I was chatting with one of my Persian colleagues about cooking on Friday, and I told him that I planned to make Persian style layered chicken and rice on Sunday called tachin joojeh. He looked at me, surprised that I want to make Persian food. “How did you get into that?” he asked me. “You know I am Persian, right?”

Everyone is always so fascinated by someone who looks like me making any kind of food that isn’t Chinese or Vietnamese or Asian. I’m honestly not really sure what the fascination is about. No one really exclaims like crazy or is impressed when you hear of an Asian person making spaghetti, clams with linguine, or chili. Somehow, a Chinese person making Indian or Persian food is considered fascinating. If you like something, you like it, right? You don’t have to have grown up with it or be married to someone who is of that ethnicity, yes?

I say this all the time, but I really believe it: if we were all open minded to trying and embracing the cuisines of other cultures, there would be less hate in the world. I mean, that’s why Trump only eats McDonald’s and other garbage “American” junk food.