Chickpeas, how I adore them. The unassuming legume that nonetheless draws your attention, have you noticed the likeness of its contours to shapely wee buttocks? It's everything I need in a food, its nearly nonexistent flavor suits my bland palate and its texture is undistinguished at best, chalky at worst, perfectly suited to my dislike of upsetting oral surprises and unduly exotic consistencies. Served whole, the chickpea is impish with other salad ingredients, there's a rolling and escaping aspect to its mischievous life on the plate. Elusive little tan orb, come here this instant! What fun it is.

The chickpea is not only cute but it has not one but two adorable names. You're still reeling from the saccharine appeal of the word 'chickpea' when someone utters the alternate 'garbanzo' at you and this one-two flurry of charm-blows finishes you, you're down for the count. Other foods have one name only, one unfortunate name to drag through their dull existence, like for instance borscht. It's not even a fair fight, you've got sodden gloomy borscht in its heavy iron pot in one corner, gurgling Russian obscenities, doomed to be smothered by the white murderous pillow of sour cream, and in the other you've got spritely chickpeas and garbanzos prancing around the plate in their colorful leafy paradise.

Without chickpeas there would be no falafel, no hummus! Did you know that in Chile a cooked chickpea-milk mixture is fed to infants to control diarrhea? It's true. In Ethiopia the chickpea is called the shimbra. If you would only name your daughter Shimbra she'd become a superstar, a statuesque and unapproachable exotic beauty with two coltish blond backup singers who secretly resent her.

Chickpea. Just say it to yourself, go ahead. Chickpea. And garbanzo! Garbanzo is a happy monkey striking an enormous kettledrum with a mallet. Garbanzo is a child bouncing on a trampoline in the backyard. Garbanzo is everything carefree and silly and full of life!