Translator: Gemma Gilani Reviewer: shirin etebar
I’m Pooye Pezeshkirad, the oldest child in a family of dentists.
Pooye means curious and inquisitive,
maybe one of my good qualities which led to me finding the right path in life.
Because of the small age gap between me and my parents, which is 21 years,
I spent most of my childhood roaming the corridors of the dental school in Mashhad.
Before I’d learnt all 32 letters of the alphabet, I knew all 32 teeth.
Instead of dolls and toys, I played with dental equipment,
and instead of children my own age, the dental students were my playmates.
All of these conditions came together so that even from childhood
I couldn’t imagine any other career for myself apart from dentistry.
If I want to single out my fondest childhood memories,
after the make-believe games I’d play with my father,
it would have to be the memory of cooking and making sweets alongside my mother
during their residency.
For their residency, we’d been transferred to Khorramshahr,
and those are some of the fondest memories I have of that time.
Making cakes and sweets from the recipes in the late, great Roza Montazemi’s book,
which I’m sure is a familiar name for many of us Iranians,
was the ultimate fantasy for three year old me.
In those days, immersing myself in the
colorful, enticing pictures of French sweets was just a dream for me.
Until I was old enough to go to university I was going along a pre-determined path,
and because I’d decided to continue my education
in my family’s chosen profession,
they were very happy and pleased and supported me completely on this journey.
But getting accepted to study Dentistry, moving to Tehran and
being away from family for the first time, was the start of a new chapter in my life
and it gave me the opportunity to spend more time
cooking and making sweets, and at that time, it wasn’t just
an obligation or a way to fill up my free time,
but it had become a way to feel good about myself
and to nurture my creativity.
Years passed by in this way.
I remember I’d make sweets and desserts for my classmates, professors and friends
and bring them to the department.
Everyone complimented them and some professors even used to joke
that I should be pastry chef instead of a dentist, and to continue this work.
I think my first supporters along this new path were my friends and sister.
Years went by. I graduated from university.
I started dentistry. I started to work.
For several years I was working in some villages
and I reached a point, which I think I can call the turning point in my life.
Sometimes an upsetting event can be a turning point,
which eventually has a happy ending, and this is definitely what happened to me.
A seemingly bitter experience for me became a prelude
that opened up a new world for me, full of enticing and sweet events.
A heavy emotional defeat, coming out of a toxic relationship,
the death of a loved one, losing myself and my dreams.
As a result of the hopelessness that this all created,
a new Pooye was made, a new Pooye was born;
a much stronger woman than she had been in the past.
And I started to get to know myself better and rebuild my world.
As the famous saying goes: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
To get through the difficult days and to make peace with myself again
I decided alone, as a single woman,
to start travelling around the world,
to spend a few years getting to know new people and different cultures,
and to spend more time with myself in particular.
This made me realise that I’m the only one responsible for my happiness,
not anyone else.
On the other hand, I also realized
that for me, art, especially the art of cooking and patisserie can be life saving.
And so, alongside different art classes, like goldwork and painting,
I started to work.
And I decided to undertake a fellowship in laser dentistry,
and headed to Aachen University in Germany.
After finishing that journey, I decided to study patisserie professionally
and to go to Paris, which we all know is the birthplace of patisserie.
And I think this was the biggest and best decision I’ve taken in my life.
The dream of becoming a pastry chef was so big and important to me
that I really did everything I could to make it happen.
From selling the presents my mother had given me on my graduation day
in order to cover the expenses for classes and travel without help from my family,
to, after a year of study,
during my residency in Restorative Dentistry at City University of London,
deciding to give up studying
and go after my true passion, which was to be a pastry chef.
And well, naturally, my family were strongly opposed to my decision,
but I didn’t budge and carried on.
During this period, my biggest challenge was proving myself to my parents.
In the same way that for me, coming out of my comfort zone
was incredibly difficult and challenging, and still is,
it was very difficult for my parents to accept this story.
And in a way, becoming a pastry chef in a family full of dentists
was seen as being very transgressive.
As the same time, I decided to use all my income from dentistry
to take part in different classes, both inside and outside of Iran,
so that I could gain some experience.
Through trial and error, and with the small amount of creativity I had,
I started to write down new recipes.
And sometimes and I would Iranicize French recipes
which, to my great surprise, the instructors were very encouraging of.
Over the past few years,
I took my pastries to the famous cafes in the city,
but not a single one of them would even taste them to see what the flavor was,
because they were so new and at odds with the taste of many Iranians.
But my sole aim during those years was to break this culture,
so as to not look at pastries and sweets purely as a type of food,
but to realize we can look at each pastry as a beautiful work of art,
each one of which is the results of years of passion and experience,
each with its own unique story.
In the end, my determination over all these years
not only resulted in my parents trusting my choice and decision,
but also supporting and helping me to open the first French Patisserie in Mashhad.
The early days after opening the café, although very sweet,
were also very difficult.
First, I was made fun of by my dentist colleagues,
who thought that opening a patisserie lowered my reputation and social standing,
which wasn’t the case in my opinion.
Second, because I didn’t have any help, I didn’t have any assistants,
I was forced to put dentistry aside completely for 8 months
and work seventeen hour days as the only pastry chef in the café,
working in my café from four AM, it was a very difficult period.
But now I’m proud to announce that my small patisserie,
which started with a dream and a team of five people,
has now transformed into a big family of twenty people,
who carry out their work with passion and enthusiasm every day,
and through this job, I’ve found a third family, who are very dear to me,
and who in this time, have always been with me as permanent members of the café.
And I’ve very proud that this story of culture building
which I’d always had in mind, has been realized during these two years.
I wanted to say that I’ve always had great belief in my mental strength
and if my childhood dream has become a reality today,
it’s the result of years of effort, discipline and belief in my abilities.
Now, we’re all born with a set of characteristics.
Characteristics including family, gender and place of birth,
which none of us have any say in.
And over time, these characteristics result in us living within a framework.
Many people don’t pay attention to this.
Many others know of and are aware of this framework,
but prefer to carry on with the same life because, well, it’s easier to accept it.
The human mind always adapts to conditions.
And the difficult thing is to fight your habits and try to face new things.
In my opinion, coming face to face with new things is scarier,
just as it was scary for me to begin with.
But tonight, I want to ask you all, just once,
to look at your life from outside of this framework.
If you don’t see anything appealing, you can carry on with life as before.
But if your goal, the thing that you love,
the thing that you wish for is outside of that framework,
I plead with you to go after your goal with all your power,
and to have faith in your abilities,
and I can promise you that you will never be disappointed.
Thank you very much.