It Did NOT Feel Good and Berbere

I had a truly lousy day yesterday.

Truly lousy.

Just work stuff, but as Owen said, in one of my favorite videos of him, "It did NOT feel good!"

At one point, during a deeply uncomfortable session in which I was trying to be impassive because I couldn't come up with any other appropriate emotion, I looked down at my shirt and realized that I had huge stain on the front of it. I tried to flip it around so it didn't show but it didn't really work.

Sigh.

After work Ernie bought me glass of wine at Fries and Peanuts and our beloved Roger and Ceal cheered me up. They even shared some of the Cracker Jack that they were serving with hot dogs in honor of Cubs game. You gotta love the Esquire.

Amy Rigby can't be here soon enough. 

Tonight I will be making beef broth for the Key Wat, Ethiopian stew that I am serving on Friday. We made a trial batch on Sunday and it was damned good. I hope I haven't cursed myself. Of course when I found the recipe I thought it looked like a good companion to the Ethiopian vegetable stew I am making. It called for berbere and I figured this was a great excuse to do an order from Penzeys. So I happily went to their website and stocked up on smoked paprika and a few other things. Then I saw that I only needed to add another $10 to get free shipping so I did that....then I saw if I ordered two more things I'd get some freebies so I happily placed my order.

Except.

I forgot the berbere...the whole reason I was making the order. Sigh. So when Ernie went to make it the other day he had to mix up the berbere by hand. To do that he needed to go to World Harvest and get some spices. And as is typical in our spice cabinet he got some that we already had, so anybody needs some fenugreek....just hit me up. I now have enough spices for the millenium.

The berbere spice mix is gorgeous though....and smelled  the same....

And yes, I did eat it from a chipped bowl while sitting on the couch watching tv because sometimes, that's just what you have to do.

I'll be making this stew for Friday night's house concert with Amy, and a vegetarian stew with a big bowl of couscous to serve it on. If you're coming and feel like bringing something, any thing is welcome! Even if you can't bring anything, do come early though---it's nice to get a chance to hang out with folks!

I can't believe this video is from 7 years ago! It will be so good to have her back!