Two bread salads from the Levant

A few years ago for Norouz, the Persian New Year, I decided to invite people over for dinner. All over the world, the Iranian diaspora holds tighter to the community during these first days of spring, as it can feel lonely to celebrate without the flowers and goldfish tanks and mirrors and candles and sweet wheat puddings and colourful eggs that flood every city and town in Iran.

The dinner I was planning was a quiet one, though. I invited a couple of friends, and one of them brought along her Kurdish Syrian friend, Hellen, as Kurds also celebrate Norouz.