Samarkand Baked Candied Quince with Walnuts

For the past 25 years I have been studying Persian miniature paintings, and when I first visited Bokhara with its white mosques and minarets, and Samarkand with its blues domes, it was as if I had walked into a work of art. Samarkand, in particular, took me back in time to the fabled city built by Tamerlane.

The market was enormous, with a splendid array of spices, fragrant and colorful. I was also struck by the fact that it was mostly women and children who were working, while the