Halvah! Torshi! First-ever East Bay Nowruz Market hits this weekend

Nowruz, the arrival of the spring equinox, is an ancient celebration of hope and renewal. A group of East Bay students and makers are organizing a one-stop shop for the holiday, also known as Persian New Year, to raise funds to support the ongoing fight for women’s rights in Iran.

The market, the first of its kind in the East Bay and likely the Bay Area, will feature a dozen vendors, mostly of Iranian descent, selling homemade foods — think tangy Persian torshi and nutty halvah — plus art, jewelry, vintage clothing, plants and other DIY goods on March 12 at 2727 California Street, a cooperative art gallery in Berkeley.

Organizer Helia Sadeghi, chef-founder of Big Dill Kitchen, says she noticed a lack of community around Nowruz when she immigrated to the Bay Area from Iran in 2016. That was one of the reasons she and the other vendors wanted to hold a market.

“In Iran, it’s such a big deal,” she says. “Anywhere you go, there are stands selling everything you need for your haft seen (the Nowruz table) and people are getting ready for spring. It’s such a beautiful time. We just wanted to bring a little of that energy to the East Bay.”

Farmer Sama, co-organizer and an aspiring East Bay farmer who specializes in Persian herbs, will be selling sabzeh and muscari, or grape hyacinth, to be placed on the haft as  symbols of renewal.

The market is scheduled from 1 to 5 p.m., rain or shine, with a suggested entry donation of $2-$8, cash or Venmo. To learn more, visit Big Dill Kitchen on Instagram. Proceeds will cover organizing costs and the rest will be going to @discotehran.nyc’s VPN project, which provides VPN access for people in Iran to bypass government-enforced internet restrictions.

The women’s freedom movement ignited in 2022 after the September killing of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Kurdish woman who was severely beaten by the mortality police for wearing her hijab “improperly” and died from related brain injuries. Protests across the country and the world have not stopped, and it is estimated that more than 500 people have been killed and another 19,000 arrested, according to Human Rights Activists News Agency.

But widespread internet blackouts by the government have made it difficult to confirm fatalities.

“So much of this revolution has been organized through the Internet,” says Sadeghi, whose entire family remains in Iran. “The government spreads lies and the people’s only weapon is sharing their stories, their videos and their photos on the Internet. This is what makes this revolution so powerful…One of the main ways we can help is to help people gain this access so they can fight back, listen to each other and let the world hear their voices.”

On Sunday, Sadeghi will offer zeytoon parvardeh, a marinated green olive dish with pomegranate molasses, and her star-shaped date-and-walnut dessert, ranginak. Other vendors include Laney College culinary student Meena Hussein of What Meena Makes (halvah), Jasmine Djavahery of Kabob Kids (printmaker) and Yasmeen Abedifard, a comics artist.