cooking successes and failures

From now on we will be purchasing pre-made injera. Our experiment failed miserably, resulting not in thin, spongy, sour, yummy flatbread, but a goopy bubbling mess. It's just not worth the headaches to make our own injera, and at $1.50 for 3 pieces, I think it's more cost-effective to buy it (even when taking into consideration the gas for the 10 minute drive to the market).

We also made tikel gomen (cabbage and carrots in a slightly sweet sauce of onion, garlic, and ginger) and had some left-over yemisir wat (spicy lentil stew). We've been perfecting our yemisir wat recipe for the past couple months, making a huge pot of lentils every couple of weeks. Jon loves this because the whole pot lasts us about a week if we both eat it daily, it tastes amazing, and it only costs about $4 to make.

Jon just mentioned the irony in the fact that this is the fourth of July. On the day when most Americans barbecue and eat other "all-American" foods, we're up at 7:30 in the morning trying our best to approximate ethiopian cuisine.