Ethiopian Food

Aaron and I went to Bete-Lukas last night so that I could try Ethiopian food for the first time. Well, we also had a homework assignment to finish - it was the last page that we had in our unbeloved With Eyes Wide Open workbook. Obviously, we would start eating Ethiopian food without the assignment, but we've got to get this workbook mailed out tomorrow, so almost-sick Aaron and I wandered over to Portland (to the most highly rated Bete-Lukas).

I'm about three months in to a mostly vegetarian lifestyle. I still eat fish and dairy products, but the other meat is out--unless I know and like where it came from...Anyway, there are so many tasty vegetarian options! Our server told us that the best time to go to Ethiopia is during their lent season because all (I assume he meant most) of the cooking is vegan and soooo good. The one thing I've been learning about food lately, is that when meat isn't used, there's a ton of creativity and consideration that goes into a meal.

Here's what we had:
Misser Wot-Lentils cooked in onion and berbere sauce
Kik Alicha Wot-Yellow split peas cooked in ginger, garlic, and onion sauce
Fosolia - Green beans lightly spiced and sautéed with carrots and onion
Gomen - Kale, jalapeno, garlic and onions
Tikel Gomen - Cabbage, potato, and carrot sautéed in a curry sauce
Aaron ordered beef tibs, little beef pieces cooked in butter with onions and jalapenos

Injera is a type of bread that acts as silverware. It's similar to a thick crepe, but tangy. I've been super careful since school has started, to avoid licking my fingers (I HATE teaching when I'm sick!), but that flew out the door. Oh well...I went to work today and wiped stuff down to make up for it. My kids chew their nails like candy, so I'm convinced we'll have some swine flu soon!

LISTED IN OCTOBER?

Our most recent home visit was last Wednesday. It went well. We mostly worked through our financial statement -- which has to be exactly the same on three different documents. That's a bit hard when finances are always changing due to the stock market, income changes, remodel, etc. Anyway, during our meeting, we mostly tied up loose ends. Thankfully, there isn't an overbearing amount of scandalous activity in our two families!

So, we should have our homestudy all ready to go before October arrives! Once our social worker sends it in to AGCI and we get the rest of our dossier paperwork together, the waiting begins.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we frantically finished cleaning up the house for our home visit. Well, actually, we frantically transferred all of our messes to the airplane room. We did a great job throwing tools, wires, lighting fixtures, sandpaper, etc. into those handy plastic bins and then lining them along the walls of that poor, abused room. More importantly, the baby room is cleared out! We actually tossed around a few ideas for decorating the room. I want a slate blue color, which Aaron considers depressing. Aaron suggested a safari theme (including wallpaper), which I immediately vetoed! We both agreed that we want to get someone to make a cool, kid-ish painting of Africa or maybe just Ethiopia with some important landmarks. We'll see! There are some cool things on Etsy, but I think we want something original...perhaps we'll wait until we get our referral and know more about our baby.

This weekend, we spent hours working on adoption paperwork and education. Online trainings are all done, but we've still got a few chapters in that icky book to finish. It's painful--for a thousand reasons. Whit and I have spent most of the afternoon out on the porch with the computer...enjoying the last bits of September in the NW and getting some work done (he was snoozing away--as usual). Doesn't feel like work so much with the fresh air, chirping birds, and that stinking beautiful mountain. I have to admit, I did spend some time on Amazon tracking down some Ethiopian-related books for kids. Fun, fun!