Knee deep in basil

are the same thing. Cooked horse food.

Or horse somethings.

basically I can't fault that (or the proper use of it's for that matter) although porridge is, thankfully, normally basil-free.

WARNING- this product may contain traces of Basil, George W, Old goats, and other allergens such as Seventh Day Adventists.

from Wikipedia:

"Couscous

Couscous (called maftoul in Jordan, Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories), is a food of the Maghreb. This dish, with a name derived from Maghreb Arabic kuskusu, which is from Tamazight seksu, is a food which consists of grains made from semolina which are about 1 mm or 1/16th inch in diameter (after cooking).

Couscous was traditionally made from the hard part of the hard wheat Triticum durum, the part of the grain that resisted the grinding of the relatively primitive millstone. The name is also used for prepared dishes made from other grains, such as barley, millet, sorghum, rice, or maize.

Couscous is traditionally served under a meat or vegetable stew. The dish is the primary staple food throughout the Maghreb; in much of Algeria, eastern Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya it is simply known as ta`aam طعام, "food". It is popular in the Maghreb, the West African Sahel, in France, in western Sicily's Trapani province, and parts of the Middle East. It is also very popular among Jews of North African descent, but has a Berber origin.

In the United States couscous is known as a type of pasta, probably reflecting the influence of Sicilian immigrants. However in most other countries it is treated more like a grain in its own right. It is particularly valued for its rapid preparation time.

In French-speaking countries in sub-Saharan Africa, fufu is often called cous-cous."

and now for that apostrophe stuff:

IMHO, (and backed up by Wiki), your apostrophes were in reverse order (perhaps you did it tongue in cheek?):

"The apostrophe ( ’ ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritic mark, in languages written in the Latin alphabet. In English, it has two main functions: it marks omissions; and it assists in marking the possessives of all nouns and many pronouns. (In strictly limited cases, it is sometimes also allowed to assist in marking plurals, but most authorities are now against such usage.)"

also: "No apostrophe is used in the following possessive pronouns and adjectives: yours, his, hers, ours, its, theirs, and whose. (Very many people wrongly use it's for the possessive of it; but authorities are unanimous that it's can only properly be a contraction of it is or it has.) All other possessive pronouns ending in s do take an apostrophe: one's; everyone's; somebody's, nobody else's, etc. With plural forms, the apostrophe follows the s, as with nouns: the others' husbands (but compare They all looked at each other's husbands, in which both each and other are singular)."

This was really funny:

"To illustrate that possessive apostrophes matter, and that their usage impacts on the meaning of written English, consider these four phrases (listed in Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct), each of which has a meaning distinct from the others:

* my sister's friend's investments

* my sisters' friends' investments

* my sisters' friend's investments

* my sister's friends' investments

# Kingsley Amis, on being challenged to produce a sentence whose meaning depended on a possessive apostrophe, came up with:

* "Those things over there are my husbands."

and

"Misuse

Greengrocers' apostrophes

Apostrophes used incorrectly to form plurals are known as greengrocers' apostrophes (or grocers' apostrophes, or sometimes humorously greengrocers apostrophe's). It is believed that the term was first coined in the middle of the twentieth century by a teacher of languages working in Liverpool in the United Kingdom, at a time when such mistakes were common in the handwritten signs and advertisements of greengrocers, e.g., "Apple's 1'- a pound, orange's 1'6d a pound". In recent years, however, this misuse has become increasingly frequent in other forms of advertisement, particularly those of small businesses, e.g., from Hackney Market in London, UK: "Christma's Card's"[citation needed]. The practice comes from a widespread ignorance of the proper use of the apostrophe or of English grammar in general and the identical sound of the plural and possessive forms of most nouns. The reasons for the growth of the phenomenon are unknown. Some have argued that its use in mass communication by poorly educated employees of large companies has led to the less grammatically able accepting it as correct and adopting the habit themselves.

This greengrocers' apostrophe is discussed in Lynne Truss's book Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

It has been parodied by Terry Pratchett in his novel Going Postal, in which a greengrocer goes 'so far a's to u'se greengrocer's apo'strophe's in 'speech."

But who care's? je je

throw in a dash of harissa and I bet it would be even better - keep the cervezas or FDC nearby to quench the fire.

I'll have to try this and report back. Thanks!