Falafel Sandwich

Late January. I have been doing pre-publication events — a podcast interview, a local radio spot, a reading at a small bookstore in Northeast Portland that was attended by twenty people and Lin and Rachel and Miya, who sat in the front row and mouthed along with words she recognized, which was most of them, because she has been listening to me talk about miso soup her entire life and the words are in her body the way the recipes are in her hands.

I read from the miso soup chapter — the first chapter, the foundation, the three-AM-nursing-while-writing origin story. My voice shook. My voice always shakes when I read my own words aloud. The shaking is not fear. The shaking is the honest body-response to vulnerability, the body saying: these words are me, and the me-ness is exposed, and the exposure is the risk, and the risk is the price of the practice. I read the whole chapter. The room was quiet. The quiet was not absence — it was the particular, full quiet of a room where twenty people are listening with their whole bodies, the way you listen with your whole body when someone is telling you something true.

After the reading, a woman came up to me — sixty years old, Japanese American, eyes wet. She said: "My grandmother made miso soup every morning too. I never learned. It's too late. She's gone." I held her hands and said: "It's not too late. The practice is still available. The miso is at the store. The kombu is at the store. The recipe is in the book. Start tomorrow." She bought the book. She held it like I hold the chipped bowl: carefully, knowing it is fragile, knowing it might save her.

I made miso soup at three AM that night. Not because I couldn't sleep (I could). Because the woman's words were in my chest and the only response was the soup. The response to grief is always the soup. The soup is the response. The response is the practice. The practice is the love. The love is the soup.

The woman at the bookstore said it was too late, and I told her it wasn’t — because it never is, as long as your hands still work and the ingredients are still at the store. The miso soup in my book belongs to my grandmother and to me and now to her, but that night, after the soup at three AM, I kept thinking about what it means to make something by hand as an act of faith. The falafel I make when I need to feel the work of cooking — the pressing and forming and the smell of chickpeas and cumin — carries that same quality of practice for me: repetitive, grounding, something you can learn at any age, something that rewards patience the way grief eventually, slowly, does.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 (15 oz) can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained and rinsed, or 1 1/2 cups cooked from dried
1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, packed
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, packed
3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1/2 small yellow onion, roughly chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (or chickpea flour for gluten-free)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons olive oil, for pan-frying
4 pita breads or flatbreads, warmed
1 cup shredded romaine lettuce
1 medium tomato, thinly sliced
1/2 English cucumber, thinly sliced
1/4 small red onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup tahini sauce or store-bought tzatziki, for serving

Instructions

Pat chickpeas dry. Spread the drained chickpeas on a clean kitchen towel or paper towels and press gently to remove as much moisture as possible. This step is important — damp chickpeas make falafel that won’t hold together.
Pulse the mixture. Add the chickpeas, parsley, cilantro, garlic, onion, cumin, coriander, cayenne, and salt to a food processor. Pulse in short bursts 10–15 times, scraping down the sides as needed, until the mixture is coarsely ground but not pureed — it should hold together when pressed but still have texture.
Add binders and chill. Transfer the mixture to a bowl. Stir in the flour and baking powder until evenly combined. Cover and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes (or up to overnight) to help the patties hold their shape during cooking.
Form the falafel. Using damp hands or a small cookie scoop, portion the mixture into balls or patties about 1 1/2 inches wide — roughly 2 tablespoons each. Press gently to flatten slightly if making patties. You should get about 12–14 pieces.
Pan-fry until golden. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat until shimmering. Working in batches to avoid crowding, cook the falafel 3–4 minutes per side, turning carefully, until deeply golden and crisp on the outside. Transfer to a paper-towel-lined plate and sprinkle with a little extra salt while hot.
Warm the bread. Wrap the pita or flatbreads in a clean damp towel and microwave for 30 seconds, or warm them directly over a gas flame for 15–20 seconds per side until pliable and fragrant.
Assemble and serve. Open or lay flat each piece of bread. Spread generously with tahini sauce or tzatziki. Layer with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and red onion. Add 3–4 falafel pieces per sandwich. Drizzle with a little more tahini and serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Falafel Sandwich — When the Only Answer Is to Cook Something with Your Hands