Humorous Hummus

The Voice, that lives inside my head, was packing suitcases full of shoes.  "Seriously?", I quizzed.  The Voice did not answer and swept past me with the loaded luggage and waltzed out the door.
I watched it go down the steps towards a waiting cab and just before it reached the vehicle I yelled, "Good grief, it's only dip!"

I watched the taxi speed around the corner, shook my head and went back inside.  Once there, I went to the kitchen and retrieved my small food processor.  The recipe was for hummus.  I'm never quite sure how to pronounce hummus.  Is it hoo-mus or hyoo-mus? Either way, it is a delicious concoction with a main ingredient of chick peas.

I had made it before, although the last time I did not have one of the ingredients, tahini, and substituted something else that I thought would work.  Not knowing exactly what tahini was or how it tasted, I had no idea if my batch of hummus was authentic, but I ate it anyway.  

Tahini is an Arabic word for sesame seed paste and I had found a can of it at one of the grocery stores.  The directions said that it might need to be stirred, once it was opened.  When I removed the lid from the can I was instantly transported back to a time when I was a child.  The lady I stayed with, while the folks were working, lived across the street from a church.  Once a month she would go to the church and get some surplus food.  The only things I remember her getting was cheese and peanut butter.  The peanut butter was in a can and when it was first opened, it always had a layer of oil on the top.  I would watch as she slowly stirred the oil back into the peanut butter.  I remember thinking that was the best peanut butter in the whole world.

The tahini not only had a layer of oil on the top, but it was nearly half the entire contents of the can.  Naturally, when I put a spoon in it, a bit of oil overflowed down the outside of the can.  When the spoon hit the paste at the bottom, it was so compacted it felt like concrete.  I put more pressure on the spoon, this action caused more oil to jump out of the can.  So, I could neither make a dent in the tahini or hold onto the can at this point.  I had the brilliant idea to get out my mixer and put just one beater in it.  This did not work.

There was oil everywhere.  Totally disgusted, I grabbed a large bowl and poured the oil into it.  The paste in the bottom was so hard I literally had to pry it out with a knife.  Then it had to be mushed into chunks that would actually go through the beaters.
By the time it was back to its creamy buttery state, I knew why The Voice had left.  What a mess I had to clean up and all for a measly 1/4 cup of tahini.

The recipe for the hummus turned out to be good but, there is a grocery store just down the street that sells the best hummus and regardless of how it's pronounced, that is where I will get mine from now on.  I sure hope The Voice sends me a postcard.