Tahini? That is the same as Wasabi, right?

As you can tell from the title, I don’t do a lot of international cooking.  It may have been suggested that I don’t do much cooking at all. 

E-hem! 

I’m a pretty good cook, and I haven’t killed anyone….yet! 

But, backing up a little, I strongly believe that we are sent the people we need in our lives, when we need them.  And I have been blessed with a lot of great people.  

My family lives on the opposite coast from me, so I don’t get to see them as much as I would like.  But when I need them, they are there. 

I did have the great pleasure of spending 3 weeks near my Aunt Nancy and Uncle Joe’s.  I also got to hang out with my cousins Linette, Joe and Dayleena and my godmother Mary.  It took me back to happy times of my childhood.

 

And then there is my best chum, Lorraine, who is always willing to follow me around the country for laughs and giggles.

And our favorite place to visit is the White Trash Bed and Breakfast, ran by Ray and Dave, who open their home to me whenever I am in town.

Nearer to home is my camping group, who understand my tolerance of camping and help me to survive the “rough” camping we do in comfort.

 

Then there is my 2 internet groups….

One is my cruising buddies, who I “met” in 2000.  We’ve been on tons of fun cruise and land vacations ever since.

But today’s blog is about my other group.  We were all born the same year.  That is our common link.  The rest of the people involved will give the name of the message board and the year we were born.  I stick with women born in the same year.

We are from all over the country, and chat online on a daily basis.  We help solve problems, groan at our issues, cheer our successes and basically support each other in every way.

I recently had the great pleasure of meeting up with some of these women IRL (in real life) in October in Indianapolis

 

 

 

 

 

and in November in New Jersey.

 

 

 

In New Jersey, we had a lovely selection of snacks, including homemade hummus.

 

 

Oh yum!

So I got the recipe.  Hummus requires chick peas, garlic, olive oil and Tahini.

 

Ta-what?

So I went to three stores.  I looked in the international food section.  I looked in the deli section.  I looked in the baking section…I even asked!  I even thought maybe I could substitute something else, like wasabi.  I mean, a half of a cup of wasabi wouldn’t make it too spicy hot, would it?

 

Finally at the third store they were able to point me to the Peanut Butter aisle.

Really?  What is this stuff?  In case you are curious, it is ground sesame seeds with olive oil.

 

And no, I wasn’t really going to put wasabi in my hummus.  I didn’t want this to be my first culinary homicide! 

How did it turn out?  I’ll tell you as soon as I am home long enough to make it!

 

PS, this was our dessert, made by our very own professional cake baker.