A few snapshots from my iPhone in the last six months from a few corners of Los Angeles:

Egyptian Diaspora protests in front of the Federal Building in support of the Egyptian Revolution.

Iconic religious statues from India’s Sweets and Spices in Los Feliz.

La Morena, sliced green pickled jalapeños, Ralphs, Hollywood.

French macarons at a Koreatown mall, Koreatown.

Za’atar, Middle Eastern spice mixture and Armenian coffee, Shanto’s Bakery, La Crescenta.

Chrysanthemum Tea Drink, Sapp Coffee Shop, Thai Town.

Yerevan, Armenia t-shirt from Ara the Rat.

Left over Cinco de Mayor balloons from Mexico City restaurant, Los Feliz.

Matrioshka Russian Vodka.

Iran Air sticker, the country’s official airline.

Hrant Dink was murdered the year I graduated. Shot at point blank range in Istanbul by a young nationalist because he was a journalist who was interested in progress and changing the system. I didn’t know him personally and only learned about him months before he was killed, but I felt as if I had lost one of my own, and I had.

Dink, his work, his views and everything he stood for has had a profound impact on me over the years. His courage and unfaltering determination, his ability to look at things from all perspectives, his strength to stand up, often alone, for something – it’s all given me the courage to keep pushing forward. He is someone I draw strength from, someone who has continually been an inspiration in my own writing, someone I am proud of to have shared a culture and a profession with.

And yet the image of Mr. Dink, face down on the street, covered by a white blanket, with the soles of his shoes upright gives me chills. This is not how I want to remember him. Why do we do this to the people who care the most about humanity? A journalist murdered by a misguided youth – that’s not the way Mr. Dink should have gone.

Remembering him isn’t enough. If he is to be honored, there needs to be progress, or else we’ve failed.

Four years later, not much has changed, but here’s to hoping that it might.

“I challenge the accepted version of history because I do not write about things in black and white. People here are used to black and white; that’s why they are astonished that there are other shades, too.” – H.D

A few links to what I’ve written about him are below:

Bridges Hrant Dink Built: A Conversation with Jirair Libaridian

Then, Now and Later: The Legacy of Hrant Dink

A few links to recent must read articles about him:

Mouardian: No One is Hrant Dink: 96 Years of Solitude, and 4 Years of the Same

1915 and the Unsolved Murder of Hrant Dink

In Memoriam: I Fear Hrant Dink’s Name is Becoming a Trademark

I have good news and bad news. Which would you like to read about first?

Good it is.

My blog and twitter name “writepudding” was mentioned in an Online Journalism Review post by journalist and USC professor Robert Hernandez. Made my day. Made more than a day, actually. It’s the little things.

My Spot.us article, “Los Angeles: The Long, Hard Road to Becoming a No-Kill City” is almost fully funded. I truly wish I had  40 hours a week to devote to this story, because it’s never ending. You could write a book. I can tell you that narrowing my research down and not going off on tangents is going to prove to be a challenge during the editing and writing process. Still excited to see it come to fruition.

And now for the bad.

Three years ago I had this idea to launch an Armenian web magazine that would be chock full of original reporting, blogging and more from a completely independent perspective – meaning that no political organization, no religious organization, no one could censor me or other writers for any reason whatsoever. A year passed by, and then I decided I was actually going to do it. So I did. And it grew, and it grew, and I wrote and wrote almost every day, after eight hour work days and three hours in traffic. I drove to cover events, I stayed up at odd hours of the night to interview people halfway across the world. I made connections with amazing people. I got contributors.  I devoted 40 hours I didn’t have to this site every week. I talked about issues Armenian publications ignored. I provided a space where people could have a discussion about important topics.

I was amazed (more like shocked) that so many were reading, commenting and supporting the idea of the site. I couldn’t believe there was a real space being created for Armenians to talk about issues that were affecting our community today.

And then, out of nowhere, because I had published a piece by someone who was not Armenian, about Armenians in Turkey, I was not once, twice, but three times accused of being funded by a “Turkish-American think-tank organization.”

Bam.

Why? Because my site wasn’t repeating the same old, bias, politically funded rhetoric of other Armenian Diaspora media. Because I had published something they hadn’t agreed with. How can you make someone who makes such a statement understand the amount of blood, sweat and tears you put into a project that actually makes you lose money every month? How can you reason with that person? You can’t. You just have to get angry, cool off and then forget about it.

And I did. I even found it comical.  A week or two later, news emerged that an Armenian-American fraud ring had been arrested – huge news not only for Armenians, but the U.S., as it was the single biggest Medicare scam in the history of this country. I wrote about it, as did every other major news organization, and the comments began to roll in. Shock, embarrassment, anger – people were upset. In the midst of it all, I received a comment from someone who called me a “fem-nazy looney editor-in-chief” who is motivating “sophisticated” Armenians to discuss “what ails us in our culture.”

Woa.

What struck me the most about this comment wasn’t the insult directed towards me, but the ignorance that I had been afraid of all along – “there’s nothing wrong with us worth discussing.”

We are perfect. We don’t walk, we float above the ground. We stand proud and shoot down anyone who has anything negative to say about how we conduct ourselves and think – what ails us in our culture? Nothing. Things are just fine.

I wrote columns about domestic violence and gave a voice to other Armenian and non-Armenian women to relay their experiences of womanhood. I discussed gender roles and discrimination. And by that fact alone, I was labeled a fem-nazi.

But it wasn’t enough. I received a private message a few days ago on Facebook. Is this you who wrote all these articles?” a young  man asked me, attaching a link to my site.

“Yes,” I replied, “What can I help you with?”

“Don’t you realize that you’re burning the name of Armenians?”

“How?”

“Well, by saying Armenian girls like sex. You think Armenian girls outside of the U.S. have sex before marriage C’mon!”

I still cannot properly wrap my head around this. I’m still too angry. I still keep thinking about these words coming out of the mouth of a 20-something young adult who is graduating college this year.

I can’t write about it yet, because the thoughts are still swarming in my head, but I will, soon. One thing is for sure, Armenians have a major identity problem, one that I’m not sure I’m prepared to address.

Today on eHow’s Edible Gardens, Willi and I talked about our favorite cookbooks and recipes. She mentioned a really great one called Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison. I am definitely intrigued by this book and from what she said, it sounded great. I have a couple of vegetarian cookbooks, but none of them seem complete. This is especially helpful now, as I’ve recently become vegetarian this year, although I suppose I could be considered a pescetarian because I do occasionally eat fish. A book that I mentioned, New Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies by Najmieh Batmanglij, is one of my favorites. Last year, I asked my mom to get me a book that would encompass all the food she’s made over the years. I started to feel like, that although I loved to bake and cook, I didn’t know much about Iranian cooking or recipes, and that concerned me slightly, because I didn’t want those traditions to die.

You see, although I am Armenian, my family is from Iran, which doesn’t make too much of a difference, because Armenian and Iranian cooking are very closely related, as is Arabic and Greek cuisine. So this book is just a complete encyclopedia of Iranian food. It covers dishes such as Dolma, or Ghormeh Sabzi or Shirin Polo (all pictured here, with photos taken by me) and tons of delicious Iranian and Armenian desserts and pastries.

Persian cuisine is not only versatile and flavorful, but it’s very healthy as well. Vegetables are always used in dishes as opposed to on the side and ingredients such as lentils, saffron, parsley, rose water and a mixture of herbs and spices. When you eat Persian food, you really get a sense of culture from it. The flavors that are combined together make for one amazing people. The great thing is that, if you don’t eat meat like me, the food has so much substance on its own, that omitting meat or replacing it with something like tofu does not change the dish by much.

This is shirin polo. Shirin polo in Persian means “sweet rice” and is one of my favorite dishes ever. The combination of almonds, candied orange zest and saffron in the rice makes for a titillating experience in the confines of your mouth.

It’s not necessarily a dish you make everyday, but reserve for special occasions, such as celebrations or weddings. The colors alone are beautiful, let alone the taste.

Rose water or Golab in Persian is used to flavor food, as a component in some cosmetic and medical preparations, and for religious purposes throughout Europe and Asia.

Rosewater has a very distinctive flavor and is used heavily in South Asian, West Asian and Middle Eastern cuisine

In Iran it is added to tea, ice cream, cookies and other sweets in small quantities. Two of my favorite desserts are akbar-mashti and faludeh, both Persian delicacies that have rose water added to them. Akbar-mashti is a thick creamy ice cream that has rose water (and sometimes pistachios added to it). Faludeh is a Persian sorbet made of thin vermicelli noodles frozen with corn starch, rose water, lime juice, and often ground pistachios as well.

I hope to present more Persian and Armenian recipes on this blog, as I definitely think it’s an undiscovered area of food for most of the U.S. If you’re interested in Middle Eastern recipes, a blog you should be reading is Desert Candy. I read it weekly and the recipes are just amazing. Noosh e jan! (Bon Apetit)