To Nourish a Soul

It was 2018, and I was in the back of Komaaj, a little Persian spot tucked into a cafe in Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto, up to my elbows in beets. The restaurant hummed with simmering stews, and I was chopping away, grinning ear to ear, lost in it all. This was back in high school, when I'd toyed with the idea of culinary school. Food felt like the one thing that made sense, a way to create something real.

Komaaj, the cake we were named for, comes from northern Iran: rice flour mixed with yogurt, a hint of saffron and rosewater, then glazed with honey and topped with dried rose petals. A tricky recipe to get just right. But I didn't mind the fuss. I'd known Hanif, the founder, since I was a kid in an afterschool program. He'd left engineering behind when he immigrated, landing as a chef at Golestan, a Persian immersion school. Hanif's love for this work was fiery; it drew me in and made me want more. As I leaned into that, I caught the spark too.

I started small: prepping beets, endless greens, simmering walnuts and turmeric. It was simple, but I was hooked. Then 2020 hit, COVID upended everything. We left the cafe for a warehouse, shifting to delivery meals for families. I ended up driving bags of food across the Bay Area, hundreds of miles in a single week. It was tiring, sure, but it was right. Delivering those meals meant keeping a piece of our culture alive, even as the world paused.

We made it through though, and found a small space in San Francisco's Mission district. Most of the team couldn't make the commute into the city, so I stepped up, running the kitchen alongside one person I was training, and Hanif. Those days stick with me: cooking full plates, talking with customers about northern Iran, the flavors beyond the usual kebabs. It was the first time I really felt in my element, sharing what I'd learned. In Persian culture, it is summed up by the saying “noosh-e jaan,” in English, “nourish the soul.”  Food is more than sustenance, it's a culture of connection! To nourish one person like that? That is a life well lived for me.

Looking back, that's what pulled me in most about food – the learning – diving into recipes and stories. But on the flip side, what I loved more was the teaching. Expanding someone's horizon beyond what they thought they knew. This feeling extended to guiding junior EMTs through a shift. Passing on what I know builds something lasting. It keeps us all moving forward. 

What I didn't expect was how medicine would echo it all, but louder. My time in EMS showed me: That same act of giving, transforming a rough moment into relief, is deeper in medicine. A chef turns the hungry into the satiated; a provider turns the sick into the steady. They're not so different when you get down to the root. 

What more is cooking than making people feel better? What more is medicine? For me, what started as a pull toward kitchens ended up lighting the way to pre-med. As I got chances to explore medicine, I found that each patient was a chance to connect, the same chance that every plate of food provides. To connect is to nourish, and to nourish is to be fulfilled. How lucky are we to be an active participant in that? Me personally? I can't ask for anything more.