F is for Felafel Week

I have a roommate but we don't really share the same living space at the same time very much, so I pretty much consider my living situation as "alone." If the floor needs mopping, it's up to me. If the rent is due, I write the check. If it's dinnertime, I'm cooking. And I only get to cook for me, so I've developed a habit of "food weeks." At the beginning of the week I buy and prepare the proper ingredients for a specific dish, and then eat it all up, night after night, until it's gone, and that usually takes about a week. This happens with tacos, with burgers, with pasta... It may sound dull to eat the same thing every day, but if you really really like that particular food, it's not so bad. And if it's felafel, then HALLELUJAH! Now yer talkin'!

The prep for felafel week is pretty easy: take the Fantastic Foods box, open it and then the packet inside, mix it with some water and a splash o' olive oil, and let it sit for a few minutes. The daily cooking work is a bit more involved, as I like to shape the patties and fry them up fresh each night. Also, I get some pitas baked by Neomonde, a local Lebanese bakery (who serves a great felafel in their deli), a head of lettuce, and some plain yogurt. Sometimes I'm feeling kicky and I get tomatoes and cucumbers.

To cook the felafel, I use my fingers to make small balls about half an inch in diameter. I always make thirteen of them. This has more to do with the number 13 and way less to do with how hungry I am or how big the pitas are. 13!! I pan fry them in canola oil until they are an orangey-brown russet color on the outside, and let them cool on a paper towel as I shred the lettuce and dice the veggies. Last I mix the yogurt with some garlic salt and cumin, and pile everything into pita halves and tear in. In the first pita half I put six felafel balls, and seven into the second. Why? For the same reason I always make 13 balls: because that's how I always do it! I have been so blessed by the Felafel Gods that I will perform whatever ritual is necessary in order to ensure continued success in my felafel endeavors.

Why did I first board the felafel train? My story's just like every other felafeller: I heard Parker Posey's character in Party Girl order one from a street vendor, and said "I have got to see what this felafel stuff is all about." Really! Which is why I make my felafel different from the way others might, because my concept of the thing developed in a relative void. I had many personal Felafel Weeks under my belt before I ever actually saw one made by someone else. Apparently I am wacky for using a fake tzitziki sauce instead of the more traditional tahini. But I love my felafels all the same! And I love them even more because I only do felafel once every two or three months; that way I'm really really excited when I finally do get to bite into my first felafel of the week.

This week, ironically, is not felafel week. It is veggie bacon cheeseburger week, and I snarfed one down while writing the previous paragraphs. Now that I have a toaster, I can toast the bun, which makes a huge difference in the texture-play between juicy yielding patty, crisp cool lettuce, soft melting cheese, and the bun that frames the whole deal. Forget not the *new* addition of bacon, for which I can thank the tireless Agent Gray. The "veggie burger with bacon" joke never gets old. Be sure to add expensive pepperjack cheese (nothing but the best will do!) and chipotle ketchup, and you've got yourself a fine dinner.

[Astute readers may have noticed, as I just have, that the box pictured above reads "Falafel" while I persist in spelling it "felafel." I swear that I have seen it spelled with an e, not an a, in every instance but this one. Majority rules, and I spell it with an e.]