I was very excited to do this portion of the book. Ive always wanted to visit a country in africa, but have never gotten a chance to. I had no idea the cleanliness in Ethopian cooking was so important. Im pretty sure that Mrs.Z was being very patint with with us when it came to the knives and spoons we used when cooking. For example, if she would have asked me to clean the chicken that we were using in the dish we made, i would have simply rinsed it, pulled the skin off and rinsed it again. But that wouldn’t fly with her. When i watched Mrs.Z prepare the chicken to be cooked, she soaked it in hot water, pulled the skin of and pan scered it until all of the water was cooked out of it. In my head i was thinking the the taste would be bland, but boy was i wrong. Personally i don’t like spicy foods. But ive learned not to be scared to try new things when it comes to spicy dishes. I was surprised to find that the Ethiopian food we ate was spicy yet flavorful! The injera (a type of bread used to scoop up food instead of silverware) help cool down the intense flavors.
When i think of Greek food, i always remember Mrs.Tony, my neighbor.(ive been blessed to have such colorful and nice neighbors through out my life.) She grew up greek and often made my mother and i a huge bowl of her famous greek salad. Which contained a large amount of olives and olive oil, onions, feta cheese and numeros herbs that I cant remember for the life of me. And for the holidays she made a big pan of Baklava for us. I never got a chance to actually help her make the Baklava , but I did watch her as she covered the Phyllo with a wet towel while she drizzled honey and cinnamon on the other layers. It was so good that my mom and I would Fight To The Death for the last crumb.
