Doro Wat and Garden Berries!

It's finally cooling off! The heat of the past week enforced some strict relaxation time for me - I spent many hours laying around in front of a fan, reading. The reading has included some YA sci-fi, but also a non-fiction book called The Man who Quit Money that is really sticking with me. I've been thinking about it ever since I finished, and am feeling affected by the person's story and thoughtful choices to live not just outside a cash economy, but really in total separation from it because he doesn't barter or trade. He's been living this way for over 13 years, and it sounds like somewhat of a spiritual practice for him.

So, while pondering a gift economy, I got to enjoy some bounty from the garden: the rest of the snap peas, the first zucchini and cucumber, and also blueberries and black raspberries! The berries usually don't ripen at the same time, but because of the late and weird weather this summer/spring, they somehow have and so I get to enjoy them together, which is quite delicious. I mostly am eating them with some coconut milk or cream on top, but made some pancakes this morning as a conduit for the berries. The leftover pancakes functioned as crepes to hold more berries for lunch. Yum!


I also tried a recipe from Nom Nom Paleo for Doro Wat, an Ethiopian dish that is primarily chicken, berbere spice, onions, chicken broth, and hardboiled eggs, plus some lime juice and ginger in there. It was really delicious and pretty easy - all on the stove top so did not heat the house up too much. I don't use berbere spice very much, but I bought a really nice blend (that was not as spicy as regular berbere) in Iowa City a couple of years ago. The flavor is really different from the other foods I've been eating lately, so it was a nice change. The Doro Wat reheated nicely for lunch, and was a good dish to eat where I had air conditioning!

This is my extremely un-photogenic version of the dish!