Silk Road Cooking A Vegetarian Journey

Najmieh Khalili Batmanglij (Persian: نجمیه خلیلی باتمانقلیج‎, IPA: [nædʒmiːˈje bɒːtmɒːŋɢeˈliːdʒ]) is an Iranian-American chef and award-winning cookbook author. The Washington Post hailed her as "the grande dame of Iranian Cooking." Najmieh Khalili was born in Tehran, Iran in 1947. She received her undergraduate and master's degrees in education in the United States. She returned to Iran after her education in America but was forced into exile in 1979, because of the Iranian Revolution. She and her husband fled to Vence, France as refugees, where she studied cooking and began translating her mother's recipes into French resulting in her first cookbook, Ma Cuisine D'Iran. In the 1980s Batmanglij permanently relocated to Washington, DC where she wrote her celebrated book, Food of Life.[2] After the success of that book, Batmanglij went on to write five more cookbooks, including From Persia to Napa: Wine at the Persian Table, which won a Gourmand Cookbook Award. and Silk Road Cooking: A Vegetarian Journey, which The New York Times compared to reading "a good novel—once you start, it's hard to put down." Batmanglij has appeared on The Martha Stewart Show and also teaches Persian cooking. She is a member of Les Dames d'Escoffier, a society of professional women involved in the food, wine, and hospitality industries. For many years she has taught at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in Napa Valley, California during the World of Flavors Conference.