At neighborhood bakeries women wait in line with their flowery household chadors draped casually around their waists. Their faces seem less lined than they will look later, as they struggle through the crowded city burdened with parcels and children and the countless worries of women in poor countries. During this pause they have the brief luxury of watching someone else’s labor.Sometimes, when I tired of the stares and questions I got as the lone woman registered at the Laleh Hotel, I would head for the northern suburbs to stay with a family who had become good friends. They lived on a winding road of mosques, shops and every kind of housing from villas to hovels. In the mornings I would find my way to the local bakery by following my nose. The air carried both the sweetness of seared crusts and the tang of woodsmoke from ovens sunk into the bakery floor. Inside, a four-man assembly line blurred in a heat shimmer of deft hands and flying dough. The bakers made lavosh—thin, flat sheets of bread soft as tissue.
