Tabouleh-bouli
by Jon Worley

My latest feeding frenzy food is tabouleh salad. Or maybe that should be tabouli salad. Kinda depends on how you translate the word. I'm no expert here.

The main ingredients: bulgar wheat (cracked, cooked wheat kernels), chopped tomatoes, parsley, oregano, lemon juice, olive oil. I add cucumbers, a little cayenne pepper, some chopped green onions and feta cheese.

That I should finally come around to scarfing tabouleh isn't a surprise. I've liked all sorts of Mediterranean cuisine for ages. Back when I worked at a bookstore in Kalamazoo, by usual lunch was a falafel (fried patties of chick peas--a.k.a. garbanzo beans) sandwich, which consisted of broken-up falafel chunks, chopped tomatoes, chopped cucumbers and a nice dill sauce, all wrapped up in a pita. I'm also a big fan of Greek food. Moussaka, stuffed grape leaves, gyros, feta (fete, feta, feta!), whatever. I cook exclusively with olive oil. I even dig stuff from other end of the Mediterranean, like Moroccan cous cous (a sort of pasta shaped like big sand granules--my wife Barbara would say the taste is similar, as well).

But back to my newest passion. I resisted tabouleh for the longest time because of the tomato factor. I'm not a big fan of fresh tomatoes. Cooked? Okay. I just don't do so well with the uncooked variety. Has something to do with a childhood trauma. My grandpa liked to slice his tomatoes into wheels, salt them and chuck them down his throat. He made me eat them straight that way. Once. Then I puked. That's the way I remember it, anyway. Since then, I generally can't stomach the thought of fresh tomatoes.

Barbara is the same way, though without the trauma. There are many different types of food she actively avoids, though she concentrates her dislike on members of the fruit and vegetable community. Cabbage, plums, baby ears of corn, any sort of squash, you name it. Tomatoes, however, have earned special wrath. When I finally decided to try tabouleh (I don't know what switched off in my head, but something sure did), I bought a fresh tomato. She screamed when she walked into the kitchen.

"What's that?" she asked with a blood-curdling wail.

"What? The tomato?"

"Aaaargh! Get it out! Get it out!"

"It's just a tomato."

"You remember our wedding vows. I promised to divorce you if you ever brought a tomato into our house."

"You did not."

"Well, I should have."

We came to an agreement. I could buy one tomato per grocery store visit. And she didn't have to watch me eat tabouleh. Since I usually eat the stuff in the middle of the day as a cooling-off meal after a visit to the gym, that's not a problem.

Here's the deal: Tabouleh salad is great. I understand why cucumbers and tomatoes are so big in the middle east. Unlike the bizarre fashion of drinking tea when it's 120 degrees outside, these fruits (they are fruits, by the way) have a natural cooling effect. Even if they haven't been refrigerated. Though, as a good American, I chill everything to death. Thus enhancing the recuperative powers of the tabouleh.

And what to say of this divine dish? Crunchy, slimy, chewy and really, really tangy (the lemon juice and feta cheese work wonders). The stuff just crackles in my mouth. Kinda like some Mediterranean version of Rice Krispies treats. I can be sitting at my desk, writing about something important like the new Bongwater boxed set (which is, actually, really, really important) and the merest thought of the Rubbermaid container in the fridge containing the tabouleh will set my mouth into a frenzy. It's all I can do to sit there and continue my work. A few seconds later, I'll come up with some excuse (I can always listen to the music while I eat, so that's cool), dash downstairs and serve myself up a bowl.

I've gotten to eating so much that I'm tempted to reneg on my "one tomato" agreement. I've already progressed from the boxed tabouleh mix (just add water and tomatoes) to the real thing: bulk bulgar wheat, fresh parsley and oregano, etc. One bowl a day is hardly enough. And even so, one tomato will make enough for about four bowls. We go grocery shopping once every 10 days or so. You can see my dilemma.

And, of course, tabouleh salad is frightfully healthy. All fiber and Vitamin A and such, with good cholesterol (courtesy my best friend olive oil) to boot. I'm not saying I could subsist on it, but I could stand a good deal more than I'm getting. My old comfort foods, ultra-spicy veggies on rice and beans and pasta, are beginning to feel threatened.

Maybe, after all, the "one-tomato" policy is a good thing. No need to go crazy. Don't want to get too much of a good thing. Though I'm still not convinced that I could ever tire of tabouleh.

Jon Worley would like to emphasize that the forthcoming Bongwater boxed set is quite possibly the most important Bongwater collection ever.

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