Tonight is our (semi-) monthly Winter Friends Dinner, wherein sailing friends get together in the winter to have dinner, discussion, frivolity. Generally these dinners take place at ethnic, BYOB joints.

Tonight is Ethiopian food at Lalibela Ethiopian Restaurant.

Clearly, grilled chicken and veggies isn't a viable option. I checked out WW to see what their experts had to say about Ethiopian food. Their article follows.

My resolution is to use my 35 flex points and avoid the clarified butter.

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Eat-iopia

The ritual of an Ethiopian meal encourages you to think about the joy of eating, allowing you to focus on tastes, smells, and companionship.

Imagine tonight’s dinner: you’re sitting on a low divan around an hourglass-shaped table. Beside you, your friends sit on fur-covered stools. A waitress enters, carrying a long-spouted copper pitcher and a copper basin. She pours warm water over each of your right hands, offering you a warm towel to dry them. She takes the table out of the room, and when she returns, it is covered with a huge, flat piece of bread.

Rich, savoury stews are brought to the table in enamel bowls and scooped over it. You rip off a piece of the bread, roll it around a spoonful of stew and pop it into your mouth. After dinner comes dark coffee&8212after coffee comes another round of hand washing. All followed by the burning of incense.

Sound exotic? Decadent? Fun? This is Ethiopian tradition—and an ideal way for diet-savvy people to eat too.

So much of living healthily is about learning how to understood food as pleasure, not just as a way to satisfy (or over-satisfy) hunger. The ritual of an Ethiopian meal encourages you to think about the joy of eating, allowing you to focus on tastes, smells and companionship. Carefully preparing each morsel encourages you to eat slowly. You also share food, instead of gobbling down your personal plate.

Stop, Scoop and Roll
Did we mention it’s delicious? Most Ethiopian dishes are rich, filling and spicy (a bonus for plan-followers, since spices add 0 POINTS® values). Typically, the main dishes are called wat—thick, hearty stews made from meat and vegetables. Wat is served on top of a flatbread called injera. Another standard dish is called Tib, in which meats and vegetables are sautéed or grilled.

These days, the combination of exotic flavours (cumin, basil, coriander, ginger, saffron, mustard, cardamom, chili) plus the abundance of fresh veggies and lean meats has started a Ethiopian craze in North America, especially in urban areas. Toronto boasts one of the largest followings. The owner of the restaurant Ethiopian House, Mohammed Haddis claims, “Next to Washington D.C., I believe we have the largest Ethiopian population. Ever since my restaurant opened in 1996, business has kept getting better.”

Weight-Loss Dip Tips
If you’re interested in trying out Ethiopian, though, consider sticking to few tricks that can help you stay on your weight-loss track. As always, you must consider portion control, especially in restaurants. Since the food is served communally, you may be dipping your bread and eating away, never realising how much you have consumed. Instead, split a smaller, reasonable amount (a few tablespoons) of each stew into a small, separate mound on the bread that you designate as “yours.” If you’re really nervous about overeating, ask for your own plate.

The other danger is hidden fat. Many Ethiopian dishes contain a clarified butter called niter kibbeh, infused with garlic, ginger, cinnamon and other spices. It packs a lot of calories, as does the vegetable oil that’s often used. But there are still plenty of low-fat options. For example, due to the Muslim and Orthodox Christian populations of the country (which require their followers to fast and abstain for meat) Ethiopia has a tradition of incredibly varied meat-free dishes. “Order a legume, green bean, kale or chickpea stew,” Haddis suggests. “These are cooked with only a little bit of oil.”

Injera bread, too, is very safe and healthy. Injera is made from a tiny, ancient grain called teff that is unique to Ethiopia. One cup of cooked teff contains 387 milligrams of calcium and 15 milligrams of iron. Restaurants will both serve your dishes on injera and bring some on the side for scooping. Make sure you watch your portions here—rip off one piece at the start of your meal that is “yours” and stick with that.

Alternatively, if you’re really into Ethiopian food and want to avoid any and all pitfalls, make it yourself. (Try buying the bread ready-made from health food stores.) Use these recipes as a side dish with a lean chicken breast, or as a regular main dish with injera (or pita, if that’s easier).