Every Friday morning after dropping her boys off at school, my sister Therese stops at the Farmer's Market in Sonoma before heading to work in the winery tasting room. The rest of the crew has gotten used to the bunches of greens and sprouts in the lunch fridge on Fridays. They (and I) have also gotten used to the the hummus hook-up at Friday lunches.
It was probably a year or two ago that she first called me at my desk on a Friday morning to ask if I was free for lunch, because she'd bought "the best hummus" she'd ever tasted at the market.
As a broke, quasi-vegetarian in college, I pretty much survived on hummus. It is still one of my favorite quick and healthy snacks. I make all the time. So I was skeptical. And insulted.
But she wasn't kidding. This stuff was really that good. Just the right balance of garlic, sesame, lemon and olive oil to keep you going until the tub is empty. If she expected any leftovers to take home, she was sadly mistaken.
Pretty soon, Therese was bringing multiple tubs of this stuff in every Friday, no longer just the regular hummus, but baba ganoush, tsatsiki, and hummus in flavors from red pepper to olive to artichoke. Mohamed, aka The Hummus Guy, seems to have some surprise for his best customer every week, a few sausages, some baklava, or a sample of halva, which she also shares with us. The best part is the big, oily bag of homemade pita chips, which probably kills that 'healthy snack' idea. If you've ever had tortilla chips straight out of the fryer, you know how much better they are than the dry triangles you buy in a bag. Apply the same concept to frying fresh pita bread.
There is no good reason to ever buy hummus in a tub from the grocery store. It takes under 5 minutes to open a can of chick peas, toss in the other ingredients and hit the blend button and enjoy something far better for pennies on the dollar. But The Hummus Guy has convinced me it is worth buying hummus pre-made if you have the opportunity to get it from a talented and generous Tunisian chef at a local farmer's market. If you are in the Bay Area, there is a good chance that will be Mohammed; a quick search on google tells me he's a regular at dozens of local markets.
This post reminds me I have a pretty big hummus tab to setlle, I need to kick in for tomorrow's market.
