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My sister (seen above cooking and crying over onions!) and I had fun cooking for our guests – she brought some of her favorite recipes and we resurrected some of my successful ones.  We cooked and we cooked – actually, it took about 4 hours.  (And then the next day we cooked the injera and fritters for 1 1/2 hours.) 

The result was great.  Really, Jrock said it was the first time that he enjoyed the leftovers – and there are always a lot of leftovers when we cook Ethiopian! 

Some tricks and tips:

• First of all, we put the two meat stews in crockpots and cooked them for hours and hours. 
• Second, we thickened the stews (Doro Wat, for example) so that they were easier to eat, and that worked really well. 
• Third, we sliced all the onions (all 15!) ahead of time, so we could just scoop out a cup at a time. 
• Fourth, we made the best honeyed wine which went really well with the food.  I’ve shared the recipe below.
• Fifth, we made cheese for the first time.  Basically you just boil buttermilk, let it cool, strain the solids out and then add some chopped chives and parsley.  It was awesome!
• And lastly, we tried a new recipe of chickpea fritters and served them as an appetizer with a really thick onion/berbere sauce.  It was nice to have something to start with, instead of just the one course that you usually have.

As for the meal itself – well, it was fine.  We didn’t know anybody who was coming… and they were all very nice! but it’s weird making small talk all evening.  (It was a dinner that I had put up as a silent auction item for our Rotary fundraiser, and the lady who had the successful bid brought her friends.)

In amongst the small talk, we tried to talk about Ethiopia and what we know about the country and culture.  They were pretty interested, and for all but one of the guests (who is coincidentally adopting a 6 year old girl from Ethiopia) it was new news.  

One thing we discussed was AIDS and HIV and the situation in Sub-Saharan Africa. I found some of their questions surprising - one lady wondered if people got AIDS for life or if they grew out of it, for example.  But I rose to the challenge and I did some education in that regard and there are some more AIDS-aware people in Kelowna now!  I did get a chance to mention Meg’s Faya Orphanage for HIV+ Kids and collected some donations, which was nice of them to help out. 

Thank you, sister “Ena” for your help!  It was a pleasure spending the weekend with you and I was so glad for the help!