So we had our work “holiday party” today. Although, because we all work remotely, this is essentially just a 2-hour Teams call with pizza and beer.

Management asked us weeks ago to send in our holiday recipe ideas. Alas, when I went to the folder last night to check on the recipes I found not a single person had submitted one. None out of a team of 20+.

And so, in a fit of holiday sympathy, I quickly wrote the following and submitted it to my team’s website this morning:

Jeremiah’s Tabouli Feast of Festivity

Ingredients:

2 bushels of curly parsley
1 box of fresh mint
8 Roma tomatoes
5 green onions
6 lemons
Bulgur wheat
Olive oil
Salt

Step 1: Wash all the things. Your hands too while you’re at it. They’re gross.

Step 2: Take two (now clean!) Jeremiah-sized handfuls of bulgur wheat and drop them into a large bowl. If it so happens that you are not Jeremiah, then just estimate this amount. Add hot water and leave the carb-laden hot tub on the counter to do its steamy soaky thing. That’ll take about 30-45 minutes and might require a little bulgur babysitting along the way, in case it soaks up all the water.

Step 3: Pluck the ends of the curly parsley and drop them into something that will act as a transitional bowl. Think of it like a tabouli starter home. This can also be a time-consuming process because you don’t want the stems. Just the leafy bits at the ends. I’ve found it’s best to get the youngest/most gullible person you can find to help with this part.

Step 4: Do the same thing as above, but with the entire package of fresh mint. These should also be moved into your tabouli starter home with the parsley, and liberally mixed together. It’s okay, they’re totally cool with it.

Step 5: Pull handfuls of this parsley/mint medley out of the temp bowl, squeeze them together, and chop them two or three times. Note that I did not say “dice them.” So don’t get cheeky and try to use a food processor for this step. You’ll only end up with processed parsley lemon soup. No one wants processed parsley lemon soup.

Step 6: Once the mint and parsley are chopped, drop them into what will be their Forever Home Bowl. There’s going to be lots of festive reds and greens in here when you’re done, so choose your bowl wisely. Make life fancy.

Step 7: Chop the onions. Keep all the green stuff and get rid of those weird white rooty bits that look unsettlingly like tiny albino Cthulhu heads. Take your chopped onions and toss them into the Forever Home Bowl with the rest of the veggies.

Step 8: Now’s a good time to check on the carb hot tub. Stir it around a bit. Have those freaky little bulgur bits drunk up all the water? Ick. Maybe give them another shot of hot water so they can soak a while longer. (Also hydration is important since they’re likely to get dysentery from drinking hot tub water.)

Step 9: Time to get tomatoed. Dice your tomatoes into cubes and relocate them into the forever home bowl. Preferably into the basement. Fun fact? I hate tomatoes. Hate ’em. Disgusting little glop-filled sacs of seeds and slime. I only eat tomatoes in two things.
1. Ketchup. Because I relish the idea of them being ground, smashed, and tortured into a salty paste.
2. This tabouli recipe. Because it somehow transforms them from horrible goop into palatable cubes of salad softening delectability. Clearly there’s some kind of transmutative alchemy involved. Maybe you should have safety goggles, just in case.

Step 10: Squeeze your lemons, then strain & pour the lemon juice into the bowl. It’ll probably look like a lot of juice. Don’t fret. The wheat will absorb some of it. Speaking of whom…

Step 11: Things in your bowl should be looking pretty festive by now. Which means the overly relaxed wheat will suddenly be interested in attending the Forever Home Holiday Party. Give one of them a quick taste before you let them in, though. They should be soft. If there’s any crunch they’re still mildly stressed out from their project management day job and will need another 10-15 minutes in the hot tub. Maybe they need a little more hot water too?
But! If the bulgur is indeed softened, grab handfuls from the bowl and squeeze out all the hot tub water. They might complain. Ignore them. They’re dirty carbohydrates so no one is interested in their opinion. Once most of the water is squeezed out, drop the handfuls into the Forever Home Bowl. Rest assured you have not just ruined the salad.

Step 12: Add olive oil. I do this by starting at the outward edge and performing a spiral from the event horizon of the tabouli bowl around and around to the center. It should take something like four circles to get to the center of your bowl. That said, I can’t see your bowl from here. You’re doing all this in the future, and likely far away from Vermont.

Step 13: Get salty. Open the spout of your average salt container and shake it from one side of the bowl to the other, lightly dusting the veggie concoction with a dulcet snowfall of crystallized sodium chloride.

Step 14: Stir the lemon juice and olive oil around and distribute it all over the contents of the Forever Home Bowl. Do this while listening to Bob Marley’s “Stir it Up.” Not only will you end up with a fantastically mixed bowl of salad, you’ll also feel pretty good about life in general.

Step 15: Chill for 30 minutes in the fridge. This is imperative. At some point during its chill out phase it miraculously stops being an amalgamation of various vegetables, juices, and oils, and transubstantiates into heavenly tabouli.

Step 16: Serve. If you find you like things more salty, more lemony, or even more tomatoey (you monster), you can add more as necessary at this point. I would caution you to go sparingly, however, as you cannot flux capacitor your way out of too oily/salty tabouli. Once you add it, that’s it. It’s in the Forever Home.

Happy holidays, everyone.

j.s.