Rachel and Jenn Eat Philadelphia: Abyssinia

**** So I've been informed that "foul" (pronounced fool) is actually an Ethiopian dish.  I feel culturally insensitive.  But oh well. ****

This is the first installment of "Rachel and Jenn Eat Philadelphia."  In reality, this was a restaurant I went to with Eamonn, but that's ok.

See? Totally fine.

Abyssinia is an Ethiopian restaurant two steps from our place.  (I was going to include a map here, but just in case someone I don't know is reading this (unlikely), it's probably not a good idea to show my exact location.)  I had never had Ethiopian food before, but "what the heck?" said I.  Upon arriving, there was a sign on what looked like the front door instructing us to go to the side door to enter.  A surly looking man (obviously not Ethiopian) was smoking on the steps.  He assured us we were heading in the right direction which was not as reassuring as one might believe.  Anyway, it was totally fine inside.  It had cool tables with woven tops and nice paintings on the walls.  They (the proprietors, that is) did a lot with a space that definitely was not meant for a restaurant dining room.

We were seated and given menus.  Now one of my favorite things is misspellings on menus, street signs, billboards, or any public venue.  Generally I see them in foreign businesses.




**Disclaimer!** I'm in no way suggesting that immigrants/foreigners misspell things because they are not intelligent.  Obviously, if they can come into a country where they are not so familiar with the language and create a thriving business, then they are smarter and savvier than me.  It's just that sometimes misspellings can sometimes be very unfortunate and hilarious.  **End of disclaimer!**

So the first misspelling was of jalapeño as hallapino. Understandable.

Can you see that?  I know it's tiny.

The second one, however was simply unfortunate.  It was not even a misspelling, but a word swap.  In describing their chicken dish, they swapped "fowl" with "foul."  So there it was.  A photo of their food (which looked pretty good) had the caption, "foul." I had to get a picture.

What a pity.

Distracted by the menu (or by my bossy photo shoot directions), Eamonn somehow ordered raw meat! On the plate, it looked like something in a tomato sauce and did not taste that bad.  Then we realized what it was.  It's funny how once something changes mentally, the whole taste changes.  We took a bite or two, then just couldn't bring ourselves to eat more.  I was proud of myself though!  Public meat enthusiast that I am, I thought it would be hypocritical to avoid it.  Though I'm not going to make raw meat a part of my regular diet, I'm glad I tried it.

One fun thing about Ethiopian is that you are supposed to eat with your hands.  The food is served on a spongy pancake bread which you use to pick up the food and eat it.  I did that for a while, to pick up the lentils and veggies, but inevitably, I fell back into my fork habits.

What can I say? I'm a fork person!

Misspellings and raw meat aside, the food was plentiful, spicy, and pretty good!

She’s fiya burning, fiya burning...

I should be awarded a prize from Homeland Security.  I have discovered a "humane" way to torture someone!  I was generous enough to be the guinea pig of this new technique...but let me start from the beginning.

I was cooking a lovely Mexican feast for Eamonn and myself.  Mango chicken flautas and Spanish rice to be exact.  As I was cheerfully dicing jalapeños, my nose began to itch.  Without thinking, I scratched it.  In the process, a seed from the pepper made its way up my nose.  The burning sensation started slowly, but I soon started to feel it in my throat and all through my sinuses.  I ran upstairs to try to flush it out, but somehow the addition of water spread the fiery sensation to my eyes and the skin on every part of my face.

So spicy!

Now it's serious.  I start screaming: EAMONN!!!!! AAAAAAAAH!!!!!!  Obviously, he comes running because he thinks I'm dying - and I'm not about to correct him.  I am dying.  Someone has stolen my face and rubbed it into the sun.  I can't see, my nose is dripping, I'm coughing, I'm crying, my whole face is on fire.  It is the worst pain of my life.

Eamonn to the rescue.  "Pour a shot of milk into each eye!" Fail.  Now I'm on fire and have milk all over myself.  "Let's try putting your whole face in it."  Now I think he's just messing with me, but I'm pretty desperate at this point.  I submerge my face in a bowl of 2%.  The burning finally becomes less unbearable.  I keep an ice pack strapped to my face for the rest of the evening, but eventually I recover and now have a lovely YouTube video as a memento of this adventure.

So the point is that I experienced the worst pain of my life and now I'm fine.  I'm not suggesting that waterboarding or getting fingernails plucked off are less painful experiences than jalapeño up the nose, I'm merely suggesting that we can accomplish similar goals with minimal permanent damage!  I would have told anyone anything if they could have made that pain go away - and jalapeños aren't even the hottest pepper!  Imagine what we could do with ghost chiles!  With clever culinary cruelty, we can get what we need from those terrorists without becoming the monsters we seek to destroy!

This post became a bit of a soap box, which was not my original intention.  But now you get to see what a fool I am, a hilarious video, AND know my opinions about torture (kinda).  You're welcome :)

Bon Appetit 2

I've been going a little crazy because I can't really unpack all my stuff but I also can't really pack it.  I'll be living in a state of flux until June 22nd when I can pack some of my stuff and go to "Institute" (a.k.a. teaching boot camp).  When I feel disorganized in this way, I calm my nerves by creating things - food, art projects, etc.  I've been doing a lot of cooking, so I thought I'd write another cooking post.  This culinary episode actually occurred about a month ago.  Enjoy Pioneer Woman's Onion Strings!

I'm having trouble making these posts look decent.  Oh well.

I Love Meat

Stop your snickering and get your minds out of the gutter!!  But really, I love any kind of meat.  Pork, beef, poultry, seafood - all of it!  I even love things that PRETEND to be meat!  For instance, I love those Morning Star fake hot wings.  I also love facon (fake-bacon).  Hamna just made a delicious quiche with facon mmm-mm-m-m-m!  The point is, I'm a carnivore and proud of it!  That is all.

Oh yea, look at that.

          

Bon Appetit

From time to time I like to pretend that I am a gourmet chef.  I would like to share with you my attempt to replicate Pioneer Woman's Sun-dried Tomato Risotto. Enjoy.  

Well I got off to a good start.  I didn't quite have enough onion, so I added some shallots that were in danger of rotting before I got to use them.  Don't worry, they were still good. 

PW used real garlic.  I like the stuff from the jar. It's more refined.  Now, her sun-dried tomatoes looked red and happy...mine, not so much.  They smelled funny too.  But I pressed on.

Ok, butter and olive oil worked out.  Notice the fun purple in my onion mixture.  I like to keep things colorful.

 Rice!

Then I added the tomaters.

Oooh, I was very happy it looked similar.  I then spent the next 40 minutes adding chicken broth one cup at a time.

Until it looked like this!  Not quite as fluffy, but I made it work.

Next for the Parmesan.  I used the powdery stuff because I'm classy.

Then she added heavy cream.  We are not as luxurious in the apartment so I used 2% milk.  Plus, I'm trying to keep my girlish figure.


I couldn't believe it!  Pioneer Woman used basil from a jar.  That's what I had too.






Oh yea, look at that.  Delicious!




It actually turned out pretty tasty.  Thanks P-Dub!

HUNGRY!

Being the cleaning champions that we are, my roommate, Cary and I worked up a hunger. Naturally, we panicked.  OH MY GOD WHAT ARE WE GONNA EAT WE DON'T HAVE ANY FOOD!?!?  (Maybe not as panicked as that, but you get the idea.)  After Cary rejected my kettle corn and mini pizza suggestions (c'mon, what's better than that?) and after we gingerly avoided some questionable looking tupperwares, we managed to come up with a pretty classy menu: lobster ravioli with vodka sauce, lightly sauteed asparagus...and nachos (of course).

This hodgepodge of flavors is pretty representative of today.  Slept at the Loft, woke up with puffy eyes and a nice wheeze courtesy of Jonathan Poopstick.  Chicken pot pie for breakfast.  Coffee pot fiasco (we really must remember to use a filter next time).  Room cleaning.  Irresponsible nut-cracking.  Typical Saturday stuff.  And now it's almost midnight and Cary and I are working on our second plate of nachos.

¡Olé!