NEW BRUNSWICK – Put down that fork. Here’s the proper way to eat “awaze tibs,” a spicy stew that can be made with beef, lamb or chicken.
Tear off a piece of injera, a spongy bread with a sour-like taste, and use it to pick up pieces of the meat and the side dishes.
You have to work a little to make these bite-sized sandwiches, but hard work has always been as much an ingredient of Dashen’s success as the cardamom, ginger and red pepper that the restaurent owner, Tsigereda Lemlemayhu, imports from her native Ethiopia.
For a woman who started off preparing food made with family recipes she brought with her from Ethiopia and whose initial clients were a handful of friends and neighbors, Dashen at 88 Albany St. represents the sum of long nights, hard sacrifices, risks and recipes that have been perfected over time.
The tales of Lemlemayhu’s hard work – seen by the family as a distinctly Ethiopian trait – are legendary in the family. There was the time she put in a 15-hour shift to bake 1,000 servings of injera for a wedding, and then there were the times she prepared a huge lunch after attending all-night services for Ethiopian Epiphany.
“Having that spirit of making food and nurturing people, I’m so glad that it turned into a business where she can showcase her culture and that personality across the world,” said Feven Brook Kebede, Lemlemayhu’s niece, said.
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