Cooking Club enjoys ethnic food lesson from Ethiopian friends

We just had our October Cooking Club adventure. This month we focused on Ethiopian food in celebration of the adoption of Nathanael Benedict. Stacie's friends, Emebet and Desta, came to teach us the authentic version of these yummy recipes. They even brought some spices all the way from Ethiopia.

Using these "raw materials," we set to work on three vegetarian dishes - a cabbage-vegetable dish, a yellow split-pea dish and a spicy red lentil dish. We chopped and peeled, sliced and diced all the foods first.

Then we moved to cooking the three dishes. Emebet worked side by side over the pots, showing Stacie what to do while Cori and I tried to get all the steps of the recipes typed into the computer. (We wanted to make sure Emebet and Desta didn't sneak in any extra spices in the pot without us knowing.)

As the food was cooking, the rich layers of spices wafted all the way out to the street. Emebet even warned us to close the closets and cover our hair if we didn't want those permanent smells. We loved them! The finished meal was served on injera bread we bought from a woman in Fresno who makes it regularly.

We were so grateful for Emebet, our great teacher. She said she wants to come back to Cooking Club to learn Italian cooking. We're game! For more details and the Ethiopian recipes, click here.