Hey! A quarter cup of lard ain't bad for 48 ounces of beans...<g>
Oh, my! I had hoped that I was wrong about the lard. Still, the dish is so satisfying that, when I have it, I can easily behave for the rest of the day, so maybe, on balance, it isn't so bad.
Last week I tried preparing my favorite Ethiopian foods. I was able to buy the injera (bread) at a local ethnic grocery and I set out to fix collards and yellow split peas in the Ethiopian way. I have a cookbook that calls for a pound of butter for a pound of collards. No wonder the stuff tastes so good. Of course, I fixed it with a couple of tablespoons of butter, instead. Of course, it didn't taste quite the same. But I still enjoyed it. The peas turned out better. I used just a bit of olive oil and a bit of butter. You can wrap injera around anything and it tastes good.
Speaking of ethnic, I was posting recently about a couple of cultural encounters at a local super market. Just the other day, I was driving home from that same market when I saw something that I had never before seen here in the States. There was a guy carrying his groceries home, apparently African from his color and dress. He was carrying one plastic grocery bag in each hand and the third bag was balanced on his head. Of course, that's a common practice in many parts of the world but I had never before seen it transferred here. I sure hope he didn't have any canned food in that bag. Ouch. |
