I'm familiar with Eritrea mainly from studying paleoanthropology, but I would not want to visit there, due to politics. It is generally believed now that when the first humans left Africa, they went through the Horn and into southern Arabia, and so that area has a lot of interesting artifacts and remains. From southern Arabia they went through India and down into Australia, and the aboriginals in Australia were part of this first exodus, but I'm sure you already knew this. They did not go through Egypt, Palestine, or Mesopotamia, as that migration came much later. There is a new Ethiopian restaurant close to my house, about 3/4 mile away, and Kevin and I really like it. It used to be Lebanese, and we liked that also, but we have several choices for Lebanese. There is another Ethiopian restaurant about a mile and a half from our house, and we like that one too, but both of them are rather small and cramped. Most of the Ethiopian restaurants are in the southern Fairfax district, down almost to Culver City, but most of the are hit or miss. There is one that is excellent, called House of Genet that I took Lee to when she was here once, and she seemed to like it. I'm only beginning to make African food; i.e., beyond Algerian or Moroccan. I haven't made the injera bread, but it looks easy, and it's on my list. I can only get it in restaurants. Eileen and I went to an Ethiopian restaurant in San Francisco when I first met her. It was one block from the commune on Valencia Street where I lived in 1973-4! We lived in a storefront that had been a dance studio, but now the storefront has been broken up into two separate stores, side by side. It was weird to see that. I'll be on the look-out for Eritrean food, but I will have to skip the coffee:>( Thanks for sharing your experience! Lars

Took my DM out for dinner to Kelsey's restaurant for her 87th birthday (this was after a lovely spa day for both of us). This was all courtesy of my DSis who lives in British Columbia and couldn't be here with us. She emailed me the money and we had a blast. We had all appetizers, honey garlic chicken wings, chicken dumplings in wonton wrappers fried crisp, deep fried zuccini, and a 4 cheese spinach dip. Ate every last speck of it. Yummy! Then we brought home apple crumble with 2 different sauces. Had to wait a few hours to tackle them though, but they were lovely~

Tamale pie sounds good, Patti. Easy, too. Harry would like it, for sure. I'd love to have some of your turnips and greens, Ruthie. My mother used to cook the roots and throw the green tops away. LOL! Love greens. Your dinner sounds so good, Staci. Do you have a quesadilla maker? Harry loves them, but I have a problem turning them over (and keeping the insides inside). Have you ever posted the cream puff dessert? Sounds decadent, so please share! We are finally getting good tomatoes here, but not in the supermarket, Azzalea. Yesterday we stopped at a farmer's stand and I got 2 big red tomatoes, 3 ears of corn, 1 red pepper and 2 cucumbers for $4.89. Bengardening, those pinwheels must've been a lot of work to make by hand. It reminded me of churros but it was large and coiled around and around. A little taste of heaven, believe me!

This was very tasty! I added some roasted red pepper and then tossed the pasta with olive oil and some dried chili flakes. (DH likes a little heat). It would also be great to serve as an appetizer without the pasta. Just serve a sliced loaf of crusty bread to soak up the sauce (which was delicious) I will make this again! Oh, and I forgot to buy a lemon so I used a tbsp. of Balsamic vinegar instead. It worked just fine.