Donia Bijan

Author and Chef Movable Type Management

  • San Francisco CA

Bring Extra Napkins! Food can tell the most wonderful stories with celebrated chef & author of the memoir, Maman’s Homesick Pie

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Biography

Donia Bijan is a San Francisco Bay Area chef who left Iran in 1978 when her parents’ lives were threatened by the Islamic Revolution. Fearing for her mother’s safety, an outspoken women’s rights advocate and former member of parliament, her family settled in the Bay Area and was advised not to return to Iran.

After graduating from UC Berkeley in 1984, Donia went to Paris to attend the Cordon Bleu. Determined to pursue a culinary career, she secured apprenticeships in France’s three star kitchens before returning to San Francisco to preside over many of the city’s acclaimed restaurants and earning awards for her French inspired cuisine. In 1994 she realized her dream of opening of her own restaurant, L’Amie Donia, a celebrated French bistro in Palo Alto, California.

Since closing her restaurant in 2004, Ms. Bijan has divided her days between raising her son, catering, and writing a memoir where she reimagines her passion for cooking as a vessel to travel back and forth between the kitchens of her childhood and the formal kitchens of her training, illuminating the experience of exile, and drawing from her Persian, French, and American pantry to thread ties between cultures.

Industry Expertise

Women
Restaurant/Food Service
Food and Beverages

Areas of Expertise

Food Writing
Food Memoirs
Cooking
Food and Dining

Accomplishments

Author – Maman's Homesick Pie: A Persian Heart in an American Kitchen

2011-10-11

For Donia Bijan’s family, food has been the language they use to tell their stories and to communicate their love. Now, through the prism of food, award-winning chef Donia Bijan unwinds her own story, finding that at the heart of it all is her mother, whose love and support enabled Bijan to realize her dreams. An exhilarating, heartfelt memoir, Maman’s Homesick Pie evokes a vibrant kaleidoscope of cultures and cuisines, and is also a reminder of the women who encourage us to shine.

Event Appearances

Maman's Homesick Pie: A Persian Heart in an American Kitchen

Schuler Books & Music Author Series  Lansing, Michigan

Maman's Homesick Pie: A Persian Heart in an American Kitchen

Menlo Park Council Reading Series  Menlo Park, California

2012-05-06

Maman's Homesick Pie: A Persian Heart in an American Kitchen

Redwood City Library Author Series  Redwood City, California

2012-03-22

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Sample Talks

Maman's Homesick Pie: A Persian Heart in an American Kitchen

In the Bijan family, food is the language used to tell stories. Donia Bijan’s story starts during the Iranian Revolution of the 1970s, when her family was forced to flee their home in Tehran. Cut off from everything and everyone they’d ever known, they began building a new life in the San Francisco Bay Area. The book is a loving memoir of her mother, but also the story of her own career growth from the Cordon Bleu in Paris through culinary work in the United States and in France.

Availability

  • Keynote
  • Moderator
  • Panelist
  • Workshop Leader
  • Host/MC
  • Author Appearance
  • Corporate Training
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