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Dinner: One of Shirin’s ultimate comfort foods is cheese and bean pasta. The beans in question are baked beans – a very British household staple, as the novel is set in London. If any Italians are reading this, I’m so sorry! But it was a comfort staple dinner for me in my teens/early twenties – and honestly, don’t knock it until you try it. The combination of sweet tomatoey baked beans with sharp mature cheddar cheese mixed in with pasta is delicious. It’s super easy to make, too, with minimal ingredients needed, so ideal for when you’re tired after work and want something hearty and warm. All you need is the pasta of your choice, a tin of baked beans, and cheese. Optional extras are garlic and onion, which give it a bit more flavour.
Shirin has it one evening in the book when she needs some comfort after a bad day:
She boils more pasta than she thinks she should, and when it is finished she drains it and adds half a can of baked beans and cheese to a pan. As she heats the ingredients together on the stove, the cheese melts pleasantly into the sweet tomato sauce, turning it a soft orange color. Her cheesy-bean pasta is a dish reserved for comfort; when she consumes it, it’s akin to being hugged—albeit with the caveat that it is by someone she wants to be hugged by. She adds a sprinkling of ground black pepper, like that might make the meal more sophisticated.
The inspiration for the meal came from British canteen food. Back when I was at school, the canteen often served baguettes filled with baked beans and cheese. So if you enjoy the pasta baked bean and chees, give the baguette a try/
Drinks: Shirin enjoys a cocktail called Ginger Bonfire, which consists of gin, Cointreau, elderflower, ginger beer, and ice. It was inspired by a cocktail I loved at a place near my house (that has since sadly shut down). Shirin enjoys it a little too much in the book, as you’ll see once you read the book.
Dessert: I suggest a selection of Iranian pastries and sweets. Shirin is British Iranian, so it only seems fitting that the main meal includes a very British ingredient (baked beans), and for dessert, we sample another side of her culture. In the book, we see Shirin go to Tehran to visit her grandmother, and she eats a variety of desserts (which is called shirini in Farsi – much like Shirin’s name, which means sweet). I’d highly recommend having ghotab as one of the desserts—one of my favorites and is a traditional Iranian almond and walnut-filled pastry with notes of cinnamon and cardamom. I’d also recommend sohan, a buttery saffron-infused toffee brittle, often with pistachios. It’s highly addictive, though, so be warned!
-Sara Jafari
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