Chickpeas

Eating out in San Cristobal means:

rice
fried fish
fried chicken
fried beef
fried plantain

Which is why I have started cooking again. The woman who weighed my dried chickpeas at Dos Hermanos asked what I planning. She used them for a foot scrub, I think she said. I tried to explain hummus in Spanish. En otros paises...como pure...con sal y [holding up my olive oil and garlic]...[mashing gesture]...con limon, pero es una otra cosa como limon--mas grande y amarillo... How do you explain lemons to someone who's only seen limes? She held up a yellow lime. "Lemon?" No, still a lime.

She caught up to me at the till to ask more about this strange pure. It was exciting to talk about food from other countries, especially because people here never talk about the world beyond the island. My students ask me nothing about Canada or Saudi Arabia, though they know I lived there. Hooray for chickpeas for prompting a little mental flight.