• cooked kamut/khorasan wheat berries, chilled (main ingredient; or substitute other grain)
  • cucumber (diced) (roughly 1:2 with kamut or to taste)
  • red onion (minced) (roughly 1:2 with  cucumber, or more)
  • black olives (chopped, diced or minced) (roughly 1:4 with onion)
  • sexiest feta available.. or something bleu… some crumbly cheese with zing, to taste (if the salad is likely to sit around in the fridge for more than 6 hours, withhold feta to avoid sliminess… instead crumble over individual portions when serving)
  • zest of X number of lemons (about three lemons’ worth per cup of uncooked kamut, which seems like maybe half a lemon per serving. if this isn’t achievable simply use all available zestable zests.. could substitute fresh lemon juice or somesuch. if there’s time, let the zest dry out before using [between 1-5 hrs depending on factors…], ideally getting it dry enough so’s it can be crumbled in)
  • cayenne, a largeish dash
  • paprika, a lesser dash
  • black pepper, a heavy-handed dash
  • (NO salt! there’s plenty from the olives & feta)
  • generous slew of raw sunflower seeds (optional but highly recommended for keeping everything else dry/achieving maximal fluffiness)
  • indulgent slew of raw pine nuts (optional)
  • sprinkling of raw sesame seeds (optional)
  • sprinkling of raw pumpkin seeds (optional) (significantly increases the crunch factor)
  • broken flax seeds (optional) (more crunch. cracked seeds preferable to ground, since flax meal is so ravenously absorbent/oily. if using sprinkle only over individual portions [~1 TB per] when serving, to avoid egg-like flaxslime glomming everything up as it the wet ingredients make it turn to ooze. schluuupppp.)
  • dress, or don’t. i don’t.
  • more optional additional ingredients: most e’erthing

goal re: proportions = looking for visible flecks of pepper & feta dispersed pleasingly. each biggish spoonful should have a wee little chunk or two of olive, & proportionally more of everything else.

^ i rarely accomplish this due to impoverished olive supply and laziness re: cutting them as fine as is necessary…  olives/other veggies can be gently pulsed in food processor but this will make the whole salad a little less “bright” and crisp in appearance.  more importantly this will tend to make it significantly wetter, particularly if other veggies are added (though the cuke is mostly to blame)…  it benefits greatly from 10 minute air-out in a big roomy strainer after assembly, during which any added nuts/seeds will also absorb moisture.

in the event of a major fuckup that somehow renders it completely sodden and unappetizingly sloplike, carefully folding in dried nut pulp/meal or breadcrumbs by the spoonful helps.

…. it can also be wokked up (sans cheese) into a hot salad to get around insurmountable moisture problems. (if doing it hot purposefully, swap cuke for zook)