Tabbouleh

This past week-end, I attended my Business School 10-year reunion in Fontainebleau (France). 10 ans déjà! Pff, we could not believe we left school 10 years ago! It was a wonderful week-end spent with friends I had not seen for the last 5 (I went briefly to the 5-year reunion but could not stay because I was pregnant and needed to rest a lot) or 10 years. As you can imagine, we spent the whole week-end catching up. It was such a treat to see so many friends who had flown from all over the world (Australia, Brazil, Singapore, Austria, England, Lebanon, Israel, etc..) and spend time together. Even though it had been 10 years, it felt like we left each other yesterday. Of course, some of us changed jobs a few times, some of us moved to different countries, some of us got more gray hair, some of us got married/divorced, had children... We talked a lot about our children and since I write this blog, we talk about food! Well, we talked a lot about food this week-end because most of the socialization was done around a meal. Not a pizza-beer type of meal but a traditional four-course French meal. And since we had not seen each other for such a long time, we spent hours at the table! A lot of things had changed on campus but one thing that had not changed was the buffet menu!
Tabbouleh was already on the menu 10 years ago and I did eat Tabbouleh this time again. French people love Taboulé. Because it's an easy salad to make, because you can just have serve Tabbouleh as an appetizer on a sunny summer day, because it's the perfect buffet-picnic salad... My Lebanese friends would argue that the Tabbouleh we had in school has nothing to do with a real Lebanese Tabbouleh (where there is more parsley than grain) and I would agree with them! However, I think that Tabbouleh is one of these dishes that you can really build up to make your own version. I personally start either with a Tabbouleh mix (yeah, yeah) or from scratch using couscous, bulgur or cracked wheat. No matter what base I use, I add cucumber, tomatoes, onions, lemon, parsley or fresh mint (and hot pepper sauce!!)I have steadily increased the amount of parsley/mint in the Tabbouleh I serve to my children so that they get used to eating more herbs!  Serving Tabbouleh is always a hit in my family! And if you make it yourself, it's definitively better than the one you can purchase at the Deli or eat on the INSEAD campus in Fontainebleau. Trust me! Bon Appétit!

Ingredients:
- 1 cup of dry couscous, cracked wheat or bulgur
- 2 ripe tomatoes, diced
- a few small white onions
- 1 small cucumber, pealed and diced
- Fresh mint, fresh Italian parsley to taste
- Juice of two lemons
- 1 lemon, pealed and thinly sliced (optional)
- Salt, black pepper to taste
- Olive oil to taste

• Cook the couscous/bulgur/cracked wheat. Cool
• Once the grain is cool, add the cucumber, onions, tomatoes, parsley and mint.
• Season with lemon juice and a few teaspoons of Olive oil to taste

My Personal Comments:

• I like to add a few thin pieces of lemon to the tabbouleh.
• You could use red onions or sweet onions as well.
• I like to eat Tabbouleh when it's cold. I generally put it back in the fridge for a few minutes/hours (depending on how much time I have) before serving it.