This evening, I took a friend from work rock-climbing with me (well, she climbed - I belayed, which was fine). We were pretty friggin’ hungry afterwards, so we decided to get Ethiopian food in the nearby town of Montclair (where my apartment used to be - and a tear trickles down my cheek).

I’ve been to this Ethiopian restaurant, Mesob, before (their site is down at the moment, but there are details on baristanet). However, work-friend hadn’t had Ethiopian food before, and I find it’s one of those things that can regain its “first timey-ness” when you get to introduce someone to it. Num-nums.

If you’re not familiar with Ethiopian food (and, please, save the “What? They have food?” jokes for your NASCAR-watching relatives) you are served on a large platter lined with a flatbread called injera (I think of it as being much more like a crepe than a flatbread - the texture, consistency and appearance are that of an extremely large crepe) made from teff flour. Teff is a grain/grass; they grind it up into a flour, mix it with water and let it ferment for a few days. Once it’s become a bit like a sourdough, it’s baked into huge thin rounds (about the size of a dinner plate) that are soft and spongy and bubbly and sourdough-tasting.

Your entrees (various meat and vegetable dishes) are spooned atop this largest piece of injera. They’re all a bit stew-like and wet; you tear off pieces of the bread (you have another plate full of it) and use it to pick up mouthfuls of your entree by the fingerful.  Or thumb and index finger-full, anyway. No utensils. Just your hands and the bread and the stuff that you’ll be picking up with it.

We shared a sampler platter consisting of several kinds of beef (spicy, mild and cubed with herbs), chicken, lamb, Portobello mushrooms, crushed chickpeas and green beans with carrots. I had some of their kemem shai - a glorious spiced black tea with cloves, cinnamon and cardamom - and my friend had their hibiscus tea. It was all so delicious. We tore through it, and there was still a good amount left, so the waitress packed it up for me to bring home (yippee! lunch tomorrow!!)

There’s another great Ethiopian place in New York called Meskerem. They have two or three locations in Manhattan now, but I’m familiar with the one down on MacDougal, near NYU (my old stomping grounds). I couldn’t find a main page for them, but I did find this entertaining review of one of the locations in the New York Times, all the way back from 1996. It starts:

Americans seem to have an innate fear of Ethiopian food: “Isn’t that the food you eat with your fingers?” people ask hesitantly, as if it were a vile practice.

Yes, same as with hamburgers.

When you think about it, what could be a sillier objection in a country where, for generations, people have been using their fingers to eat foods from knishes to pizza, to say nothing of hot dogs. If New Yorkers have had bad experiences with Ethiopian food, it’s likely that they’ve been to bad Ethiopian restaurants.

If that’s the case, Meskerem, which opened a year ago on a quiet block of 47th Street near 10th Avenue, can demonstrate how good Ethiopian food can be.

Take that, ignorami!!

Now I have some homework to do for work (not work-work, just some things to think about/brainstorm for a meeting in the morning) and I have to figure out what the HELL I’m going to wear tomorrow - for a high of 32°F and a low of 17°F. That’s not taking into account any wind chill, either.