Some things make a post

1. December Days masterpost is still collecting links! I am really looking forward to reading all the awesome stuff people are putting out. (In comments theladyscribe notes that they're hosting a friending meme, if you want to go play!)

2. I've still got some days available! Feel free to go prompt. (And even if it looks like I won't have days free, go for it - I can drop topics from people who've got two, or combine similar ones, etc.)

3. Love meme continues! I just unscreened about 60 comments (including one new nomination) that came in over the weekend (hometernot is still hometernot, but switchover to new ISP happens on Sunday...) I am going to try to get my act together to start leaving comments for you. <3 If you would like to be nominated but are feeling edgy about participation, by all means PM me and I will do the thing for you!

4. sebastienne, the boything, and my housemate conspired to gift me a bunch of dinosaurs - two origami ones, one sheet of stickers - which were scattered artfully around my desk at home when I got it. :-)

[rec!] Kokeb (Ethiopian food in north London nr Caledonian Road)

So I have some friends visiting, and they have a different friend visiting, and she was craving Ethiopian food, so my friends asked the internet (... in the basement at work where there is internet). They found Kokeb and it is great. It is so, so good.

It is run by auntie, right, who cheerfully self-described to us as "bossy auntie". Auntie went to university in Ethiopia and had her first daughter there, moved to Bulgaria and had her second child and became sufficiently fluent in Bulgarian to work for the Bulgarian government, and then she moved to London and set up an amazing restaurant. As far as we can tell it's an entirely one-woman show; like, she will take orders, check that everybody's ordered everything they want with cheery warnings that if you don't get in now you'll be waiting for a while, and then disappears out back until reappearing Some Time Later with food.

There were four of us; we paid under £40 including tip for Plenty Of Food and also tip.

... food. Food. The "hot and spicy" was well within my tolerance; we had weekend-special-wot (shiro - chickpeas), fule (delicious fava bean thing), ayeb be-gomen (delicious cheese thing), and lots of misc veg - misor wot (red lentil), alicha kik (yellow lentil), spinach, fosolia & carrot (I was so excited about how they use the correct green bean word), ye-atiklt wot (potato carrot misc veg thing), and four injera (delicious sour bread product). We inhaled it all and it was brilliant and we were so happy and it was so good. Like, I cannot do justice to how happy we all were about putting it our faces. I think my absolue favourite was the yellow dal or possibly the fosolia&carrot but I would really not want to have to pick just one thing.

... and as we were leaving auntie hugged us all!! She did not do that to all the customers but like friendpeople semi got into an auntie-off with her and she clearly decided to adopt us a bit? The food was brilliant & she was wonderful & just -- yes, yes I will be going back.

The only thing to be aware of is that she has a fairly strong preference for you to phone ahead so she knows how many injera to make each day so she doesn't run out (and also that the card machine is currently broken so she is cash-only) (and that it is an entirely one-woman show so service is not as fast as it might be if, you know, there was more than one of her) but aaaaaaaah need to find an excuse to go back asap. With company. The better to order EVERYTHING rather than being restricted to just one or two dishes. (Four people seems to be optimum - that way you can get pretty much every veg item on the menu and have the right amount of food without making auntie stick tables together.) So, you know, volunteers? ;)