When she was 32, Najmieh Batmanglij was exiled from Iran after the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and fled with her husband to France, where she discovered a passion for cooking. The couple then relocated to Washington, DC, where Batmanglij built a career as a chef and award-winning, world-renowned cookbook author. Chef Yotam Ottolenghi has called her the “goddess of Iranian cooking.” In the early aughts, she started yearning to visit her homeland and returned for the first time in 2015, more than 35 years after she left. That experience led to her latest book, Cooking in Iran: Regional Recipes & Kitchen Secrets, in which she imparts the findings from her journey and uncovers traditional regional recipes. At Book Larder, she'll demonstrate a dish from the book and share stories from her travels. by Julianne Bell