Beh Salamat (به سلامت), Tehran

Spring of 1973 was a cool time to be in Tehran. Living just off of what was then called Saltanatabad Avenue on a small, graveled side ally named Koocheh Kaj, I could easily walk to that prestigious thoroughfare where businesses and the people running them were striving to catch up with the modern world while still being not so advanced to feel very familiar to me. The occasional donkey-drawn cart heaped high with sticks to be burned in household cooking hearths always lent an air of olden times there, as did camel trains arriving from the desert at the end of Kaj one block down from the house I lived in. And one of the other memorable aspects of visiting shops along that business avenue of the Phalavi era which seemed oldfashioned was how shop keepers would spot me coming and greet me warmly, invite me in for tea and conversation knowing full well I wouldn't be purchasing anything from them. One of them was a flatbread baker whose name I cannot remember now, but whose cheerful disposition and curiosity for everything American I will never forget.

First time he invited me into his bakery he showed me how the gas-fueled oven he used to bake the traditional Nan-e Barbari worked–its rotating steel bed, the steel plate he pressed down onto the dough from above, the paroo he used to extract the finished bread from the oven. His was an all-steel model, which he seemed especially proud of. It was still winter so it was comfortably warm inside his bakery, and his enthusiasm for his oven and his trade was equally comforting. He spoke English well enough to help me learn a little Farsi each time we visited, and he always ended our visits with a heartfelt Beh Salamat, with health, as I left.

As time progressed, he revealed secrets of making an especially fine Nan-e Barbari, including his own way of mixing up and cooking the Roomal glaze to perfection before brushing it onto the thoroughly fermented, airy, hand-stretched and pressed dough. The aroma was wonderful and we always sampled a still-warm bit fresh out of the oven with tea.

The convicted felon in the White House just deemed it necessary to strike Tehran with war weaponry after growing weary of diplomatic talks which weren't progressing to his liking. I fear now for such people as the delightful bread baker who befriended me so long ago. I don't want any of them to suffer but know that some already are, and some have been killed, reportedly including children attending a girl's school in a southern city of Iran called Minab.

Stay alert. Stay safe as well as you can while world leaders but their fat heads against each other at the cost of regular peoples who never want to be at war with anyone for any reason.

Beh Salamat (به سلامت), Tehran.