A word about the food

I've spent so much time focusing on art and history and scenery that I've completely ignored this very important part of the Iranian culture -- the food. This photogenic, but not typical, meal was at the vegetarian restaurant at the House of Artists in Tehran.

Most of our meals are not vegetarian, though there's usually a salad or vegetable soup before the platters of meat and rice start arriving.

And yogurt. Yogurt goes with everything, we've learned. Sometimes it's plain, sometimes it's flavored with garlic or scallions. You can use it as a dip or a salad dressing, or spoon it over lamb or rice.

There have been many scrumptious meals and it's hard to single out the highlights, but I would have to mention fesenjan, a lamb stew with walnuts and pomegranates, ice cream sandwiches with saffron ice cream, eggplant grilled to an unbelievable smoky richness, and whole pickled garlic cloves, which I now feel should be mandatory on every salad bar in the world. And the cookies from Yazd, which is famous for its pastries. We ate our way through a large box of them during rest breaks on the long desert drives, and they were maybe the best cookies I ever had.