Oakland Magazine:

Monier Attar, her hands covered in plastic gloves, is wrist-deep in tabbouleh, mixing together the parsley, mint, spices, and grains of bulgur wheat. At 10 a.m., Persian music plays in the background, and Attar is at work in the kitchen of Zand’s, her Albany store and cafe, whose shelves are filled with imported teas, exotic spices, and foodstuffs from across the Middle East.

In a daily ritual, she prepares the Persian and Mediterranean dishes her diners will enjoy later. Multitasking, she chops pickles for chicken salad, answers the phone, sells feta and canned grape leaves to a customer, and heats up vegetarian lentil soup like the kind her mother made when the weather was cold. After filling the deli case with salads, Attar arranges flaky cubes of her Persian pistachio baklava on the counter. Glancing at the photos of exquisitely decorated cakes on her wall, she sighs, “It’s too bad I don’t have time to make these French pastries any more. I have a list of people who love them and want me to call them if I ever do.”

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