Every dish has two stories behind it. The first story describes the origin of a dish, and sets out the historical underpinnings behind a recipe. The second story centers around the making of a dish, and notes the step-by-step details of assembling the meal. In several cases, my posts have focused on the former story. But in this case, Caitlin assured me that the second story of falafel was far more interesting than its first.
The Sunday before Labor Day, Caitlin suggested we make falafel. Together. We printed off a recipe, and went to the store to collect the ingredients. Since we were making it later that night, we bought canned garbanzo beans, though we also went ahead and purchased the dried version as well. We followed the recipe, but with little success. Upon hitting the oil, our chickpea mixture slowly disintegrated. We added a little flour, but that did not help. Our joint effort at falafel was a disaster.
The next day, I tried shaping a few more falafel balls, hoping the lengthy period of refrigeration might have shored up the chickpea mixture. Again, no luck. The canned garbanzo beans were apparently not going to cut it. I remained undeterred.
Later that night, unbeknown to Caitlin, …
