The Great Hummus Adventure

So after 18 months of inactivity, I am returning to the blogosphere. I just completed a course on Social Marketing and I remembered Antithetical and just how much I used to obsess over it and now I potentially have new skills I can apply to my blog.

I’m just going to get on with it and describe a recent adventure.

Healthy, yummy Hummus (photo from tofutti break on Flickr)

I like to cook. And I like to prepare food from scratch. I spend a lot of time planning my meals for the week ahead and somehow hummus found its way onto the list. However, the recipe calls for tahini. If you don’t know what it is, don’t feel bad – I had to look it up myself. It’s pretty much sesame seed butter, but it is a critical ingredient to a number of dishes. It’s almost impossible to find (especially when you have no idea what you’re looking for). And so the great Tahini Journey began. It went on for about three weeks.

On Monday I had the pleasure of attending a cooking class at the Pick and Pay Good Food Studio. If you like cooking you must check it out. I had a great time. But my point is that my culinary experience meant I would be near the really, really nice Pick and Pay that generally stocks more exotic products. I still had to ask where I would find it. Fortunately the staff are really helpful and can navigate the vast isles with ease. I had to trek across the store and the lady asked me why I want tahini. I explained that I wanted to make hummus and she was puzzled. “Why don’t you just buy it from the deli?” she asked and pointed to the other end of the store. I didn’t want to tell her that I’m actually a bit of a show off and I like to brag about my kitchen skills. So I mumbled something about preservatives. But I found tahini. It’s expensive.

Two nights later it was time to make hummus. In my head it was going to take all of five minutes because the recipe said I just dump the ingredients into the blender and blend until smooth. What the recipe did not mention was that as the chickpeas blend with the tahini, they form a paste that gets stuck in the bottom of the blender and that’s all that gets blended. So I had to do some manual moving around to get the smooth consistency I was daydreaming about.

I briefly had a fantasy about having a slave to mash my future chickpeas to make the process easier. Then I remembered that slavery is illegal. So I got over myself and decided I would come up with a better strategy while I’m stuck in traffic. The hummus came out great though. You can find the recipe here.

Tomato

The American doesn’t eat tomatoes. Not on pizza, not in pasta, no tomato sauce – nothing. Anything red results in nose wrinkling and the look of a cornered animal about to be shot and skinned. Not even my irresistible puppy-face can convince otherwise.

And this is a bit of a problem in our relationship. Because I love them. And it’s about the only fruit that I will actually eat. And since the American doesn’t eat much meat, the dinners I can make are limited. As far as I am concerned, all the tastiest vegetarian meals contain tomato.

The American subscribes to my blog (because it’s important to know what I do on the internet) and will read this, so Dear American (and all other tomato haters), please consider the below.

A tomato is a pretty thing.

A solitary tomato looking good on its own

It’s red and shiny and looks great in a crowd.

Tomato and friends - still very attractive

It looks like a marijuana plant without the fruit.

Even the pre-tomato is good looking

It’s versatile in its uses.

Even dehydrated it still manages to be attractive

It contains vitamins and prevents scurvy. I read somewhere that it increases the natural sun defence of human skin. And I know people who drink it as a hangover cure. It contains anti-oxidant goodness. So combined with the sun protection is likely the fountain of youth, if only people would consume more of it.