There is something so soothing and calming, and yet so manic and nerve wrecking about baking. You can follow a recipe, with the right measurements, a hint of this, a teaspoon of that, but somewhere between the flour and sugar, things can go wrong. Kind of like life. But then, when you achieve greatness and the oven delivers you your magnificent golden brown cake with everything in place, you feel a great sense of accomplishment. Also kind of like life.

To bake, to create something with your two hands from scratch, it’s meaningful. And then to feed it someone who actually likes it is equally as satisfying.

With the Los Angeles sun setting on Friday afternoon, I decided to make meringue cookies.

I like the science of combining sugar and egg whites and watching them transform from a lumpy, clear mass to a bowl of glistening meringue base. But more than that, I like adding flavors and additions to simple recipes that carry memories, experiences and culture.

I was born in Tehran, Iran to Armenian parents. My parents fled to Greece after the 1978 Iranian Revolution and landed in Los Angeles, where I was raised. Their parents come from Tabriz and Moscow and Baku. This summer I found out that a part of my family going back a few generations might have been from the Nagorno-Karabagh region, which remains a phantom state, as the New York Times recently called it. My background is a culturally colorful map that has bred in me  a strong appreciation for diversity and curiosity, and yet, as is usual with immigrant families, a multidimensional identity that isn’t always the easiest thing to deal with when you’re an awkward teenager and young adult trying to navigate your way through the deep black hole known as life.

As I get older, it gets easier and the appreciation grows as the years go by, especially for food. As anyone with a similar Middle Eastern or Caucasus influenced background can tell you, food is truly the cultural essence of life in every sense of the word – in celebration, in pain, in moments of solitude and with more extended family members that rivals the Duggar Clan. It is used as the setting for laughter, arguments and everything in between. A table bubbling over with smells and concoctions holding the pain and joy of a tribe, is the hearth of the Armenian or Middle Eastern household.

Rose water, pistachios, saffron – they evoke memories for me, tied to occasions and people that have always appeared in the narrative of my life.

I used crushed pistachio, always ready to in a mug in our fridge, just in case my mom feels like making the mouthwatering Middle Eastern dessert known as Kadayif, rose water – an ingredient you will see all over the map in recipes from Cyprus to India, and saffron, an expensive but powerful spice cultivated in Iran. This particular one had been brought back from Iran with a relative a few days earlier, so I get an A for authenticity.

These flavors have incredible chemistry together. They compliment each other, without one overpowering the other. Opening an oven door and smelling rose water baking with hints of pistachio and saffron is comforting.

I have been thinking of what to do with this space of mine for a long time. I ignore it for months, out of frustration and when I do post, there’s no uniformity or continuity, no conversation.

I want to change that. For the last two years, a lot of the work I’ve been doing in my professional life as a journalist has revolved around communities and issues facing Armenia, the South Caucasus, greater Middle East and its diasporas. These parts of the world fascinate me. Maybe it’s because my roots are spread out in and around it. Maybe it’s a selfish, silly need to discover or enhance a part of my identity, or maybe it’s because despite my cultural connections, they are some of the most fascinating places facing the most fascinating issues in the world. I want to make this space a conversation about those issues, about the lives of immigrants in foreign countries and the ones in the developing countries I mentioned, about culture, civil issues, politics and human rights abuses, even Los Angeles, but triumphs as well, about what I have a passion for, which is writing about how extraordinary issues impact ordinary people.   The twist however, is to do it mostly around a virtual dinner table – a place that has been the cornerstone of conversation for most of my life, where ideas were exchanged between copious amounts of saffron-infused rice and arguments cooled over hot cups of chai made from the amazingness of the samovar. It’s a tall task, and there’s more thinking to do about how to approach serious subjects while talking about milk and baking soda and what to call it and if it should even be here.

I’m not sure what will unfold, but I’d like to think of it as my little experiment, a way to progress conversation and perhaps progress myself in the process.  Grab a cup of tea and check back soon.