Peanut Butter Soup

I’ve got it so bad. I don’t even know if I can put in to words the way this guy has me feeling. It’s impossible to imagine that less than a month ago I was on the “fuck men” train headed straight to “I’m gonna die single”ville and today I’m on the plane to “are you sure you can’t stay longer?” And he leaves and it’s like torture until I can see his face and hear his voice. I know, even I want to tell myself to shut up and I would love to but if I did then I couldn’t tell you about the peanut butter soup.

So a little background, Derek is from Ghana (that’s in Africa just in case you were getting ready to Google it), and he was telling me the other day about this soup he wanted me to try. Peanut butter soup. And I was thinking sounds interesting and he said he would make it for me. Then he said we would make it together. I asked him what was in it and he said it was peanut butter, cucumber, tomatoes, garlic, carrots and onion. At that point I was thinking, “hmmmm, I don’t know about that” and he said it was good with boiled plantains. I’m a fan of plantains. A big fan actually. I was at the store when he sent me the list so I picked up what I didn’t already have at home and we were going to make it Sunday, but our lives got in the way and we put it off until today.

He came over and we headed straight to the kitchen to cook. He took the 2 tomatoes and cut them in fours and took out most of the seeds, then added a handful or so of carrots, half an onion, I added some fresh garlic (I could have added more), He cut up the cucumber and it all went in the ninja to puree. Or at least we thought it would, but the ninja was having issues and I ended up having to use the ninja cup instead of the bowl to get it to do what I wanted which was to be smooth. All the while, he is pouring a whole jar of peanut butter into a pot and heating it up. He added some water and when I finally got all the vegetables  pureed, I poured it into the peanut butter. Again, I was still skeptical at this point. Peanut butter soup? Who has ever heard of such a thing, but he says it’s a popular dish in Ghana and he’s trying to give me a taste of where he is from so, of course, I’m going to go into it open minded.

While the soup is cooking, we were listening to reggae music and he was giving me basic German lessons. Yes, you read that right, we were cooking African food, listening to Jamaican music and speaking German. It was quite a sight. He cut up the plantains and put them in the water to boil and we waited. Stirring and talking and stirring and talking. I got a little taste test of the soup before it was finished and I had to admit that it wasn’t that bad. It was different, but not bad. We sat down to eat together and it was really good with the plantains. When I took a bite of the soup with plantain, I thoroughly enjoyed it, but when I just took a spoonful of soup only, it was a bit much for me. Not that it wasn’t good, but it was a texture thing I think. Plus, I didn’t tell him this, but I’ve never been a huge fan of soup. Apparently soup is a big thing where he is from because he mentioned making a couple other kinds of soup for me, which, of course, I will eat because he’s excited to show me where he is from.

The older I get, the more I am open to trying new things anyway, but just knowing that he wants to share things from his home with me, makes me even more eager to try. And for those of you yesterday who said you could see me smiling through that whole blog, you were correct. I don’t know if I have stopped smiling since the first day Prince Charming and I went out. This is turning out to be a magical ride.