The parts in blue need to be removed, and replaced with the stories from Harvest public media that are in the episode 

https://indianapublicmedia.org/eartheats/celebrate-the-persian-new-year-with-this-special-dish.php Celebrate the Persian New Year with this special dish

(Earth Eats theme music)

KAYTE YOUNG: From WFIU in Bloomington, I'm Kayte Young and this is Earth Eats.
MONET GHORBANI: But it's been special in my adulthood to learn how to make these things myself, and then be the one to bring it to my family. 
KAYTE YOUNG: This week on our show we talk with Monet Nazilla Ghorbani from the Navruz Student Association at Indiana University about celebrating the Persian New Year.  She shares her favorite Iranian dish, perfect for celebrating the arrival of spring.

We also have a story from Harvest Public Media about algae blooms in midwestern lakes.

KAYTE YOUNG: Thanks for tuning into earth eats, i’m Kayte Young. 

Let’s start with some updates  from Harvest Public Media. Poultry producers and backyard flock owners are watching closely as a deadly strain of bird flu spreads across the eastern half of the U.S. Harvest Public Media’s Katie Peikes has more. 

KATIE PEIKES: Cases of bird flu have been confirmed in a commercial turkey flock in Iowa. Broiler chickens in Missouri. Mixed species in South Dakota. And the highly contagious virus has also been found in backyard flocks in Iowa, Missouri and Michigan.

Laura Krouse  raises 125 hens on pasture near Mount Vernon, Iowa. She says she’s not overly concerned about bird flu yet, but she’s thinking about it.

LAURA KROUSE: It would be a pretty significant bite on my income. I depend on my egg sales.

KATIE PEIKES: Krouse says one worry is wild birds that could carry the virus and expose her hens. Agriculture officials are cautioning producers to keep their flocks away from wild birds. Katie Peikes, Harvest Public Media.

KAYTE YOUNG:Today’s farm equipment often has to get fixed at the dealership… but consolidation is leading to fewer options for farmers. Harvest Public Media’s Dana Cronin reports.

DANA CRONIN:More and more local farm equipment dealerships are getting bought up by big chains… making it harder and more expensive for farmers to fix equipment, like tractors and combines. That’s according to a new report from the Public Interest Research Group. Willie Cade is with Repair dot org and says this issue needs more legislative attention.

WILLIE CADE: This is very much a bipartisan issue. This is not about R’s and D’s. It’s about getting the job done in time so that our food supply is protected.

DANA CRONIN: Cade says both federal and state legislation is needed and that 34 states have already begun working on so-called “right to repair” laws. I’m Dana Cronin, Harvest Public Media..

KAYTE YOUNG: Thanks to Harvest Public Media’s Katie Peikes and Dana Cronin for those reports. Later in the show, Dana Cronin brings us a story on toxic algae blooms in Midwestern lakes and the lack of testing in many states.,  stay tuned to earth eats  for that important report.

(News theme)
(Cheerful guitar music)
KAYTE YOUNG: The spring equinox falls on March 20th this year. The Persian New Year celebration known as Nawruz coincides with the Spring Equinox. Persians are not the only ones who celebrate Nawruz and the traditions vary from culture to culture. The Navruz Student Association at Indiana University typically plans a week-long celebration involving dancing and food, last year, due to pandemic precautions, it all had to be virtual. I spoke with Monet Gorhbani, who was the President of the Navruz Student Association last year.  She organized a cooking demonstration of Ash-e Reshteh, a popular Iranian dish that is often associated with the Spring holiday. 

I joined the virtual workshop where participants prepared the dish in our own separate kitchens in real-time, while Monet walked us through the steps. She sent out an ingredient list ahead of time and thankfully with enough lead time to locate a few of the hard-to-find ingredients.
The two ingredients that were most unfamiliar are also crucial to the dish. Kashk is the first one, it's referred to as whey. It's a dairy product. We found it in a quart-size jar in the refrigerated section of World Foods Market in Bloomington, formerly known as Sahara Mart. It's thick and creamy, the color of tahini with a tangy salty flavor.
The other special ingredient is the Reshteh. They're long straight noodles, flat and thick, and made from wheat. I can't think of another noodle that would behave exactly like these do, so if possible it's best not to substitute them. those were also easy to locate at World Foods Market in Bloomington.
Fenugreek leaves sometimes known as methi, were also on the list, though Monette said they were optional. The rest of the ingredients were more familiar.
MONET GHORBANI: About two large onions, garlic, two pounds of spinach, two bunches of parsley, two bunches of dill, one bunch of chives, one bunch of mint. And if you couldn't get all of those herbs, in exactly that quantity it doesn't matter. Turmeric, salt and pepper, dried mint, fenugreek optional. I like to just throw it in because I have it. Your favorite broth or just water if you'd like. Lentils, chickpeas, and white beans. 

KAYTE YOUNG: After some brief introductions we dove right into the cooking. Monet had instructed us to soak the dried white beans and chickpeas overnight, and to have the greens washed and chopped, and the onions and garlic sliced and ready to go. We set aside about a quarter cup of the onions to make into a garnish later. 
The first step is to sauté the onions and oil until golden. This will take about 15 minutes then add the garlic and about a tablespoon of salt, tablespoon of turmeric, a handful of fenugreek, a pinch of the dried mint if you like, and some freshly ground pepper.
MONET GHORBANI: Yeah it's funny because I used to get so, not mad with my Grandma, but a little bit annoyed sometimes when she would be making some delicious Persian dish and I would want to learn, and I would try to like come with my notebook, and be like, "Okay! How much exactly of that did you do? And then what did you do?" But she couldn't tell me because she just did it. 
KAYTE YOUNG: Then add the soaked white beans and chickpeas, the lentils, and the broth. Once the broth is hot, start adding all of your prepared greens.
MONET GHORBANI: I forgot to mention that you'll need a really big pot for all of this. 
KAYTE YOUNG: This includes chives or scallions, fresh mint, parsley, dill, and mounds of spinach.
MONET GHORBANI: Also the greens really do cook down and so when we're at that step and you're throwing them in, you're like how is this going to work? It's...
KAYTE YOUNG: You might need to do this in stages, allowing the greens to cook down a bit so that you can fit them all in the pot. Once they're in, put the lid on, turn the heat down, and let it all simmer for about an hour.
The workshop was friendly and informal. We chatted as we cooked, asked questions along the way, and Monet routinely checked in on our progress.
MONET GHORBANI: Can I ask where everyone is? Are we adding in beans at this point? Still chopping a little bit perhaps? 

KAYTE YOUNG: People shared stories about food from their travels and times living in other countries like Afghanistan. We discussed the difference between fenugreek seeds, powder and leaves. And Monet talked about making Persian ice cream.
MONET GHORBANI: I started from scratch with boiling the milk, adding saffron, and sugar, lots of cream, rosewater eventually. It turned out well, the hardest part was getting it to turn into ice cream in the right way even though I don't have a churn. So basically I kept putting it in the freezer for 30 minutes, taking it out, mixing it, putting it back.
Rosewater, pistachios, saffron. So it's very yellow from the saffron. It's delicious. Especially if you're not used to very aromantic flavors, like rosewater and saffron, it kind of messes with your senses the first time you try it. But yes, it's super delicious. One of my favorite things for sure. 
KAYTE YOUNG: We took a break while the ash-e cooked, and we came back to play a trivia game that Monet set up on cahoots. We downloaded the app on our phones and logged into the game. The topic was the spice trade.
MONET GHORBANI: Which spice nomads from ancient times known for always having on hand?
KAYTE YOUNG: Mostly we didn't know the answers, but we had fun and we learned some random facts about herbs and spices.
MONET GHORBANI: Alright so the answer is cardamom. Cardamom is the third most expensive spice in the world. Linguistically the cardamom trade is...

KAYTE YOUNG: By the time we finished we were ready for the next steps in the dish. It was time to add the kashk. It's pretty thick so we ladled some of the broth into a bowl with the measured kashk and mixed it until it was nice and smooth. Then we stirred it into the soup. next snap the reshteh noodles in half and drop them into the pot stop.

MONET GHORBANI: Once you've added the kashk we are going to add the reshteh noodles. Just take them out, snap them in half, drop them in the pot. You'll want to stir it, and...
KAYTE YOUNG: I had to keep stirring and using tongs to keep the noodles separated. They're prone to clumping up. Then put the lid back on and cook over medium-low heat for another 30 minutes to get the noodles cooked. Stir the pot occasionally and if it gets too thick you can add a bit of hot water.
MONET GHORBANI:...boil out, so it can't be too hot. But it needs to be hot enough to cook the noodles. Alright and once we're all ready we can...
KAYTE YOUNG: Meanwhile, prepare the garnishes. 
MONET GHORBANI: Once we're all ready we're going to prepare those few garnishes. 
KAYTE YOUNG: Fry the onions we set aside earlier until they're crispy but not burnt. I had to do this twice because I burned the first batch. Make some dried mint in a small pan with oil to make a paste and heat just until warm and fragrant. Then mix a bit more of the kashk with some broth in a small bowl. Once the noodles are ready you can serve the Ash-e Reshteh. Spoon a generous amount of the stew into a bowl, swirl in some of the kashk in the center, sprinkle on the fried onions, and drizzle a bit of mint paste across the top.
We all sampled the dish and everyone was pleased. More than one person noted how comforting it was, and that surprised me. When I think of comfort food, I think of the foods from my own past. this dish was unfamiliar in almost every way. the tangy flavor of the kashk with the now sauce-like greens, the fenugreek leaves, and the texture of the thick noodles. Yet somehow the combination felt warm and soothing, like comfort food.
Not everyone in the workshop made the dish, a few just wanted to hang out and learn. One of the participants was worried she had made too much, so she arranged to bring a portion to someone in town who had not make the dish. I will warn you that Monet's recipe makes a lot of food. A 1/2 recipe is plenty for four people and you'll still have leftovers. We have a photo of my dish and the complete recipe for Ash-e Reshteh is on our website at EarthEats.org.
After a short break will talk with Monet Ghorbani about what cooking Iranian food means to her. stay with us.
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(Cheerful guitar strumming)
KAYTE YOUNG: I’m Kayte Young, this is earth eats and we’re back with Monet Nazilla Gorhbani from the the Nawruz Student Association at Indiana University. Our conversation took place last year when she was finishing up her masters degree in international affairs, with a focus on central asia. Monet is originally from Arizona which is where she was when we spoke via zoom in March of 2021. I wanted to talk with her about the virtual cooking workshop she led in celebration of Narwruz last spring.
MONET GHORBANI: I posted a cooking workshop to teach a group of people how to cook one of my favorite Persian dishes that I grew up eating, named Ash-e Reshteh. And it's a vegetarian dish, there's no meat in it. The primary ingredients are a lot of herbs, whey or kashk noodles and beans.
I just think it was always my favorite food growing up because it's just really comforting. I also have a lot of fond memories of like always knowing when my grandmother was over when I would open the door after I come home from school. I'd open the garage door, and if I got like slammed in the face with the smell of fried onions then I knew was home. Because also Persian food takes a long time to cook, so if you're going to be eating around dinner then you have to start cooking around 4 or 5. That was usually around the time that I would come home anyway. 
KAYTE YOUNG: The workshop, which you heard about in the first part of the show, took place on a Saturday and lasted about two and a half hours. Though not all of that was active cooking time. The idea was that we wouldn't just watch Monet prepare the dish, we would make it at home during the workshop, for a shared but distanced culinary experience.
Participants prepared for the class by watching a video that Monet recorded walking through the steps and listing all of the ingredients. There were a couple of special ingredients that weren't available at the standard grocery store, so it was good to have the list ahead of time to make sure we all had what we needed. I was struck by Monet's straightforward approach to the dish and how there didn't seem to be a lot of room for variation or improvisation.
MONET GHORBANI: Persian food is interesting because it's very nationalized in a way, there are all of these dishes and it's not like every family has their own variation of this dish. For the most part everybody knows how it should taste, and you're not supposed to really a stray too far from that. So like Ash-e Reshteh is a very Iranian dish and if you made it different... I just don't really know how you could really make it that different, and have it be still be Ash-e. A few more greens, or a few more beans, but things like Reshteh, [Persian] for the most part they always tastes the same. Either you make it really well, or you don't make it very well. But you're not really throwing in all these really crazy adaptations to it. 
So I think it's just a little bit different than in the U.S., I think that there's this culture of passing down recipes generation to generation on little notecards or something. I don't really think that that (happens). It doesn't happen in my family at least. The women learn how to cook when they're young. There are these very national recipes that everybody knows. It's not a very individualistic sort of endeavor. It's like, "Oh you did this well, it's not too oily and you cut the greens small enough, very good." Or "Not so good, there's tons of oil, change this next time so that it can look that it's supposed to look." 
But yeah so not really an individual expression, but at the same time it's kind of nice because then that means that Persian food instantly takes everyone back to their roots. So in that way it can be very powerful. 

KAYTE YOUNG: One of the key ingredients that I was unfamiliar with in this dish is called Kashk. I asked Monet about it. 
MONET GHORBANI: Kashk is really just, I think in English it's called whey. I've never made it myself, but it was really interesting one of the people who joined the workshop she was having a hard time finding it in Bloomington, and she gave up and said, "I'll make Kashk myself" So she looked up a recipe and you basically just boil yogurt for hours. 
I don't know much about like milk processes, but it is this very creamy sort of substance, typically a lot of salt is added. Also kashk is pretty ubiquitous throughout Central Asia, and I wouldn't necessarily say middle east because I don't know if it extends that far, but at least throughout central Asia and Western China, and Iran, there are snacks called qurt, and it's basically you take Kashk and you dry it, and it's this really salty snack. You wouldn't want to put the whole thing in your mouth cause it's like super dry, and salty, but people love it. 
Also in Mongolia a very strong aspect of Mongolian cuisine is dried curds very similar to Kashk. So this ingredient, I think it's very unfamiliar in the western world, but it's pretty ubiquitous throughout central Asia and Iran, especially in its different forms. 

Maybe now I'd be interested in taking time to it to make it myself cause that sounds interesting, but usually we've always just bought it from the store because there are several Iranian dishes that use Kashk, there's Ash-e Reshteh, obviously. There's another really popular dish called Kashk Bademjan. Kashk and Bademjan means eggplant. It's this really delicious salty, kashky eggplant dip, you usually eat it with bread.

KAYTE YOUNG: To use up our leftover Kashk, my partner Carl made this eggplant dish, and it was incredibly delicious. Smooth and saffron scented with a tangy creaminess from the kashk, we will definitely be making that again.
MONET GHORBANI: You can also buy it in its dried form and then use it. When I was looking on the internet there was also Lebanese Kashk but that was dry. And it reminded me of in Tajikistan there's this dish, I'm forgetting the name right now but it's like there's a lot of shared dishes within Central Asia, but this dish is very uniquely Tajik. And it's like this kind of croissanty type of bread with a lot of oil on top, and meat sometimes, and vegetables. And then they take dried kashk, and they make it liquid again or make something with it and then throw that on top. and it's all the same sort of substance but just in different forms.
KAYTE YOUNG: The other unfamiliar ingredient was the noodles.
MONET GHORBANI: The dish is Ash-e Reshteh. Reshteh is just a type of noodle. So if you're making Ash-e Reshteh, you buy reshteh noodles and you throw them in there.
Someone in the workshop, he said that the closest thing that you could think of to reshteh noodles was maybe Lo Mein because they are really chewy, and you have to pretty consistently mix the kashk otherwise the reshteh noodles will just clump together. They're not egg based, I don't think there's any egg in it. They're wheat-based noodles. And just like thick and chewy.
And I always buy an Iranian brand, so probably made in some factory in Iran and shipped over. So I don't know much about the process. Like I always break them in half before I add them in, but if you weren't to do that then I think it would be a really difficult dish to make and consume afterwards, because they don't really fall apart in any way. 
KAYTE YOUNG: I asked Monet about the significance of making this dish around the Persian New Year holiday of Nowruz.
MONET GHORBANI: On Nowruz, most people have the tradition of eating a rice dish mixed with a lot of herbs and then fish. So it's not a dish that you eat on Nowruz, but it's definitely considered like a springtime dish, I think because of all of the greens and herbs in it.

And also there are other very typical Nowruz foods. Like one in particular that I'm thinking about is called samanoo. And it's made from wheat, and it's this wheat paste that you have to mix for like a full 24 hours otherwise it'll burn. But people eat it because they think that it gives up strength for the spring season.
So I think that there is this idea of needing to like fill yourself with good healthy hearty food after winter and coming into spring and I think Ash-e kind of fits that as well. Cause it doesn't have any meat in it, but it's definitely like the hearty soup with a lot of beans and kashk in it, and it really fills you up. So I think that the greens are one of the things that make it feel really springy but I think also just that need to like fill yourself up in a really good way, coming into the new year might also make it a dish that's good for Nowruz.
KAYTE YOUNG: I wanted to know more about the holiday itself.
MONET GHORBANI: It's not an Islamic holiday, it has its roots in Zoroastrianism. The reason why it's still widely celebrated today is because I think it has its ties to like the Persian Empire's expansion because it's celebrated throughout Central Asia. And even like when I was living in Mongolia, the Kazak diaspora, they also celebrated Nowruz. So it's pretty widespread but doesn't have its roots in Islam. And that might be kind of be like a misconception that people have I think, because there are so other holidays that are Islamic holidays throughout the region, but Nowruz isn't one of them. 
KAYTE YOUNG: And Nowruz lines up with the Spring Equinox.
MONET GHORBANI: I mean I think that's how it ties to Zoroastrianism because I used to like the solar calendar, but yeah when the Spring Equinox happens like that's the first day. So it lines up completely with the spring equinox. That's why each year like it fluctuates between being on March 20th and March 21st.
KAYTE YOUNG: It sounded like it was a multi-day celebration.
MONET GHORBANI: I'd say that people just kind of like start preparing like the weeks coming up to it, because it is just like such a big holiday in a lot of countries. people grow sabzi, so with unfiltered wheat, just grow some greens. So like that takes some preparation cause you have to do it beforehand.
But also Iranians on the Wednesday before Nowruz, they do like a fire jumping sort of celebration called charshanbe soori, where like the whole idea is your sort of giving your sickness or whatever bad stuff that you have inside of you, you're giving that to the fire, and then you're kind of getting strength from the fire. So that always happens to Wednesday before.
And then Iranians also 13 days after Nowruz, they do Sizdah Be-dar. You're supposed to go out in nature and have a picnic with your family or your loved ones. So that's fun too. It's a nice little appreciation of spring, and the good weather and spending time together. I guess in that sense it kind of encompasses a wider time frame for Iranians. 
A lot of Iranians prepare a haft-sin table, so "haft" means seven, and "sin" is just the word for one of the letters for "s" because there are multiple "s" in the Arabic and Persian alphabets. But yeah, it's just fun.  A lot of people they put a lot of energy into making it look really beautiful, and each of the different elements has symbolic value.
So like on my haft-sin table I had sumac, which was supposed to represent the sunrise I think? Sowa which is a clock which represents time, sabzi which were the greens that I grew which represent growth. Vinegar, the word [Persian] I don't remember what that represents, something. Seer is garlic, it represents health. So like these different objects as well as a candle for each person in the household. So it's just fun and people put a lot of energy into making it look really nice.
I think my motivations for doing it are a little bit different. I don't actually follow the calendar and I'm like the second generation of the diaspora community in the U.S. So for me I think that I do it because it makes me feel very connected to my roots, it reminds me of my grandma. So I'd say that a lot of people do it for that reason as well because of that connection to a broader community and then maybe the blessing aspect of it as well. You can do your own variation of things. I know that some people put like photos, there's like the standard objects but then also you can put like whatever you want on it. 

KAYTE YOUNG: If you’re just joining us, I’m speaking with Monet Nazilla Gorhbani, In 2021 she hosted a cooking workshop making a dish associated with the celebration of Nawruz, the Persian New Year. After a short break we’ll continue our conversation about the role food plays in helping Monet stay connected to her heritage. Stay with us

I’m Kayte Young, this is Earth Eats, thanks for listening today. We’re back with Monet Gorhbani. When She was still a graduate student in international studies at IU she shared her favorite Persian dish in an online cooking workshop as part of Nawruz celebration last spring. I asked Monet about the role of food in connecting to family traditions. 

MONET GHORBANI: I'm like second generation, and then I'm also mixed. Like my biological dad's side of the family is white, so like I grew up in an Iranian household with my mom and my grandma. But like my experiences are inevitably different from someone who's from Iran or even from someone who like both of their parents are from Iran.
And also I feel like every person in like a diasporic community has a unique experience as well. Just because my mom came and she was quite young, when she was 16 and there's certain things about her that are still like so Iranian, but then there's other things that she like really tried to push away to assimilate. It just kind of feels like there's been this new sort of social shift where everybody's allowed to be proud of their ethnic identity. But like 10 years ago that wasn't the case! like you bring something weird to school and you're embarrassed about it, or you don't want everyone to know that you can speak another language. like you just try to be as normal as possible.
So I think I still up in that on that side of things. And it's taken me awhile to really sort of like lean into my Persian identity, which is been really awesome. and one strong component of that is actually learning how to make the dishes that I grew up eating with my grandma because I don't know if you noticed during the workshop, but I was having a hard time learning how to teach this dish. because it's just kind of like, you throw this in there and you wait until it looks good. but then there's all these questions like how much do I put in there?  how do I know when the onions are golden enough? and those types of things are really hard to explain. 3but growing up like my grandma did that with me. It was like I could help her prepare certain ingredients for a dish. It didn't feel super special at the time.
and my grandma, she is still living. but she's 87 and she has dementia. So we don't really cook together very much anymore. But I could help her sit at the table and prepare greens, or there's another dish called Koobideh [Persian] which uses green beans so you have to cut them up and stuff.
So I'd always help her with that aspect of things, but when she was ready to cook it would just kind of like her doing her magic for four hours. Cause it just takes such a long time to make this stuff, all these different dishes. So I didn't really learn step by step how to make these things cause I just kind of always relied on, when my grandma's over she'll make it, and I'll have this really delicious dish and enjoy it with her. But it's been special in my adulthood to learn how to make these things myself, and then be the one to bring it to my family. 

My grandmother raised me in my really formative years. So I grew up speaking Persian and then I decided to move to Tajikistan when I was like 19 to improve my Persian. because when my grandfather passed away when I was like 17, I wasn't speaking Persian very often. I didn't see them super often and I didn't really know him very much as a person. So when I was older I was like, "I need to fix this, I have to learn my family's language."
so I don't mean to go on all these tangents but it all kind of comes together. So I went to Tajikistan, improved my Persian. Now I've really been able to get to know my grandmother a lot more on a personal level. And I've been able to hear her stories about her childhood and her memories. Which it's interesting, maybe it's different for different people who have dementia, but her short-term memory is not very good, so we don't really talk about things that happened last week, but we'll talk about things that happened like 50 years ago. But it's awesome because I love to hear it. 
so anyway it's so nice. I was just on this long path of improving my language abilities and learning how to do these things that I grew up with and didn't really want to lose.
My younger siblings, I have four younger siblings, and they don't really have that drive to do that I suppose. Maybe because my grandma wasn't around a lot when they were young. They don't really speak any Persian. But still they really love the food. When I made Ash-e for the workshop, I made it the day before so that I would have some to eat with you all at the same time. The day before when I made it, I took it to my family, and they really like that because... food is just a really good way to connect, and a good way to connect to your roots I'd say. And it's really special for my grandma too because she can't really cook that stuff herself anymore. And my mom doesn't really cook for some reason. She's also just really busy. So it's really special for me to have learned how to make these foods and then be the person to take it to them. 
I can't come every day just because I work, and I have a lot of work to do for grad school. So it's really nice to be able to take food that lasts longer than my presence. I can only go for a couple of hours and hang out, but it's nice to be able to leave something that's meaningful and actually lasts a bit longer. 
KAYTE YOUNG: I shared with Monet the experience I had of the dish tasting comforting to me too, even though it's not part of my traditions, and I had never even tasted it before. And how I usually think about comfort food as something from my own past experiences. I wondered what it was about this dish that offered that feeling of comfort.
MONET GHORBANI: Especially with, I feel like any time you start with onions you already know it's gonna be comforting.
I used to work at the I used to work at the Arizona State Senate as a page. Do you know what a page is, or what they do? They're usually like young people who work at State Legislatures. They have them at the national level as well, but they wear typically pretty goofy outfits and they run around the legislature getting things for people. They're usually on the floor with state senators, or in the house too they also have pages. And they're like shuffling papers to and fro, and that sort of thing.

So I with the page when I was 18-19. And we had a multicultural day where everyone was bringing something from their own background into the legislature for lunch. So I asked my grandmother to make us Ash-e Reshteh cause it was like my absolute favorite. And she spent all this time making this huge pot of ash-e, I brought it in, and nobody touched it. Not one person ate it. You can tell that to this day I'm still kind of bitter about it, cause I then had to bring it all the way back home. And in my head I was like, "What am I supposed to do with this?" 
But I was so bummed out because I guess it's easier for people to try something if they've seen the process, but I think for a lot of people there it just kind of looked like this green soup with a lot of beans. But when you try it, it's delicious. But yes, they weren't into it. 
KAYTE YOUNG: Monet had mentioned that her mom wasn't much of a cook.
MONET GHORBANI: She knows it too, she always made fun of herself growing up because she's just a very low patience type of person, so that doesn't' mix well for cooking. So that's also what made my grandma, when she came over, that's also what made her presence so awesome was because when she was over at the house we ate really well. It wasn't just chicken nuggets from the freezer. 
That's another reason I started learning how to cook when I was really young, partially because my mom's inability to cook I guess. And just getting tired of frozen foods. But then also, I think just seeing my grandma and what she was doing. Even though like she never specifically told me step-by-step, like "a tablespoon of this, a tablespoon of that." just like seeing her in the process.
And Persians also really love their gardens. and that's something that my mom was really good at. She wasn't much of a cook but she grew a lot. We had pomegranate trees, plum trees, fig trees, a whole garden with like mints, and a bunch of different greens. We even had a dragon fruit Cactus, and a passion fruit vine. Like lots of stuff. And it was just a regular house in a suburban area. But everything that grew out of the ground, grew something that we can consume. Like grapevines. So my mom is really good at that.
So it was just nice especially for my grandmother, because she used like everything as well. She also in the springtime, when the grapevines would grow new leaves, like new fresh leaves, she would use those for Dolmeth, or other people say dolma. Which is just stuffed grape leaves. And it was just really cool to be able to see her do it from scratch with the grape leaves from our own backyard. 
So yeah to me that's a strong aspect of Persian cuisine I'd say, being able to go to the backyard and chop some mint to throw into whatever my grandmother was making. And I love cooking from fresh foods and ingredients. So I think just like being able to see my family do that was really influential. 

KAYTE YOUNG: Hearing that it made a lot of sense to me why this dish is appropriate for the celebration of Spring's arrival in the Persian new year. The greens in the dish, spinach, parsley, chives, even the mint, they're all cool weather plants that might be far along enough in a spring garden to harvest in time for the equinox, depending on where you live. I cut some fresh chives and parsley from my own herb garden when I made the dish at home.
Our guest today, Monet Nazilla Gorhbani, spoke with us in her final year as a graduate student  in international affairs at Indiana University. She graduated in 2021 and joined the foreign service as a Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellow.

She also served as the president of the Nawruz Student Association in 2021,And this year, the have the chance to hold their annual Nawruz celebration in person on campus on March 25.Find details, plus the recipe for ash e reshteh on our website, Earth Eats dot org

KAYTE YOUNG: Midwestern lakes have become a hotbed of toxic algae blooms.The mini dead zones typically crop up during warmer months and are largely caused by fertilizer runoff from farms. These blooms can be lethal for animals and can cause serious health effects in humans.But as Harvest Public Media’s Dana Cronin reports, few Midwestern states regularly test algae blooms.

DANA CRONIN: Mandi Miller was excited for her 30th birthday. Though it wasn’t the trip to France she had originally planned, thanks to COVID, she had booked a weekend getaway to Lake Centralia (sen-TRAY-lee-uh) in Illinois with her husband and their two friends.

MANDI MILLER: We looked on Airbnb and found this great lake house – just beautiful. And it was dog friendly, which was a huge plus for us because we always want to bring our dog.

DANA CRONIN: So in September of 2020, Mandi, her husband and Zeus, their 115-pound golden retriever, loaded into the car and headed out of their home in St. Louis to Lake Centralia. It was an unseasonably warm day, and when they finally arrived, they barely unloaded the car before jumping in the lake. In a video Mandi’s husband took from the sandy shore, she stands thigh-deep in the water, Zeus wading toward her.

MANDI MILLER: Zeus! Come here baby bear!

DANA CRONIN: That night, Zeus started vomiting – not terribly uncommon for dogs. But the next morning, he got worse. He was largely unresponsive and having constant seizures. Sitting next to her husband, Austin Elkins, Mandi recalls rushing Zeus to the nearest veterinarian, who advised them to take Zeus to a bigger facility, further away.

MANDI MILLER: And so we load him back on my beach towel, into the truck, and I remember driving with you there and just asking Zeus to hold on. And that we were going to do everything we could to get him help. And when the seizures got progressively worse, I think you and I made eye contact and we started telling him that it was OK. That if he had to go, that he was loved and he was a good boy. And eventually we just, when it became very clear that he had just moments left, pulled over and just held him. Until he was gone.

DANA CRONIN: They were stunned. But having grown up in Nebraska, Austin says he was pretty sure he knew what had happened.

AUSTIN ELKINS: I had a suspicion early on that it had something to do with toxic algae. Because it was something in Nebraska that like, especially in the summertime, lakes were getting closed all the time.

DANA CRONIN: Zeus’ symptoms were textbook for toxic algae poisoning. And within days, Mandi developed gastrointestinal issues, muscle aches, vomiting and sores all over her body. When they returned to the lake house, Austin says it looked like someone had spilled neon green paint on the surface of the lake. They called the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, which tested the water for a toxin called microcystin. The EPA’s recreational health guideline for microcystin is 8 parts per billion. The test at Lake Centralia came in at 41-thousand parts per billion. But they never would have known that before being exposed, because Illinois doesn’t regularly test for microcystin in all of its recreational lakes.

ANNE SCHECHINGER: We're not seeing even close to all the recreational water bodies in the state of Illinois being tested every year, and they're not tested necessarily every week throughout the summer, either.

DANA CRONIN: Anne Schechinger is with the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy non-profit. She says testing for toxins like microcystin is really spotty across the Midwest – despite the region’s propensity for blooms. Blue-green algae needs two things to form: warm temperatures, and nutrients – namely phosphorus and nitrogen… which mostly come from fertilizer-laden farm fields.

ANNE SCHECHINGER: We see algae blooms happening throughout all of the Midwestern states, and it's not a coincidence that these states also are very agriculture-heavy states.

DANA CRONIN: And yet… states like Illinois, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri don’t regularly test for toxic algae. Schechinger says that’s putting their residents – and animals – at a great health risk. She says more states should look to Nebraska’s toxic algae testing program. It turns out a similar situation to Mandi and Austin’s prompted that program, according to Mike Archer.

MIKE ARCHER: In 2004 we had gotten a report from a private residential development that a couple of dogs had been in the water of their lake and had died.

DANA CRONIN: Archer, who runs the program, says during the summer months, they test all of Nebraska’s main recreational lakes – 53 in total – once a week. They post the results publicly, so residents can make sure it’s safe to swim. But Archer says the program is costly. They collect about 12-hundred samples per summer, and each sample costs about 20 dollars to analyze. Many states don’t have that level of funding available for such a comprehensive testing program. Kim Biggs is with the Illinois EPA.

KIM BIGGS: We do not receive any general revenue funds from the state of Illinois, so we are reliant on grants from the federal government and other forms of funding.

DANA CRONIN: Biggs says they recently received a federal grant, which will help them create an online dashboard for people to check recent test results before visiting a lake. Until that happens… Mandi says she won’t be swimming in any bodies of water in Illinois.

MANDI MILLER: We have to either, you know, increase testing and increase mitigation or just be very accustomed to throwing the dice whenever you get into a body of water. And I know that I'm certainly never going to do that again.

DANA CRONIN: After all, she’s got a new golden retriever to look after.

MANDI MILLER: Midas! You know stay. Sir, stay. Good boy! (Ambi of her new dog fade out…)

DANA CRONIN: I’m Dana Cronin, HPM.

RENEE REED: The Earth Eats team includes Eoban Binder, Toby Foster, Abraham Hill, Payton Knobeloch, Josephine McRobbie, Harvest Public Media and me, Renee Reed. 
KAYTE YOUNG: Special thanks this week to Monet Nazilla Ghorbani, and everyone in the Ash-e Reshteh workshop. 
RENEE REED: Our theme music is composed by Erin Tobey and performed by Erin and Matt Tobey. Additional music on the show comes to us from the artist at Universal Productions Music. Earth Eats is produced and edited by Kayte Young and our executive producer is John Bailey.