Day 22: Cooking in Ethiopia is a lot different than cooking in America, mostly because grocery shopping in Ethiopia is a lot different from grocery shopping in America. Things might be different there now, but six years ago it was like this—you could buy some types of pasta, grains, oils and vinegars, spices, and tomato PASTE (not sauce) at a store, along with produce, meats and some cheeses. Some places had a couple types of cereal and crackers. Forget frozen pizzas, muffin mixes, salad kits, rotisserie chickens, jars of salsa, and many other American conveniences. Basically, Ethiopia is ahead of the times when it comes to scratch cooking, farm to table, and local sourcing 👏

If you want to eat beans, you cook dried beans. If you need chicken broth, you make it. If you want tortillas, you make them. If you want spaghetti sauce, you make it. If you want salad dressing? You guessed it—you make it.

I love cooking…almost nothing makes me feel as productive and accomplished as making a good meal out of random ingredients. When we were in Ethiopia before, I enjoyed going to the store to see what they had and trying to figure out what to make with it.

Now don’t get me wrong—I will absolutely whine and moan sometimes about wishing I could get a Chick-fil-A chicken biscuit, pick up sushi takeout, or grab a frozen lasagna at the store. I know I will miss the conveniences that I’m so used to and that I’ll have a bad attitude about all the cooking sometimes. But at least as a baseline, I like to cook. 👩‍🍳🍽🙌#31daysofcalling #lovesinethiopia