آشپزخانه

An Iranian home usually has a formal living room (اتاق پذیرایی, otâq-e pazirâi) reserved for guests, beautifully kept, and rarely actually used by the family. The real living happens in the آشپزخانه: kids do homework on the kitchen table, the matriarch holds court at the stove, news gets exchanged over chopping vegetables. Once a guest is upgraded from formal-stranger to almost-family, the host pulls them off the couch in the living room and walks them into the kitchen. "بیا تو آشپزخونه" (biyâ tu âshpaz-khune) "come into the kitchen" is one of the warmest invitations in Iranian hospitality. It means: you are no longer a guest, you are one of us. The formal room stays clean. The kitchen does the work.