment with these foods and herbs is an invitation to re-enter a part of ourselves that may have been lost, but never forgotten.

Across cultures and through time, food has carried not just nourishment, but story and memory. Folklore, rituals, and ancestral traditions remind us that to cook is to participate in something greater than ourselves — a thread that ties us to those who came before and those who will come after. Like the Māori and many indigenous traditions, food is ceremony, kinship, and belonging. Engaging with it heightens our senses — the touch of dough, the smell of herbs, the sound of a simmer, the sight of color, the taste of the season. This sensory weaving itself becomes a kind of breathing sensuality — a way back into intimacy with life.

We breathe the same air as this earth. To cook, to taste, to work with plants and animals is to weave ourselves back into that shared rhythm. Each meal, each ritual, each herb is a way to return — to remember what it means to be part of this living world.