Helia Sadeghi of Oakland’s Big Dill Kitchen and Shekoh Moussavi of Palo Alto’s Shekoh Confections share dishes and memories for the Persian New Year.
Nowruz is still meaningful for Moussavi. She opened Shekoh Chocolates, a modern boutique where handmade pâte de fruit and bonbons are displayed like jewels, on Nowruz in 2022. Before training at L’Ecole Valrhona in Paris and diving full-time into chocolate, Moussavi was a chef and co-owner of Saratoga’s Gervais and later Palo Alto’s Shokolaat, a pâtisserie-bistro lauded forthat she was forced to close in 2012 after losing her lease.
“They are always in the back of my mind,” says Moussavi, who uses imported Iranian saffron to make her saffron bonbons. She colors them blue to represent the tiles and architecture of Iran. “They are two Persian symbols — art and food — in one,” she says. The saffron candies at Shekoh Confections are made with Persian saffron and Valrhona white chocolate.
Her hibiscus pâte de fruit is inspired by the bright iced tea she grew up drinking on hot summer days. A heart-shaped red “Persian Rose” chocolate is made from a rose water ganache and her own rose petal marmalade. Moussavi reversed the traditional molding technique, painting the bonbons at the end, to yield a velvety texture.Helia Sadeghi’s Nowruz preparations when she lived in Iran were always frenzied, joyful, month-long affairs.
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