12 Days!!!!/Mitad

JUST 12 DAYS UNTIL I GO TO ETHIOPIA TO MEET MY YOSEF AND MIHRET!!!!!!!

Okay, now that I have that out of my system, I would like to share what I have learned about this well-kept secret of making injera in America- the mitad. We had supper with some new friends last night who are from Ethiopia and Abeba showed me her mitad. This wonderful cooking device that a couple of Ethiopian women now have said can only be purchased in very large cities that have large Ethiopian populations is the exact same item that our local Target sells! It is available online by clicking here. This is what Abeba uses as her mitad. Now, you must have a lid to cook injera, so you need to purchase a lid separately that will fit. Yene addis wadadj (My new friend) is going to let me come to her house so that I can actually watch and learn how to do it. She said that something else that is essential is a blender. Evidently, in Ethiopia, she stirred the injera with her hands and it was find. But in America (elevation perhaps?), the only thing that works is to stir it by putting it into a blender. She said that once her blender broke so she used a food processor, but that didn't work. It must be a blender. So, a blender it is.

It occurred to me the other day that there are lots of shortcut recipes for injera, some of them not so bad. But they're just not the real deal either. For me, the quest to learn how to make injera stems largely from the desire to honor the cultural heritage of two of my kids. It has to do with honoring their parents. We are supposed to honor our parents, and I feel that by honoring their culture, their parents are being honored as well. That's why I won't settle for a shortcut recipe. I want the real deal. Mihret told Avery that her favorite food is injera! I must learn this! :) I've been discussing injera via email with a woman who lives about an hour from me, who is also an American mother to adopted Ethipian children. We've been trying to share all of the secret tips we've picked up. It suddenly struck me that we would be extremely entertaining to any Ethiopian woman! It would be like me watching two Ethiopian mothers dicussing the finer technicalities of making mashed potatoes, yet still not coming up with good mashed potatoes! Perhaps someday I'll be such a good injera maker that I will have Ethiopians lining up at my door in the hopes of having the opportunity to buy my injera...hmmm....what is that verse in the Bible about faith being the evidence of things hoped for and not yet seen?