There's A Rainbow In My Mouth.

Red.
Green.
White.
Yellow.
Beige.
Burgandy.
Black.

Salad.

Gone. My daughter ate it all.

I think it was good, I don't remember tasting much of it.

When you say salad (go ahead, say it), I think American. Typical family salads, lettuce, carrots, tomato, etc. Good, but boring. Really boring. There's always potato salad, always. Always. Everywhere.

Enter the food geek again.

Black quinoa tabbouleh.

Bless you....thanks, but tabbouleh is really a word.

Tabbouleh is a Middle-Eastern salad made from bulgar (couscous), lemon juice, olive oil, parsley, mint, tomatos and onions. It is a pungent salad that should make you wake up and take notice of it immediately. Not overpowering, but strongly acidic. Tangy doesn't even come close. Slap your face, mouth puckering acidic. Really.

Well, bulgar has gluten in it, so I decided to use quinoa again. It is my go-to grain.  Food. Dork.  Go ahead and say it.

But I wanted to try something different. Enter black quinoa.

I found red quinoa at Whole Foods one day, and mentioned it to my daughter. She adamantly refused to try red quinoa, she liked her beige quinoa, thank you very much. Black quinoa was out of the question. Super, more for me. Never having eaten many black foods before outside of licorice, pepper and seaweed - I was a little cautious. So I threw that to the wind  and dug in.

When quinoa is cooked - or really steamed - the germ seperates from the seed. So I had blackish seeds and beige germs. Sound appetizing yet? Are we still talking about something edible? Whole Foods actually sells this? To eat? This sounds like a dare.

So, one cup of quinoa later, I had two cups of cooked quinoa. Really earthy smelling quinoa. Quick - throw in some lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, loads of parsley - quinoa soaks up the flavors and aromas of whatever it comes in contact with when it is warm. Scallions, tomatos and salt were next. Then a long, agonizing wait in the fridge. I know, agonizing? Yes. I can't wait for something to chill that smells so good. So I had to taste it to make sure it wasn't disgusting, and then I made my daughter try it. She stared at it for the longest time, then bravely soldiered on.

'And why havn't we had this before?" she asked indignantly.

Well, it was all over then. Anyone who knows me will tell you that if my kids like something I have to eat, it's theirs. For breakfast, lunch and dinner. And it was.

I managed to eat a few spoonfuls, but it's ok. I have the book.