My story with cooking began when I was only seventeen.

One day, the door opened and a nurse came out smiling and said, “Congratulations, you have a beautiful baby girl.”

I was incredibly happy. I had become a father at seventeen, and I had started working in a newly opened restaurant in Tehran’s iron market only four days earlier.

At that age, I had not yet completed military service. In Iran, military service begins from the age of eighteen, so I was still very young when I suddenly had the responsibility of a family.

The restaurant was small and sales were low. The owner sometimes told us that if the number of customers dropped any further, he might close the restaurant and turn the place into an iron shop.

Every time I heard that, I became worried. I had a child now. I needed my job.

I had entered cooking almost out of necessity, but little by little something changed. I began to enjoy the kitchen. I started thinking not only about preparing food, but also about how we could bring customers back.

During a difficult period around 1996, when business was slow, I made small calendar cards with the restaurant’s name and telephone number printed on them. I gave them to the surrounding shops.

Later, whenever I entered those shops, I would often see our little calendar sitting on their desks, with our telephone number right in front of them. Some shopkeepers even thanked me for making it so easy to find our number.

It was a simple idea, but it taught me something important: sometimes a small idea can change the relationship between a customer and a business.

A few years later, Iran went through another difficult economic period. My daughter was now around seven years old. I had school expenses, rent and household expenses, and once again I was afraid of losing my job.

Around that time, I met a friend who was a photographer and was also struggling to find enough work.

I suggested that he come to the restaurant occasionally and take photographs of our customers. We managed the cost within the overall service so that customers did not have to pay separately for their photographs.

People loved it.

They came for a meal, but they left with a memory.

It helped bring energy back into the restaurant, and it also helped my friend.

Over the years I learned much more than simply how to cook. I learned how large each portion should be, how to reduce food waste, how to maintain quality, and most importantly, how to make a customer leave happy enough to come back again.

Eventually people in the area started calling me “Ali the Cook.”

Some customers would jokingly say, “There is the whole market… and there is Ali the Cook.”

By then cooking was no longer just the job I had once entered because I needed money. I had fallen in love with it.

Years passed. My daughter was getting close to university age, and I also had a son.

One day I asked the restaurant manager for a salary increase because my family expenses had grown.

He told me: “Find a way to increase sales, and then I can pay you more.”

I thought about that sentence for several days.

Finally, I decided to start a fish section.

At first it did not work well. Many customers did not like the smell or taste of the fish. Instead of giving up, I started experimenting.

Using fresh and healthy ingredients, I created different sauces and flavor combinations. Gradually the fish section began to grow, and eventually it became successful.

That experience reinforced something I had already begun to understand: when something does not work, my first instinct is to look for another solution.

In 2013, I also had the opportunity to work for several months at Tehran’s Azadi Sports Complex, preparing food for athletes from different sports.

It was a very different experience because different athletes had different nutritional needs — football players, swimmers, cyclists, runners and others. It made me look at food in a broader way.

Much later in my life, I still had one unfinished responsibility: military service.

For many people, a passport may be an ordinary document. For me, it had become a dream.

Without completing my military-service obligation, getting the passport I wanted was not simple. So in 2023, despite my age and family responsibilities, I made the decision to go and complete my service.

Being away from my family was difficult, but I had a reason to continue.

When they discovered that I was an experienced cook, I was given responsibility in the kitchens of two military bases. Together with the team, we prepared meals for around one thousand people per serving.

Even military service became another chapter in my life as a cook.

Eventually I completed it.

And finally, I got my passport.

That little passport means much more to me than a travel document. It represents something I waited and worked for over many years.

Now I have another dream.

I would like to experience working outside Iran — in a professional hotel or restaurant, alongside people from other countries and cultures. I want to learn from experienced chefs and teams, gain new experiences and also bring the knowledge I have collected during nearly three decades of work.

I still want to learn. I still want to meet new people. And I still want to work.

Today I have two children and a beautiful granddaughter named Karin. I love my family deeply, and I also love the profession that has accompanied almost my entire adult life.

In Iran we have a saying: “Work is the essence of life.”

For me, it is more than a saying.

I have lived it.

From a seventeen-year-old father who was afraid that a small restaurant might close, to a man who still has dreams of entering a new kitchen in another country and beginning another chapter of his life.

I do not know exactly when that opportunity will come, but I continue to work toward it.
Perhaps that is why the name of your project immediately spoke to me:
Passion Never Retires.