“...Each recipe includes clear-eyed instructions and notes on the dish’s origins—and some of the most enticing and colorful food photography of the season.”

"Restaurateur Ayubi's Afghani relatives fled their native country to settle in Adelaide, Australia, supporting themselves via their restaurant Parwana ("butterfly") and, later, a deli. Ayubi begins the book with a narrative of the Afghan nation, its domination by the Brits, Russians, and others; the violence there; and the peoples displaced. Into these skillfully told stories, Ayubi weaves the cross-pollinating of foods, culture, and recipes there. Many of the 90-plus dishes here will be recognized by global eaters: kebabs, naan flatbread, curry, halwah, and other foods. Other dishes will intrigue: a chutney without traditional sweetness, three different categories of rice, and street-wise traditions like stuffed flatbreads and dumplings. Elegant and personal color photographs expand each recipe's presentation, with occasional step-by-step directions accompanying more difficult items like breads. This is an homage to the strength and spirit of refugees, as well as a delicious reminder of what adventurous U.S. cooks can create.

“Interspersed between recipes are stories of the Silk Road, the Mughal Empire, and the Great Game, which illustrate how because of trade, plunder, and cultural exchange, Afghan cuisine is both beloved and recognizable. The book walks through classics like kabuli palaw, shaami kebab, and falooda (all of which, unlike so many restaurant dishes adapted to cookbooks, are incredibly achievable for the home cook) and demonstrate how Afghan cuisine both influenced and was influenced by nearly all of Asia. No matter what cuisine you’re most used to cooking, you’ll find a recipe, or even just a flavor, that feels familiar here.”

"Daughter-mother duo Durkhanai and Farida Ayubi intertwine history and food, and the personal and political, in this rich collection of Afghan recipes. "Of the millions of families displaced, mine was one," she says of their flight in 1985 from Afghanistan, when "the aura of the nation had been scrambled." Tying together the threads of their journey (they now own two restaurants in Australia) are family photos and an enticing array of dishes pictured in bold colors, with their recipes. Ayubi's maternal grandfather cooked spicy coriander-scented lamb kebabs "over hot coals in the garden" to celebrate Eid, the end of Ramadan; intricate steamed dumplings (mantu) filled with cabbage and carrots and topped with tomato and lamb sauce capture "cross-cultural pollination" along the Silk Road. Recipes are loosely organized by theme; for example, the final chapter covers the author's return to Afghanistan in 2012 and features foods said to represent the "bridging" of influences. Overall, the dishes, which include sweets such as semolina halwah with nuts, are traditional in flavor, but Ayubi doesn't shy from modernity: many, such as one for the Afghan national dish Kabuli palaw, a platter of rice with chunks of lamb "buried beneath," suggest using a pressure cooker for convenience. Parwana - the name of the family's first restaurant - is Parsi for "butterfly," and Ayubi's family's story is one of metamorphosis, elegantly told and deliciously accompanied.

Parwana is a multigenerational affair, and dining there mimics the boisterous energy of visiting a large family's home ... Rice is central ... and it may be Farida Ayubi's greatest gift to the universe. It is not often that a dish as common as rice will knock me off my dinner chair, but the aged, long-grain narej palaw at Parwana left me agog. Shot through with slivered almonds, pistachios and a restrained amount of candied orange zest, its main attribute was the toasty fragrance of the rice itself the other ingredients acted only as brilliant supporting characters. I couldn't keep myself from repeatedly bending over to inhale the steam rising from the platter, so much so that I started to make my table mates anxious. To hell with decorum: If someone made a perfume that accurately evoked the rice at Parwana, I would bathe in the stuff.

– Besha Rodell, The New York Times

“I’ve been longing to visit Parwana Afghan Kitchen in Adelaide, Australia, since ex-L.A. Weekly restaurant critic Besha Rodell wrote about it for her Australian Fare column in the New York Times in March 2018. The restaurant’s cookbook — written by Durkhanai Ayubi, who runs the restaurant with her mother, Farida Ayubi, father, Zelmai Ayubi, and four sisters — conveys far more than escapist fantasies during a pandemic. Narratives between recipes and evocative photos detail centuries of Afghan customs and, more urgently, the modern political crises that led the Ayubi family to flee Afghanistan to Pakistan and ultimately to migrate to Australia. Farida Ayubi’s recipes for jeweled rice dishes, herbed kabobs, mantu (dumplings bathed in yogurt and tomato sauces) and gently spiced sweets exist as remembrances and acts of preservation. ‘Parwana [the word is Farsi for ‘butterfly’] is underpinned by my mother’s vision — her belief that through her knowledge of the art of Afghan food, gifted to her from her mother and her foremothers, she had been entrusted with a treasure of old, a symbol of Afghanistan’s monumental and culturally interwoven past.’”