I came down to Queens, NYC to be with my husband over the holidays on Friday, December 21st which was the Winter Solstice. We were invited to a friend's house in Brooklyn who is a native of Iran, living in NYC since mid seventies. She is a Zoroastrian, the first monotheic religion of the world that originated in Iran. It is a religion deeply tied to nature, every solstice and equinox is celebrated. Winter solstice that starts on either December 20th or 21st is the longest night of the year. It is celebrated by many different cultures, Zoroastrians as the ancient religion of Iran stayed up all night celebrating it with family, friends, neighbors to drive away the dark night and celebrate the coming of the light (Mitra) the angle of light. The celebration lasts for 40 nights. In Iranian tradition the host is to prepare everything and that is exactly what our host did. She had made three different kinds of rice, one with cranberries, carrot and saffron, one with dill and lima beans and third just plain rice to go with the pomegranate stew. She had made two different kinds of pomegranate stews, chicken and one without the chicken so it could be vegetarian. the other dishes were salmon, chicken, three different kinds of potato, three different kinds of salad, I liked the pomegranate salad the best, it was pomegranates with shreds of cabbage, it tasted really good. She had cooked for fifty people, indeed there were 50 or more present. It was a full international house, people with all skin colors, accents were present. At the end before the desert, we all gathered in the dinning room area to skype Maz Jobrani an Iranian/American comedian who is making a comedy film called 'Jimmy Vestvood, an Amerikan Hero' he is trying to raise $250,000 through crowdfunding so he can make his film as authentic as possible without any dependency on the big holywood producers. All in all it was a wonderful night.