Impulse buys

I think it's safe to say that a lot of people love to shop. I'm not sure, though, if as many people love to grocery shop.


Shoes, clothes and handbags are great, but flour! eggs! olive oil! cheese! tomatoes! zucchine flowers! mangoes! tenderloin! 5 kilogram bags of dried chickpeas!


Wait. I take that last one back. 5 kilograms of dried chickpeas, not so much.


They fooled me once, though, those sly garbanzos. Honestly, I don't know what I was thinking, but the moment I saw them so comfortably nestled in those huge bags, neatly stacked on the bottom shelf of the dried goods aisle, I just HAD to buy me a sack. I think I even made "intelligent" calculations about how long it was going to take 2 adults and 1 (unborn) baby to motor their way through that eye-popping supply. (Yes, I know. I put the word intelligent in quotes, didn't I?)





I had visions of my healthy-protein-self joyfully preparing one scrumptious chickpea dish after another for my happy, healthy-protein-family. And I was going to get ALL that, for a mere pittance. It was a STEAL! I left that supermarket chuckling and clucking because safely stowed in my cart was The Deal of the Century.

I don't even remember if we already had a car then, but it's very likely that we lugged that bag home - along with other groceries - on a bus. But I didn't feel the pain because I was experiencing shopping euphoria (and my husband was the one carrying the bag).

I promise you that 5kgs of dried chickpeas translate to at least 100kgs of hydrated ones. Actually, it's the stuff nightmares are made of. I suffered through that bag the way some women suffer through beautiful, extremely excruciating pairs of impulse-buy shoes.

Of course I didn't let on, because right from the moment I laid eyes on that bag, my husband told me I was crazy, and I resentfully retorted that he was doubting my ability to deal with a mountain of dried legumes. But of course he was right: I got very desperate, very fast. At a certain point I started inviting anyone and everyone over to our place just so I could shovel some chickpeas into them.

By some miracle (and thanks in part to my need for some weights to use when blind baking), we survived that whole 5kg bag saga. One good thing that came out of it was that I eventually found a keeper-recipe for hummus. This hummus rocks the pants off the ready-made ones that you'll find in the refrigerated section of your grocery, and even some that you might have at restaurants.


And believe it or not, I still love the little suckers - for the moment though, just not the dried kind.

Hummus

Adapted from Arabesque, by Claudia Roden

Blend very well in a food processor, until extremely smooth and creamy:
  2 cups ready-to-eat chickpeas*
  4 Tbsp tahini
  4-6 Tbsp lemon juice (start with 4, taste, and decide if you want to add more)
  2 garlic cloves, crushed
  4 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil 
  salt - be generous


If you have trouble getting a smooth paste, add:
  around 4 Tbsp water **


Optional garnishes suggested by the author are:
  finely chopped parsley
  paprika and ground cumin
  ground sumac and some chopped parsley
  a few whole chickpeas
  pine nuts lightly toasted in butter


*Canned chickpeas can be used here (if so, drain and rinse them). If going with dried, do the following:
Soak 1 heaping cup dried chickpeas in water overnight. Drain them, and boil them in a pot with plenty of fresh water. Bring to a boil and simmer for at least an hour and a half. They must become very soft. Drain, but reserve the cooking water.
**The cooking water can be reserved and used in place of the 4 Tbsp plain water above.