telepathic paranoia

When I told people I was moving to Idaho, I heard a lot of spud jokes.  “Bet you’re going to eat a lot of potatoes!” people would say, cackling merrily at their own wit.  “Yup,” I’d say.  I mean, I like potatoes.  Who doesn’t like potatoes?

Imagine my surprise, though, when I get out here and am greeted, on my very first weekend, by the National Lentil Festival (sponsored, naturally, by the USA Dry Pea and Lentil Council).  Turns out the Palouse is the number one source of all North American lentils!  So screw your potatoes, because we’re having a lentil extravaganza around these parts.

Complete with Lentil Dude, waving cheerfully at you from the back of a convertible.

Also featuring pitcher after pitcher of lentil slop to feed the masses.

And of course, the inevitable awkward recipes designed to transform this lowly legume into something utterly other.

That’s a lentil-flour chocolate chip cookie in the foreground, in case you were wondering. It wasn’t bad.

Not lentil-ed out yet? I’ve got plenty more festival pics, check out some recipes, and if that’s not enough, I’ll leave you with this charming little ditty about the lentil, “lovable and cute”:

lentilfestjingle.mp3