Honey No. 12

Feat. learning to bike with friends, a persian omelet recipe, and more

It may surprise you to learn that I didn’t know how to ride a bike until the blessed pandemic. I had ridden a bike, sure, but contrary to the idiom’s belief, every time I got on that thing it was like I was discovering it anew. When I’ve asked my parents how this step of my childhood got skipped, they’ve looked at each other like, “we didn’t teach you?” And no, I can confirm, they did not. Unlike my failure to “learn how to swim” even though I had been “taught many times,” this was a genuine oversight in my All-American upbringing- one that would be ignored until there was a summer when I had nothing but time.

When the pandemic started I was living in a “junior one-bedroom” apartment in Chicago, a made-up term that means your bedroom is either also the living room or also the kitchen. I loved that apartment, my first foray into the sacred chapter of living on One’s Own, and for the most part had no problem hunkering down in quarantine solitude. Sure, my life touring the country performing comedy had come to an abrupt halt with no indication that it would ever return, but unlike the purebred extroverts out there, I relish my time spent alone. I can keep myself content for hours, inventing projects in my home, addressing my endless backlog of design tabs on my computer, and puttering around while chain-calling every single person in my life. This will be over before we know it, I thought, and in the meantime I can get back into the noble art of raising my Sims with no cheats.

Of course, you know how this story goes. After a few months of lockdown I was desperately missing my family, my life, even the very city I was in. I knew the crevices of my own neighborhood intimately, pacing the same routes day in and day out. The grocery store across the street from my apartment wouldn’t let us bring reusable bags- we didn’t know how the virus spread and they didn’t want to take any chances- so I used the dozens of plastic bags I received as receptacles on Trash Walks, talking on the phone for hours as I picked up garbage on the street. That spring I trash-walked to the Chicago River every day to watch dozens of geese grow from fuzzy yellow goslings to awkward gray teenagers, and was more familiar with their progress than with the many corners of the city that I desperately missed. With no car, and no intention of getting on my previously-beloved public transportation, I was confined to the distance I could walk before needing to pee. And although that was far, it was not far enough; I needed wheels, and I needed them fast.

My bicycle journey started on a divvy which, if you’re familiar, is like learning to blow a kiss by manually inflating a kiddie pool. They are clunky, they are humongous, and they are easily available. There were stations for these chonky monsters all over the city, including one right around the corner from my junior one-bedroom, and it was a convenient, low-pressure way to learn to ride a bike without investing in my own personal machinery. I borrowed a bike helmet from a friend, and teetered around the city trailing my then-boyfriend, whose tough love approach centered on calmly biking along as I screamed in fear close behind him. Although I hated the feeling of trying something new and not being good at it right away (quirky?), I was intoxicated by my newfound freedom. We could bike to the lake! We could bike to Logan Square! We could bike past the windows of my dear, sweet friends and the world could feel a little less scary, for a time.

In July of 2020 I magically and chaotically booked an in-person voiceover job at a studio downtown. Although I had broken up with my bike-chaperone boyfriend and had never biked alone, I stubbornly insisted that the only way for me to get to this job was to wake up at dawn to ride a divvy from my house in Lincoln Square to the recording studio in River North. Because I was too afraid to bike solo through the city streets, I thought it would be a nice idea to go a little out of my way and take the bike path that borders Lake Michigan. For those who are unfamiliar with the layout of Chicago, I had just set myself up for a 10-mile bike ride on a bicycle that weighed approximately 3,000 pounds, before a gig where I had to speak into a microphone while breathing normally. I arrived at the job legs wobbling, drenched in sweat, and swearing that even if I only rode a bike one more time in my life, it would be worth it to just buy my own. I immediately texted my best friend Leila, who is 1. brave, and 2. comes from a Biking Family and was born with innate wisdom on all things two-wheeled and/or sporty.

July 7, 2020

Leila immediately got to work sourcing and sending me option after option of used bikes on Craigslist. She took me to used-bike stores so I could go for test rides and better understand what I was looking for. But after months and months of riding a behemoth rental around the city, a smaller, nimbler bike felt…TERRIFYING to me. I wasn’t used to needing to balance, needing to reach down for the handlebars. At 5’1” most standard bikes hovered me off of the ground, flailing, and I was thrust back into the awful feeling of being new again, at being bad. I let Leila’s Craigslist options pile up in my texts, assuring her that I was considering them while hoping that she would forget about this silly idea and let me get back on my divvy in peace. Until one day, she saw through my ruse:

July 14, 2020

Without asking me, or practically even telling me, Leila found a bike on Craigslist, messaged the seller to make sure it would fit me, negotiated it down from the asking price, and told the woman we would pick it up that day. Without telling me! The labor of this love is already so immense and so tender, without the bonus invisible labor of bossing around your very stubborn best friend who is looking in your eyes and telling you that they know best when the truth is that they’re guessing. I took my last divvy ride to River North that day, pedaling behind Leila as fast as I could so that we’d be the first people at the seller’s door. After a quick cash exchange I teetered off on my new, tiny bike, wobbling through traffic as I got used to the feeling of balancing on my own. I followed Leila back up the same lakefront trail that drove me to this moment, until we reached the beach of our choice, threw our bikes aside, and jumped in the lake together.

Me with my brand new bike that I swore I didn’t want, that I would ride around Chicago every day for the rest of my time there, that I would sell to a girl in LA, with tears in my eyes, because the truth is you need gears in California.

Omlette e Irooni

Shadee Vossoughi is a darling Chicago actor, improviser, and OG Honeypot pal! It’s an honor to have her (and her delicious recipes!) back in the fold.

I need to tell the people a great way to get turmeric in their diet. Okay I’ll do it now! I am Persian/Iranian whatever you wanna call it, and we use turmeric quite often. Spices add flavor and depth, but also have medicinal and nutritional benefits, and ~*turmeric*~ in particular has A LOT of important healing properties. It has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant qualities and protects the liver from toxins. It also lowers cholesterol! I could go on and on. But I won’t. Anyway, I noticed that in the west we don't have that many recipes that call for turmeric. So if you want a yummy quick way to add it to your diet, make Omelet e Irooni or…the Persian Omelet! It’s not really an omelet, that’s just what we call it. It’s kind of like shakshuka.

If you ask a Persian mama to give you a recipe, there are never any measurements. “Just use your eyes,” my mom says when I ask her for specifics. So I will do my best to give you a foundation, but please adjust ingredient amounts to your liking.

Persian Omelet (2 servings)

• 4 eggs

• 1 roma tomato, chopped

• ½ of a medium yellow onion

• 1 tsp turmeric

• Extra virgin olive oil

• Kosher salt and black pepper

• Optional hot dog*

1. Lyonnaise slice or chop your onion (I like mine sliced.)

2. On medium heat, add some olive oil to a pan, add onions, stir, and cover for a couple mins to soften/steam.

3. Take the lid off, turn heat to medium low, add some salt to sweat out the onions, then add turmeric onto onions (I would do like ½ tsp but it depends on your taste, if you’re new to the world you can work up to more turmeric.) You want the turmeric on the onions mostly, not frying off to the side in the pan, because if turmeric burns it gets too bitter. Stir. (Since turmeric dries out the olive oil, add a little more if you need. You want your onions to turn golden brown, not burn). I do this for about five to eight minutes. The combo of the onion getting sweeter and the slight natural bitterness of the turmeric is heaven. 

4. Turn up the heat to medium, hear that sizzle, add tomatoes, maybe sprinkle of salt if you're a molly baz head…sizzle sizzle weee! I add ½ tsp more turmeric. Let tomatoes cook down a bit…a few mins. Doesn’t matter!!!! It’s morning!

5. At this point you can make little holes in your pan and add one egg to each hole like a little shakshuka and cover and do sunny side up, or do what I do which is whisk the four eggs with some s&p and add the eggs and finish like you would a scramble. 

6. Cook until eggs are done to your liking (remember the tomato makes the eggs look more undercooked because of the watery nature, try not to overcook the eggs.)

7. Turn off the pan, serve immediately with some Iranian bread like lavash or barbari (you have easy access to fresh middle eastern bread if you live in the LA area) or you can do pita or even ezekiel. I do it all! You can also sprinkle a little parsley on top to make it look real pretty but I never do this because it’s morning! 

8. ENJOY.

*Optional: for the meat eaters, one variation is adding a hot dog. When my dad would make this on Sundays (cute), he always liked to do it sunny side up style (it’s sooo much prettier and fun) and he would dice up a sosis (hot dog) and sauté it with the onions ‘till crispy before adding the tomatoes.

See you next week m’dears! Yesterday I hastily preserved lemons that I gathered in our neighborhood, so fingers crossed I’m back with some tasty lemon reports and not some sort of brine toxicity (this was a project that I knew I should have waited for Patient Jesse on, but he was asleep and I am Famously Impatient and decided it needed to be done Right Away, and then when he woke up he was like is that seal Tight Enough and I was like Why Would You Ask Me That but I knew he was Right so we’ll just have to Wait and See). I also made this yummy cabbage soup (added spicy chicken sausage and white beans, I’m on a cabbage kick!) and these gf apple muffins, which I have to say were a SMASH hit. And those were the eats for the week! Have you made anything you’re loving recently? Maybe it’s not even cabbage?

Let me know!

xx Olivia