A little pre-Father's Day tribute

My dad is the best cook I know. Most of what he makes isn't fancy or particularly difficult; it's thoughtful, well-cooked food that always tastes good (and always comes out at the same time).

Tonight, while I was making dinner, I realized how much I've learned from watching him cook. The meal wasn't anything fancy - steamed green beans, rice, sauteed chicken thighs with a lemon-white wine-caper sauce - but I could tell that the things I was doing were skills I'd picked up from him: how to season the flour, how to get a nice crispy outside on the chicken, how to make the sauce. I didn't have a recipe, just an idea of what I wanted for dinner and how I was going to do it. That's something he told me a long time ago when I asked him how he had figured out how to make something: "I just thought of how I wanted it to taste and I made it." As an eight-year-old, I found that pretty amazing; as a 28-year-old, I still do. Hopefully, I'm getting to the point where I can do it too.

Hummus! I got the hummus!

Did you think I was gone? You thought wrong. May ended with a significant amount of time spent out of town (and, therefore, spent eating in restaurants). It would have been easy to rejoice...and yet, somehow, when I went grocery shopping on May 31, my basket was filled with pretty much the same things I'd been buying all month. I really enjoyed MIMM, and while MIMJ doesn't have the same melodious ring, it makes sense to keep up at least some of the habits I've acquired. I'm going to keep making bread (as long as my dad lets me keep the bread machine around). It turns out I love polenta. And even though I'm drinking a Diet Coke right now, I actually think that it might be the last one for a long time; it's delicious, but making me feel pretty jittery.

Last night, I made a salad for dinner that was mostly garbanzo beans (the most delightful of the beans, I think). I had a bunch left over, though, so I made hummus this morning before I left the house. My apologies for the vagueness of this recipe; the main quantity is "some".

Hummus
Some garbanzo beans (I used about a cup)
Some olive oil (I used around a third of a cup)
Some garlic (I used two cloves)
Some lemon juice (I used the amount from a whole lemon)
Some cumin (I used 1/2 teaspoon)
Salt and pepper to taste

Put all of the ingredients except for the olive oil in the food processor. Turn it on; while the machine is running, slowly add the olive oil in a thin stream. Stop and sample - when it tastes like hummus, you're done. The beauty of hummus is that you can add pretty much anything you like - roasted red peppers, chipotles, black beans, more garlic, eggplant, etc. etc. etc.