Tabouli smackdown

There have been two great Middle Eastern restaurants in my family both in Washington, D.C. and both run by my favorite Uncle Charlie. Everyone in that huge family was a great cook, even the men. I am not talented in that department but I did learn to make, better than average hummus, baba ghanoush and tabouli that kicks you know what.

Good tabouli is almost impossible to buy although the gross, soggy almost fermented kind sold in plastic cups is easily had.

Fresh ingredients are important for good tabouli but technique is crucial.

What you will need:
A big bunch of fresh perky curly parsley
4 thin kirby cucumbers
four or five firm plum tomatoes
3/4 cup of medium coarse bulgur wheat.
half a bunch of scallions (optional)

If you’ve seen recipes on the internet, a word of caution.
Does my list include mint? NO! So don’t put mint in it. Ever!
Does this recipe talk about regular onions? NO. So don’t put regular onions in it.
I’ve even seen soy sauce in an internet recipe. This would destroy the tabouli; it’s the opposite of the crisp, tangy, chewy, mélange that we are trying to achieve. My Aunt Mary (the best cook in the world) who would feed anyone who wandered into her house, would be disappointed.

Dressing:
Juice of one and a half lemons
1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil
Salt
(no pepper, no garlic, no additional herbs.)
Let me say this again: lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil and salt.

The technique needed with all of the vegetables is to dice them by hand into infinitesimally small pieces. You can’t use machines for this because you will get watery mush instead of recognizable tiny cubes. The parsley is the only ingredient that can be processed in a machine and the only machine that has worked to my satisfaction is the Oskar. Unfortunately, they don’t make the Oskar anymore, possibly because it is a great little workhorse. Whenever something is good, they stop making it. St. Ives stopped making cucumber elastin. (it really tightened your skin), Kiehl’s stopped making their great A and D cream and Sunbeam stopped making the Oskar. My friend Naomi wrote a prize-winning poem about this. It’s called “The Item You Ordered Is No Longer Being Produced.” It’s one of my favorite poems.

The secret at the core of great tabouli is to have all of the ingredients as fresh as possible and more important as dry as possible. If the parsley has been washed put it through a spinner before chopping. For the tomatoes, scoop out the watery part. I choose Kirby cucumbers because their seeds are tiny and their cores have less gelatinous flesh. Remember, we are going for dry.

Place the bulgur wheat in a bowl and cover with tap water. Let stand for about an hour, drain the water. Take small portions of the wheat into the palm of your hand and squeeze the remaining water out then place it in a bowl. Do this until all of the wheat has been “wrung” out. Add the minced parsley, the cubed tomatoes and cucumbers and (optional) add a few stalks of minced scallions (use both the bulb and the green) Mix gently.

The wheat will continue to expand siphoning off any liquid from the vegetables. Because the tabouli is dry, you can store part of it in an airtight plastic container for up to four days.

The dressing: Do not be tempted to put anything but lemon, olive oil and salt in your dressing. The reason we wrung out that wheat and dried the vegetables was so they could soak up the lemon and oil and salt which creates an incredibly fresh tangy taste. The wheat especially will continue to expand getting fatter with the lemon and oil. The vegetables will also rehydrate and glisten with the dressing.

This tabouli is addictively good but it is also good for you. If you pair it with a few home made grape leaves or a sandwich of baba ghanoush in fresh hot artisan pita bread Yum.
**I’ve seen recipes that call for putting fine bulgur and soaking in boiling water. You want medium coarse so it soaks up more dressing. If you use boiling water, the wheat will expand too much and again, won’t siphon off some of the moisture of the veggies and the dressing.

I hope you like this.

“It’s your thyroid” and other important phrases.

The three most palliative (look it up) words in the English language: "It’s your thyroid.” When the doctor says this, jump for joy. First, you’re going to stop feeling tired, second you’re going to want to do things, third you’re going to want to fix things that are wrong with your house, fourth you’re going to (dare I say it?) lose weight.

The 5 most chilling words in the English language: “Let’s have a little talk.” It’s the adjective in that sentence that sends the chill factor into Antarctica. “Let’s have a talk,” means a warning as in, “I’ve noticed such and such is not going smoothly, what can we do to turn that around?” Add the word ‘little’ and talking time is over. You are out.

The six most - “Aw, no. I’m not the right person for this” words are “I’ve never told this to anyone.” If you don’t want this to happen, stop being nice. Niceness invites the crazy secret holders to target you. If you are already a victim do not let the conversation proceed. Say something definitive like “Aw gosh, I have internal bleeding, I’ve got to get it checked out immediately.”

“Are you sitting down?” or “I have big news.” imply success and are good unless you are human and hate to see your friends and dear ones surpass your achievements.

“While you were away your cat died.” This is never good not only because your cat died but because this is a well known opening salvo for sequentially-delivered even worse news. The house sitter begins with ‘your cat died’ to get you prepared and then they segue into worse news, i.e. ‘and your house burned down.’

The ne plus ultra of language: “You have a famous, wealthy relative who wants to get in touch with you.” Those are the words a lawyer spoke to then struggling writer Mona Simpson when she was about to meet a lost brother named Steve Jobs.

72 days is plenty of time to be married

This is a nonsense post on some of the crazy news stories from my favorite news provider: Yahoo.

1. Kim Kardashian is divorcing her husband of 72 days citing irreconcilable differences. I’m thrilled for them. The irreconcilable difference in height kept me up at night. Remember that little dustup when People chose not to include the groom in the wedding cover photo - he was too tall to fit in the same frame. I’m a short woman and I know all about trying to hold a conversation never mind kiss a man who is a foot and a half taller. It’s called craner’s remorse. You can’t crane 24/7 and not get a little annoyed. Eva Longoria/Tony Parker (similar situation). Jessica Simpson/Tony Romo (the same). Besides giving Kim a colossal neck knot Kris was permanently churlish (a word not used nearly often enough).
Was the marriage too short? Tosh bosh. Kim got a couple of epi$odes for the reality show out of her drive-by marriage and a bundle of magazine money for exclusive wedding photos. There was little else to sell short of getting pregnant. Besides, Kim pumped $10 million dollars into the economy and created a busload of jobs. Maybe President Obama doesn't like his girls watching the Kardashians but Kim knows how to generate some bucks.

2. Mother jailed, loses custody of her daughter over stolen sandwiches. I’m always interested when the government takes children from their parents. If the parenting police had been around when I was a young mother, they would have taken my children on a regular basis. In this case a mother, Nicole, was 30 weeks pregnant and feeling faint while at the supermarket. She took a sandwich and ate it as she shopped for her groceries. When she arrived at the cashier, she paid for $50. worth of groceries but forgot to include the sandwich. The police met her at the door.

I’ve been around a lot of pregnant women in the last few years and I can tell you when they get hungry, it’s like having a bear loose in a residential neighborhood. Didn’t anyone tell Safeway that “it takes a village” to raise a child. Safeway is part of Nicole’s village. The least they could do is give the mother a sandwich. Instead they sent her to jail. Besides, who hasn’t eaten a grape or two while cruising the produce aisle?

3. Drunk, naked driver smashes 12 cars in Moscow.
If we didn’t think there was a little craziness afoot in Russia from watching Putin go topless, this story will seal the deal. I love it when people act as crazy as possible. First, this man, the perpetrator, came from Moldova - a landlocked state between Romania and Ukraine. Second, he was in distress over an unhappy relationship. Translated this means he lived in a sucky place and his girlfriend had dumped him. So he got drunk and ignored a no left turn sign (who hasn’t done that?) This act provoked a police chase. The drunk, jilted, sucky hometown lover decided he was already in trouble why not have the best time. He continued speeding away from the po po smashing several cars en route and shedding his clothes as he went. “Don’t cover me,” he shouted when the police tried to put clothes on him for the television cameras.

That’s the best of the Yahoo news folks, see you later.

#SampleSunday: Ch.4 Tough As Nails: "There R 3 possibilities; Suicide, Suicide and Suicide.

(this is an excerpt from my "woman sleuth" novel in progress if it makes u want to read more, let me know.)

After Charlie Gibbons death, my resolve to sleep without all-night radio went out the window. Charlie died of “unnatural” causes which called for an autopsy. You can bet they weren’t as tidy as Martha Stewart deboning a Thanksgiving turkey. Lying in a refrigerated box with a name tag attached to your toe is bad, but lying there with your innards in grave disarray, is gruesome.
All-night shrink Joy Brown’s callers were a welcome distraction. The first night, a caller said, “I left my husband five years ago but I can’t stop thinking about a packet of photographs I left in a drawer of the house. I want them back. I’m obsessed with it.” That sounded like the kind of senseless detail that would derail me for five years.
The answer was so obvious - call your ex and ask for them. The woman had remarried, had children but every day she was tormented by the photos and the simple act of asking her ex for them was beyond her. I plotted ways of retrieving the photos that was irrational but infinitely better than scaring myself with autopsy stills.
If I was having disturbing thoughts, I could bet Charlene was distraught. I didn’t want to intrude on her grief but it seemed sensible to put any investigation of Tiffany’s demise on hold.
The tragedy had the unexpected effect of improving my standing in the neighborhood. Given my new profession, women I barely knew called to re-hash Charlie’s death and its aftermath thinking I could shed some light on the police report. The comments ran to “ thank God, Charlene is well provided for ” “thank God there were no children.”
Women say “thank God, “ or “oh, my God,” to everything. The washing machine overflowed. “Oh, my god.” Ethel Merman died. “Oh, my God.” As for the Roxbury Commoners, few had any thought of the deceased. It was all about Charlene who, as everyone was thinking, had been left a very, very rich woman. Figures of several million were thrown around.
The official line, that no one dared cross, was that the death was accidental. Even a hint of something more sinister made Charlene ballistic and no one wanted to antagonize the millionairess. Charlie, Charlene had said, often rested in the car a few minutes after the stressful rush hour drive home. Apparently that day he had dozed off and neglected to turn off the motor. Freaky but true.
Teneca, in a rare mood of sharing had said, “Yeah? How come he didn’t forget to close the garage door? There are three possibilities as to what happened: suicide, suicide, and suicide.” No law said the widow couldn’t believe it was accidental but on the record, it was suicide.
My own insights supported neither theory but to express them was to risk being thought crazy or worse. There were details that didn’t make sense. A self-made man rooted in strict Catholic conservatism wouldn’t choose brand new Ferregamo tasseled loafers for his suicide outfit. Charlie would have opted for black brogues or wing tips as better suited to the occasion. Charlie Gibbons still wore a hat and vest; jaunty tasseled loafers were an act of rebellion against his own somber nature. A declaration that he was seeing the future as more fun than the past.
Four days after they buried Charlie, I met the maid Rosalia in the supermarket and she related information that complicated my puzzlement one hundred fold. The millionairess widow, it turned out, was four months pregnant. By some peculiar extra sense that is probably invaluable for this job, I knew that Charlie Gibbons was not the father.

I was Like Peggy on Mad Men

There was a time in my twenties when I was at a loss. I didn’t have a regular job. I didn’t have a regular life plan. If I had rolled my future out on I-95 it would have had no milestones or events to mark. I had trashed a very good career in copywriting by quitting to be a “writer”. Nine months later, I hadn’t written one word. There was a stillness around me that was scary. The phone didn’t ring and no one came to visit.

In desperation I became a Kelly girl. Each day when I arrived at the office where I was a temporary worker I said, “Good morning, I’m your Kelly girl.” I worked for a company that imported and sold mica. It was a small office and the man that sat next to me, a former actor, had been in a mental institution and kept asking if he was acting normal. Instead of saying good morning, he’s say “I can tell by your face that act two needs a re-write.”
I temped for Estee Lauder and met Estee who was okay. She sent me to Saks Fifth Avenue to pick up some stuff she had bought. Nobody liked me there because I dressed like the Greenwich Village bohemian I was.

Eventually, I came to my senses and wanted back into the ad world. Originally, like Peggy in Mad Men, I was plucked from the secretarial pool to write ad copy. Unlike Peggy, I didn’t have a baby out of wedlock and space out about it.
My accounts were Ronzoni spaghetti, Barney’s Boystown (Barney’s was not born a great fashion mecca. It started out as a dorky boy’s store where “husky” lads could get pants that fit.) and the Bavarian Motor Works (known today as Beemerland.)

Re-entry into Mad Ave. was difficult. The only job I could get was writing copy for the Macy Corp. chain in New Jersey known as Bambergers. I worked at the flagship store in Newark and commuted in reverse taking the Path train from Christopher Street to Newark, a crime-ridden city. The reason I’m writing this blog is because even though I wrote about electroplated charms, flame retardant plush nylon carpeting, budget coats made with re-processed wool and risked a drive-by shooting walking to and from the train station, those were some of the happiest days of my life. Here are the ingredients that made my days so happy.

1. The artists and writers were a merry band of workers - funny, accepting, ambitious and talented. We laughed at our predicament, our reverse commute, and the crappy merchandise.
2. The daily ad schedule was grueling but we were learning how to write efficiently, persuasively and everything we wrote was published.
3. We took long, raucous lunch hours during which we drank vodka gimlets or had shots of Bell’s Twelve in the middle of the day and seemingly without impairment.
4. Newark wasn’t Paris. We were not Fitzgeralds or Hemingways. But we felt the same giddy excitement of expatriots re-inventing ourselves in a strange land.

SampleSunday: "We must have a bath."

(This scene takes place close to the beginning of Daughters. Miriam, who has been mute by choice, leaves her village to attend a fancy speech school.)

Miriam and Mustafa left for the school early one morning down the el-Tirah road going past the fine orderly vineyards that grew the best grapes in Judea. The road curved down and they could see that the cement in the paved roofs had cracked from the summer heat. There would be leaks with the first showers of fall.
Nabiha tucked a bag of sweets into Miriam’s pocket. “Eat them on the way, habiby,” she said and began to cry. Jamilla embraced Miriam briefly but was distracted by keeping the twins, George and Salim, from straying down the road.
The trip to Sarona took two days. Miriam, looking pale, began to lag toward dusk and Mustafa carried her to a hostel in Ludd where they spent the night. In the morning, their breakfast was goats’ milk cheese, bread with oil and thyme and tea. They took additional food for the road. Every so often they would stop, moved by the sights of the pomegranate and mulberry orchards and the palm trees which Miriam had never seen. They passed the ruins of soap factories now in decay.
They were used to walking barefoot and saved the sandals for the villages. The difficulty came with the dust. The pulverized limestone that leeched out of the striated buttes invaded their noses, eyes and mouths and Miriam had difficulty swallowing. She stopped frequently and Mustafa looked back to keep her in sight.
As they got nearer to the sea, the temperature increased but remained dry. They came to the first station of the new railroad from Jaffa to Jerusalem. The locomotive rumbled by, halted, discharged a passenger and went again. Mustafa was delighted. He took a small leap into the air and they waited until it was out of sight before continuing to Sarona.
The school was unmistakable. The area was landscaped with orderly rows of palm trees and formal approaches to the main building that was made of smooth flush stone with double-height arched windows. A gardener stared at them disdainfully. “Mughbari?” he asked, taking them for itinerant Muslims working their way through the villages on the pilgrimage to Mecca. Miriam shook her head. “This is a school for Muslims,” he informed them. “Rich Muslim girls.” Miriam ignored him and looked at her father who was filthy with dust. She tucked her hair behind her kerchief and put on a colorful vest from her sack.
The inside of the building was a revelation. The floors were made of polished wood. Wood! There were divans against the walls for sitting.
Miss Clay, the headmistress, was taller than her father. “Ma’salamy,” she said. Mustafa didn’t answer and Miriam pointed to the inside of her mouth. “No speak.” Her voice surprised the teacher and to make matters worse, Mustafa began gesticulating. Miriam reddened but then she saw Miss Clay moving her hands in the same way. Mustafa smiled and seemed satisfied to leave his daughter. When he walked away, Miriam cried into her scarf and ran after him. He made a little maneuver of leaving and then returning to let her know he would be back to visit and she went inside.
“First,” said Miss Clay, ignoring the tears, “we must have a bath.”

I want to kill the kitchen!

I read on Yahoo that the home of 2015 probably won’t have a living room. Builders expect the living room to merge with other spaces or vanish completely. I’ve written countless times that the living room is a useless place we’ve been told is necessary. My living room starts at the front door, it’s hard to miss but I hardly use it except as a corridor to the kitchen, the bathroom and the bedroom.
Here’s a recent conversation I had with the living room.
“What are you doing in here? Is the pastor coming over?”
“I don’t have a pastor. I feel I should use you more."
“Why? There’s nothing to do in here. No media. No computer. You don’t even know me that well. You never really look at me.”
“I look at you.”
“You look ahead when you walk through me.”
“Do you think you have any purpose?”
“Years ago they called me ‘the parlor’ and people ‘paid calls’ and sat here and had tea. It was a little phony but everyone was polite. Today everybody goes right to the ‘oink, oink’ kitchen. That hog, has taken over everything. It doesn’t have a door anymore. It’s creeping into the whole house. It is the whole house! Soon the word ‘house’ will die out. You’ll buy a kitchen.”
“How did that happen?”
“Good p.r. The kitchen was sold as a touchy-feely cozy place that you could visit in your pajamas. Ooooh the kitchen inspires confidences. Blah, blah, blah. Everybody was sucked in. Oooh this is my safe place. Is marble cozy? Is Sub-Zero cozy? Is stainless steel cozy? Exactly. The devil wears Bosch.”
“But the kitchen is necessary.”
"Really? Does anyone cook anymore? Uncle Ben makes perfect rice in a bag. Store-made rotisserie chickens are reliably tasty. Salad comes washed and cut up in a container. No waste. No dirty pans.”
“You think we’ve been duped.”
“Like lambs to the slaughter. I want to kill the kitchen. I've made a song about it to the tune of Imagine.
Imagine there’s no kitchen,
It’s easy if you try
No hellish food to tempt us
The fridge has gone bye bye
Imagine all the women
Living slim and free...
Imagine there’s no butter
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to fry or whisk up
And no pesto too
Imagine all the women
Living life in peace
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope all fat girls will join me
Let’s kill the kitchen. Bang, bang. Done!

“So living room, I guess this is good bye.”
“What are you going to do with my space?”
“Probably open it up and expand the kitchen.”
“Why did I even bother? Yeah okay goodbye. Whatever.”