In the early days of the ani-bob partnership, bob began recording favorite Armenian recipes by her mom Isgouhi and Aunt Mary in a spiral bound lined paper notebook. Most of the favorites eventually made it into our "What, ME Cook?" Book, but somehow this one did not. So a quarter of a century later, we promote it to official status. This is a variation of the bulgur lentil pilaf and bulgur chick pea pilaf recipes that did get written up long ago, perhaps because of more frequent appearance in Isgouhi's kitchen for bob to remember to record them—and even Ani does these two on her own.
As usual with Isgouhi's cooking, bob had a big first serving and then seconds. Hard to resist. At which point he wondered if this had gotten into the cookbook. Not. So all these years later, we rectify this unfair omission. This is an Anjarian Armenian recipe, the hard headed Armenians from Musa Dagh who re-established themselves as a community in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon.
Ironically in the years after bob met Ani but before meeting her family, he was impressed by the vegetarian buffet restaurants in annual visits to Stockholm wondering where he could ever find such delicious grain based dishes back home. And then he fell into it by marrying the daughter of a great Armenian Lebanese home cook.