It’s only been a few days since my introductory post, but in case you forgot, let me repeat something from it:

“Let it be known now: I feel I can hang some in the kitchen, but by no way am I an expert in any dish.”

In other words, there’s bound to be some mishaps as Tillie and I go along. And I’d like to share one of those with you now, on our first food adventure.

So, I figured I’d take things light this go-around and instead of dropping something brand new on her, I decided to take a stab at making hummus, one of her all-time favorites. And I’d get her to help, too, especially in the tasting department because of my lack of experience with it, which, if you don’t mind, sets up for an important segue going forward with this blog.

I, Van Sias, aka Tillie’s dad, am the original fussy eater. You may have been a fussy eater as a kid, but I’m pretty sure I have you beat. Like, the only way I can eat any type of cold cut cold is if it’s been fried in a skillet beforehand. I don’t eat ketchup, mustard or mayo. I’ve been known to give my lunch salad a quick microwave treatment if it’s just out of the fridge.

I’m way, way, way better than I used to be, but I do have issues with condiments and various dips, which has made me resistant to trying such things as hummus.

Where Tillie downs it on the regular and has for most of her life, I only had my first bite of it a year ago at a kid’s birthday party. And I have to say, it wasn’t that bad. But that was the last time I tried it. I wanted to give it another go, but it’d be some that I made as opposed to the containers that are usually inhabiting our fridge.

I found a recipe on a website, Inspired Taste, for simple hummus–“simple” being a main attraction. I had my chickpeas, olive oil, lemon, tahini and garlic all set, plus the recipe came with a video to even walk me and Tillie through. I broke out the food processor and was ready to begin.

But simultaneously, I had to make dinner: and for some reason, I decided to be extra industrious that night and grill burgers. On a school night when my wife was coming home later. No worries at the time: I got this!

However, it ended up being a lot to handle. The asparagus I was grilling for myself to accompany my food ended up burnt to a crisp. The burgers came out great, though: Props to me. Meanwhile, over in the food processor…

I had tahini and Tillie-squeezed lemon juice just sitting there. I did manage to get it going and make it creamy. Then came the next step, or misstep:

The garlic.

I usually just buy garlic already minced and go from there, but this time I decided to use fresh garlic. And here’s where semantics kind of got me.

The above recipe calls for half a large clove, which, to me, seemed like a ton, so I only put in three of those little dudes, less than half.

See what I did there?

I thought the whole thing was called a clove and the things inside were just … things inside, or little dudes.

Anyway, I got everything blended up eventually while Nancy finished getting Tillie ready for bed. When they were all done, I let Tillie take the first bite, since she is the resident hummus expert.

And this is what I got, with a little dance accompanying it, and her saying “spicy, spicy, spicy!”

I thought she was referring to the cumin, but when Nancy tasted it, she said it was pretty garlicky. And I said I put in less than half a clove. Then I thought about it and asked her, “Wait, are those little dudes the cloves? Oops!”

I took a bite, and yep, it was garlicky–like ultra-garlicky. Enough to give me weird dreams about garlic garlicky.

Tillie finished getting ready for bed–with an emphasis on teeth-brushing–and that was that.

The first bites were rough, but I lemon-juiced the heck out of it and I made a recovery.

In fact, when I came home from work the next evening, Tillie was actually snacking on it with vim and vigor while Nancy cooked dinner.

So our first rodeo wasn’t too bad, and I even got to learn something: There is no food actually called a “little dude.” It should have a real name, like clove, for instance.

Tillie handled that softball I threw her pretty well: It’ll be interesting to see how she responds as I start stepping it up some!