Hummus Among Us

Hummus quite simply is delicious. If you are unfamiliar with it you are lucky because now you get the pleasure of trying it for the first time and having your taste buds seduced by creamy Greco-Middle Eastern deliciousness. Seriously you're going to melt like one of those dainty ladies Fabio is always cradling in an I Can't Believe It's Not Butter commercial. Despite it's deliciousness this is one of the easiest, most versatile recipes you will ever prepare.



"I wish we were eating hummus."





 Hummus is roughly the Arabic word for the "chickpea". Due to it's most humble ingredients, chickpeas, garlic, lemon and sesame recipes for what we know as hummus date back to 13th century Egypt. Surely preparing this dish back then was a lot more difficult that what we're going to do.

For beginners I made this recipe small so that you can try it without making a pound of it, all you have to do is double the recipe if you want.

Here's what you'll need:

1 regular can of chickpea aka garbanzo beans, drained;

Juice of 1/2 of a lemon;

1 clove of garlic, peeled and roughly chopped;

1/4 or so cup of olive oil;

1 tsp. salt;

1 tsp of sesame seeds (optional)

I like to rinse my beans, cover then with water and bring them to a rapid boil then drain and rinse them once more. It's not mandatory but it does two things, I think it makes for a creamier, smoother hummus and the rinsing, boiling, rinsing routine eliminates a lot of what makes beans the musical fruit. Moving on, throw your first three ingredients into your food processor and go to town on it. Slowly begin to add the oil until a smooth, not runny texture is achieved, think spreadable not drizzle-able. Add salt to taste, you may not enjoy the entire tsp if you aren't a salt person. If you like sesame, throw those seeds in, otherwise omit them. Pulse to combine and taste again. That's it, you're done.

 This can be enjoyed warm or cold on any toasty bread, as a vegetable dip, on a sandwich instead of meat or in addition to the meat, inside lettuce wraps the list is never ending. You can also add lots of things to your hummus like roasted peppers, roasted garlic, any sort of olives, lemon zest, pine nuts, sun dried tomatoes etc. Experiment, this recipe is cheap and delicious and I've seen it made with everything from cannelini beans to edamame.

The Taco Bus........:(

Yes, I am including an emoticon in this blog because words cannot express how disappointing this place was. I adore Mexican food, well good Mexican that is. This place came to me highly recommended from several people who I hope just had better experiences than I did and didn't recommend it to get back at me for something.

The Taco Bus is exactly what it sounds like, well kind of. There are a few locations, one in Tampa and one in St. Pete to speak of. You order tacos off of a school bus but the Tampa location also has an actual sit down restaurant attached to the bus. They are open 24/7 which is why I think they were so highly recommended, some things taste great at 3am after a night of drinking, dancing and who knows what else. They don't just serve tacos though, you can get most of your Mexi-faves. 

We arrived at about Noon to have lunch after a visit to Shriner's around the corner. We ordered a variety of items with different fillings: chicken tacos, a steak burrito, a pork taco based on a 5,000 year old Mayan recipe (their words, not mine) and some "homemade" guacamole. Each table sports two bottles of salsa, red and green which were both good. Everything else however can be summed up pretty shortly by using the word "gross". That wouldn't make me a very good writer though so let me elaborate.

The menu boasts lots of hand made, authentic items such as their guacamole or tortillas but if you take a trip to the restroom you can easily see that the tortillas are the same ones that you can purchase at the grocer. Ole, I believe it is and although those products are made locally, they are not homemade and they were old. Also frozen guacamole has a certain hue of green that cannot be replicated by any naturally existing avocado. All of the fillings were old, the taste of old meat is unmistakable no matter what spices you roll it around in. Perhaps we got whatever was left over from the last batch and the new batches of spectacular meats were cooking as we ate our offal. The concept was authentic enough, tacos with cilantro, shredded cabbage and onions. I thought the cabbage was pickled, however it was just beginning to decompose. Even the lime served with my taco was old and dry. What really scares me is that they also serve Ceviche, a seafood dish that uses the acids in citrus juices to cook the meat, there is no germ killing heat involved. Don't think that I'm embellishing, it took everything I had not to sick up in the parking lot as we left or in the car the entire way back to Lakeland.

I like the idea of this place, I really do and I hope that they are really spectacular and that it was only my family that was served disgusting, old, on the verge of rotting food. Unfortunately there is absolutely no way that I will ever try this place again to find out. The next time you're in Tampa cruising down Hillsborough Avenue and you see The Taco Bus on the horizon, keep going.

The Taco Bus
913 East Hillsborough Avenue
Tampa, FL 33604
813.232.5889
http://www.tampatacobus.com/