The worst part about living an apartment is that we can’t garden (the best part is never having to mow a lawn or shovel a driveway). Sure, we can put a box or pot in the window that will yield a pepper or a little bundle of herbs, but it’s nothing compared to what even the smallest yard will produce with modest effort. Luckily, at this time of year our home-owning friends are starting to get overwhelmed by the bounty of their gardens — a combination of guilt in wasting a single hard-won veggie and the feeling that if one eats another eggplant that’s it for them — and Tom and I can swoop in to reap the benefits save the day. And so it was that Friday after work Tom and I raided my friend Alan’s garden while Alan was away at work and his dogs safely locked up inside the house.

Alan grows long, thin Japanese cucumbers, a variety of tomatoes, and many other types of vegetables and herbs. Along the side of his house he’s created a system of trusses to support a high density of tomatoes and peppers, using strings and posts to support the plants. In the back, he has another garden along the fence where cucumbers share space with onions, celery, beets, greens, and more. Looking at it all we were amazed with what can be grown in a well-planned, small space.

Not wanting to take more than our share (though Alan would certainly have encouraged more on us had he been there), we gathered a bowlful of black cherry tomatoes, three cucumbers, and a sampling of tiny peppers and basil. Tom put together a Greek salad with the cucumbers and tomatoes — and mint and oregano from our own window box. Thanks Alan!

For the salad, combine the following in a large bowl:

• Cherry tomatoes, halved
• Cucumbers, peeled and sliced
• Greek Feta cheese, crumbled by hand
• 1 large shallot, sliced
• 2 sprigs fresh mint, finely chopped
• 2 sprigs fresh oregano, finely chopped

For the dressing:

• Juice of 1 lemon
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon sumac
• Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Whisk the dressing and taste for seasoning. Pour over the salad and toss.

I forgot to mention (as Sue pointed out in her comment), that Reisenthel baskets make great gifts. More than just gifts, they make great gift baskets. For example, here’s a photo from Tom’s birthday present from a couple of years ago.

If you look closely at the contents, you’ll notice this basket is how Tom came to know harissa. 1.5 years later, we’re still going strong on this jar.

The gift focused around Claudia Roden’s The New Book of Middle Eastern Food. In the section on “Flavorings, Aromatics, Condiments, and Oils,” Roden discusses and defines many ingredients that are key to Middle Eastern cooking but perhaps not typical in the average US kitchen:

Harissa. This very hot chili-pepper past flavored with garlic and spices is much used in North African cooking. It can be bought ready-made in tubes and cans but it will not have the special perfume of the homemade variety. To make your own, see page 464.

I pulled items from this list and filled the basket with them, knowing that a lack of hard-to-find ingredients might inhibit Tom’s creativity when looking through the book for inspiration.

If you’re purchasing a new cookbook for a friend, consider throwing in some key ingredients when you give the gift. I remember the hunt for all of these items being a lot of fun, especially once I discovered a gold mine in Yasmeen’s Mediterranean Foods in Saginaw, Michigan. They don’t appear to have a website, but you can reach them by phone at (989) 791-3082 or visit their location at 3545 Bay Rd in Saginaw, MI if you’re in the area. If nothing else, pick up a bag of dried limes and make yourself a pot of Chai Hamidh, as Roden says, “made by breaking open dried limes [with a hammer] and pouring bowling water over them” (p. 483).

Also in the basket: Bodum’s Assam tea press, a mint plant, roseflower water, dried limes, orange flower water, pomegranate syrup, Mustapha’s Moroccan Harissa and Olives, Gilway Demerara Sugar Cubes, Urban Accents rice, and several large containers of spices including sumac and whole fenugreek and nigella seeds.

Emmer is an ancient strain of wheat with only 28 chromosomes.  It was one of the first wheats cultivated by man. Nowadays, you can find it online from Bluebird Grain Farms. It makes a great substitute for bulghur wheat in a tabouli-like salad. The whole wheat berries are very toothsome, almost like very small beans.

Dressing:

• Juice of one or two lemons
• Olive Oil
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Sumac!

Whisk this all together. It has to sit and soak a while for the sumac to open up. A crushed clove of garlic would also be good but I had enough garlic going on in this meal so I left it out. 

Salad:

• 1 1/2 cups whole emmer berries
• Half a cucumber, quartered, seeded and sliced thin
• A bunch of parsley, chopped
• A bland hot house tomato, regretfully purchased and loathingly chopped
• Half a bunch of scallions, chopped

Put the emmer in a small saucepan with 4 odd cups of water and bring to a boil. Let it boil violently for five minutes and then reduce the heat so it simmers gently for about an hour. After this time the emmer will become toothsome but not mushy (if it’s getting mushy and exploding, for the love of god turn off the heat) and most of the water will be absorbed or evaporated. Drain whatever water is left and then toss the emmer with the dressing. Leave this to marinate for as long as you want. Before serving, toss in the rest of the ingredients.

I served this with fresh pita, hummus, and awesome lamb sausages from The Wedge.