Alumni Q&A: Louisa Shafia ’88

Louisa Shafia ’88 is an Iranian-American cook, author, and food entrepreneur living in Nashville, Tennessee. In addition to publishing two cookbooks, Lucid Food: Cooking for an Eco-Conscious Life (2009, Ten Speed Press) and The New Persian Kitchen (2013, Ten Speed Press), Shafia is the Culinary Liaison for the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, an immigrant rights organization. 

She is also the founder of Feast by Louisa, an online Persian marketplace that sells spices, sweets, coffees and teas, kitchenwares, and textiles from Sew For Hope, a non-profit that provides professional training and sewing supplies to refugee women as a route to financial independence.

Shafia was born and raised in Philly; her father emigrated to the U.S. from Iran in 1961 to finish medical school. He met Shafia’s Jewish American mother in Philadelphia, where they married and had their two children. Shafia went to GFS from Kindergarten through twelfth grade, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. After a few short career chapters, she pivoted to the culinary arts, sharpening her skills in San Francisco and NYC restaurant kitchens before becoming a food writer.   

How did you make your way to the culinary field?

Louisa Shafia: Cooking is my third, and happily final, career. Right after college I worked as a researcher at Fresh Air on WHYY—and yes, I did get to meet Terry Gross and she is amazing!—but I didn’t see myself reporting. I tried acting in New York City, but at a certain point, I lost my passion for that. 

I'd always loved to cook and realized it made me really happy. One summer, I worked as a chef at a yoga retreat in Maine and it felt so right. Back in NYC, I went to culinary school at the Natural Gourmet Institute, and after that I worked in restaurants in San Francisco and New York. I learned so much, but it’s really intense and I burned out. There’s a big demand for catering and private cheffing in NYC, so I started doing that instead.  

What led you to developing recipes and writing cookbooks?

Having graduated from GFS and then UPenn, I always loved writing and literature. I felt like there’s no way I can just cook, I have to also write about it! I wanted to share all that I was learning in San Francisco about farm-to-table food. At the restaurant where I worked, we had farmers coming to the backdoor of the kitchen to deliver produce, and the kitchen crew would go on mushroom and chili foraging trips. It was so exciting, and I felt like I had something really new to say about eco-friendly, sustainable, seasonal cooking. That was the focus of my first book, Lucid Food.

When did you turn your attention to Persian cuisine?

I included a few Persian recipes in Lucid Food; I’d tried some of these dishes that my mom would make when I was a kid, and that I got to eat when my aunt visited us once from Tehran. Living in California reintroduced me to ingredients I remembered from back then, like persimmons, saffron, and pomegranate. I started delving deeper, and in the process, I got in touch with my own identity. Food was my way in to start exploring that culture.

Some of my extended family was living in Los Angeles; many of them came here from Iran after my dad did. Researching Persian food for my second cookbook, The New Persian Kitchen, was a good excuse to visit them! I went in 2012 for a month to intensively cook with my relatives and shop and eat at Persian markets. I also went back a bunch of times for shorter visits before and after that. We grew a lot closer and I realized how awesome my Iranian family is, and how lucky I am to have these beautiful, kind people that I never felt connected to growing up in Philadelphia.

Have you ever met your family in Iran?

Yes! I went on a life-changing, month-long trip to Iran in 2014. Visiting Iran was one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done in my life. I had to get Iranian citizenship and an Iranian passport. The application had to be filled out in Farsi! It took over two years to get my documentation to go. It was painful but I finally did it. 

When I went over, I was embraced by my dad’s family. I had the most incredible time, from a sensory and an emotional perspective. I covered a lot of ground: I flew to the Persian Gulf, flew up to the northwestern corner of Iran by Armenia and Turkey, drove to the historic cities of Shiraz and Isfahan, and visited the Caspian Sea. Each part has a completely different cuisine and climate. I don’t know what was more powerful: getting to taste the food where it’s from or being with my family and feeling those blood connections with my tribe.

How do you keep progressing your craft?

I keep learning through my work. Someone recently hired me to develop a recipe for their Persian restaurant, a crunchy rice ball with fluffy saffron rice inside. That’s an awesome challenge that will make me completely go down a rabbit hole. 

Also, I learn through travel. I was lucky enough to go to Japan for the first time this year. I’ve always wanted to go mostly for the food but there's so much there: the food, the subtlety, the presentation, the seasonality. I would love to incorporate some of that into my Persian cooking.

What’s something you still think about from your time at GFS?

GFS laid the groundwork for me being a lifelong meditator. Being able to sit with yourself in silence is so valuable. I learned that in Meeting for Worship.

And ultimately, I am who I am politically because of GFS. My outlook on the world is accepting everyone as equals and aiming for peace and quality of life for everyone. That was instilled in me in GFS.