Israeli Falafel Wraps

Remember my undistinguished attempt to make falafel wraps back in July? Someone helpfully supplied me with an alternative recipe, and this time I succeeded!

We pulled out our secret-weapon: the deep fryer. I have conflicting feelings about the deep fryer. On the one hand: unhealthy. On the other hand: scrumptious. Let's cut ourselves some slack and focus on the latter for today.

Imagine the anticipation when the temperature rises (which takes surprisingly little time)! While we waited, the Statue of Liberty made an unexpected appearance.

For the wraps, I did not use the hummus recipe pictured above; I used my standby from NYT Cooking (subscription required). 

Sampling the hummus

Then I squashed the falafel a bit and put it in wraps.

The backup dancers were super-happy with the results, as was I. And it's vegan! Rejoice!

Keep that foodie happiness foremost in your mind to soften the blow of a recent enlightening The Intercept article on recycling, which contains enough depressing facts and anecdotes in to make a person want to crawl back into bed and sob under the covers. In a nutshell, in case you are short on time (the article is very long) or feeling too fragile to read it, recycling is simply not even remotely solving our plastics problem, and the chemical and plastics industries have plenty of feel-good programs to distract you from their efforts to ensure they can continue to grow their markets for a product that is problematic in endless, horrifying ways.

But some people are stepping up to do something about it. I also read a piece about a scientist who created a plastic that will biodegrade, and a company that ships products to you in containers that you can ship back to them for reuse.

And an entrepreneur in my own community is launching a store, the Good Bottle Refill Shop, where we can bring in our own containers (or purchase a reusable one) for shampoo and conditioner, cleaning products, laundry detergent, etc. and pay for however much we add to the containers. For some products, there are multiple options available, like different brands and (wonderful) scents of hand soaps. And there are a ton of other great products like bamboo toothbrushes, deodorant sticks in cardboard tubes (sounds crazy, but I bought, used, and loved), reusable food storage options, and cleaning tools. I was a customer during the soft launch, and I'll be back!

Thanks for showing me how the refilling works, Deanna, and introducing me to all your great products!