Vicarious gourmet

The promised illness-postponed food post. As an update for those curious, Little Man is still sick, but slowly on the mend. The virus he started off with has now morphed into an ear infection. I am laughing/crying at the irony right now.

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One of my favorite things about traveling is the ability to experience local cuisine. You can tell a lot about a place and its people through the food.

While I must admit that I live a fairly privileged travel life, there is always part of me that wants more. And so when H.E. travels for work, I am always reminding him to try as much different food as possible and report back. Yes, I am living through him like a pageant mom lives through her beauty queen daughter. I am a vicarious gourmet.

Upon a return, I grill (no pun intended) H.E. for his favorite food finds. I make him describe it in detail, down to specific seasoning flavors that he can pick out. And then I set out to recreate.

During a recent trip to Africa, he came home singing the praises of this dish...


We're big hummus fans in this house, so when he told me that it also included ground beef, I just had to try it. After a bit of searching, I discovered several versions of Hummus with Beef. The dish is found in the Middle East and parts of Africa. Sometimes served as an appetizer, it also makes for a fabulous light main course, which is how we enjoyed it with toasted flatbread.

I can't sing enough praise for this dish. Rarely do I make a dish in this manner that is an instant hit...normally they take a bit of tweaking. But this time it worked...and worked well.

You can find the recipe I adapted at the Rouxbe website here:

Hummus Ma Lahma

I did not use the tomato paste in the ground beef. Nor did I follow the hummus recipe exactly. But that's the freedom and art of cooking.