Chef Nasrin Rejali blends food and memory at SIBF 2025

As she sautéed spinach and prepared the dip, Rejali spoke of its beauty lying in pure simplicity.

It takes only minutes to prepare but enhances any table,” she said. “Serve it with toasted bread, crisps, or as a spread — it’s delicious in every form.”

Her recipe, featured in The Kitchen Without Borders: Recipes and Stories from Refugee and Immigrant Chefs, combines spinach, Greek yoghurt or labneh, roasted walnuts, dried mint, salt, and a gentle garnish of rose petals. She reminded the audience: “Don’t over-roast the walnuts — too much heat makes them bitter.”

A culinary journey shaped by resilience

While cooking, Rejali shared her personal story — one filled with migration, hardship, and reinvention. Forced to escape Iran in 2016 with her three children, she remembered the early days of struggle in the United States.

“Life was hard at first,” she said. “But my love for food gave me strength and, eventually, a livelihood.”

Today, she runs a successful restaurant and catering business in Manhattan, proudly noting, “I haven’t employed any cooks — I cook myself.”

Where heritage meets passion

Rejali credited her grandmother as her earliest culinary teacher. “I never went to culinary school,” she shared. “My grandmother was my mentor. I began cooking when I was eight or ten, always eager to help her.”

As she folded the cooled spinach into the creamy labneh, fragrant waves of mint and rose petals filled the room, evoking memories of home. Despite her expertise, she admitted that recreating the exact flavours of Iran remains challenging even after years in New York: “It’s hard.”

A shared moment of connection

The session ended with warmth, laughter, and lively conversation, reminding attendees that food is more than sustenance — it is memory, identity, and shared humanity. At SIBF’s Cookery Corner, every recipe becomes a story retold through taste and tradition.