Interview | Growing Up Irooni- Caspian Chef discusses returning to his Iranian roots after decades of assimilation

In this Growing Up Irooni we talk to Omid Roustaei, better known
as the Caspian Chef. In this conversation, we discuss the process
of coming to the United States on his own and figuring out his
own path for assimilating into American culture as a means of
survival. Omid has has a very rich and varied path, first
studying biotech engineering, and then becoming a personal chef
and yoga teacher, to pursuing a career in psychotherapy, to
returning to cooking and his Iranian roots only in the past few
years.This was one of the most fascinating conversations I've
had- and we really go into some territory that I think will
resonate with so many of us- life is certainly not linear, and we
can see that in Omid's story. We talk about career and pursuing
your dreams- he first went down the ‘traditional Iranian path' of
becoming a biotech engineer and worked in that field for a while,
before pivoting to the perhaps more American notion of pursuing
his passion- cooking and psychotherapy. We also talked about the
process of assimilation as a coping mechanism- what it means to
arrive in a country and need to fit in. And finally, what led
Omid back to the path of rediscovering his Iranian roots- from
cooking Persian food, to becoming reacquainted with the Persian
language, and to ultimately seek out and become part of the
Iranian diaspora community again.I hope you enjoy the
conversation as much as I did!


Related links:


The Caspian Chef blog

Ghormeh Sabzi blog post

The Caspian Chef instagram page

My Persian Corner instagram page

English with Bardia instagram page

Stationary Shop by Marjan Kamali