The very first time I tried cooking something from the Running On Veggies cookbook I’ve been working from quite a bit so far this year - this is a couple of years ago - I saw something involving falafel.

I tried blending the chickpeas and whatever other grains the recipe called for and it was a mess - it just did not blend well.

This was shortly after I had experienced falafel for the first time - I think in an order from Cava. I loved it and I wanted to eat it all the time.

Making it myself, it appeared, was not to be.

Recently, one of my daughters went to a place called Sweetgreen, which has different kinds of salads. (Not sure if this is a very local place or a chain or what. I have not been there. Yet.) She wanted to re-create the salad she ate there - I think the ingredients were something like kale, goat cheese, apples, sweet potatoes, peppers…I don’t know. We got a little creative with it when we made it at home.

And as I was wandering the store looking for whatever might go well in the salad, I found a box of falafel mix.

So I made falafel.

I’m sure it’s not the kind of quality that someone who grew up making it would approve of. It’s a Knorr product. (They also make little instant pasta-y/rice-y/side dish-y packets.)

But, listen, it’s good enough for me. It tasted similarly to the one I had from Cava.

And it certainly saved me the unsuccessful mess in the blender that I made and would likely make again.

It was not hard to make - just involved mixing a powder and then rolling up the ensuing mixture.

The trick now is that in the past few weeks the supermarket changed everything. Everything is in a different spot than it was before.

I’m getting used to it for my regular groceries.

But something like this falafel mix, which I stumbled upon and don’t even know if I could have found in the old layout? I’ll need a stroke of luck to find it again.

And when I do…well, I imagine I’ll be trying to eat falafel more often.