The Pizza Hut Boycott Is Over

Do you remember this post?

https://leaveittoavery.wordpress.com/2006/11/10/just-one-more-company-to-despise/

Well after Pizza Hut first denied having anything to do with it, they then admitted it was a marketing campaign from the British sister company. They gave this real BS reply to our complaiants that another blogger has already found out that posting that reply get’s lawsuit threats, but basically he said get over yourself, we asked some people in our company who have been “affected” by adoption and they thought it was funny.. blah, blah, blah….

 Well the vile site is gone!!!!

I guess for as much as they wanted to sy it was just “funny” enough of a voice was made, enough calls were made, and enough dollars were seen to be lost that they pulled the site.

Now I have yet to get an apology, but I am glad to see that by joining together and making our voice known the website is now gone.

Thank You for all that helped!

The Christmas Story – When was the last time you heard this scripture preached?

A great Sign appeared in Heaven: a Woman dressed all in sunlight, standing on the moon, and crowned with Twelve Stars. She was giving birth to a Child and cried out in the pain of childbirth. And then another Sign alongside the first: a huge and fiery Dragon! It had seven heads and ten horns, a crown on each of the seven heads. With one flick of its tail it knocked a third of the Stars from the sky and dumped them on earth. The Dragon crouched before the Woman in childbirth, poised to eat up the Child when it came. The Woman gave birth to a Son who will shepherd all nations with an iron rod. Her Son was seized and placed safely before God on his Throne. The Woman herself escaped to the desert to a place of safety prepared by God, all comforts provided her for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.

War broke out in Heaven. Michael and his Angels fought the Dragon. The Dragon and his Angels fought back, but were no match for Michael. They were cleared out of Heaven, not a sign of them left. The great Dragon–ancient Serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, the one who led the whole earth astray–thrown out, and all his Angels thrown out with him, thrown down to earth.

Then I heard a strong voice out of Heaven saying,

Salvation and power are established! Kingdom of our God, authority of his Messiah! The Accuser of our brothers and sisters thrown out, who accused them day and night before God. They defeated him through the blood of the Lamb and the bold word of their witness. They weren’t in love with themselves; they were willing to die for Christ. So rejoice, O Heavens, and all who live there, but doom to earth and sea, For the Devil’s come down on you with both feet; he’s had a great fall; He’s wild and raging with anger; he hasn’t much time and he knows it.

When the Dragon saw he’d been thrown to earth, he went after the Woman who had given birth to the Man-Child. The Woman was given wings of a great eagle to fly to a place in the desert to be kept in safety and comfort for a time and times and half a time, safe and sound from the Serpent. The Serpent vomited a river of water to swamp and drown her, but earth came to her help, swallowing the water the Dragon spewed from its mouth. Helpless with rage, the Dragon raged at the Woman, then went off to make war with the rest of her children, the children who keep God’s commands and hold firm to the witness of Jesus.

(Revelation 12:1-17 MSG)

the Ethiopian and Norwegian connection, and I found it at Target!

If you follow my blog, you see that I push you over to my wife’s quite a bit and as you know if you have read her blog she has been fervently researching Injera and the proper techniques to make it here in the states for a long, long, long time now.

Well we made a local Ethiopian friend who came over to eat our attempts at Ethiopian food and we passed the “test” but we learned there is a cooking utemsil called a “mitad” that is required to cook injera. According to the Ethiopians there are only 2 places to buy this wonder grill, Seatle and DC. Now we started to look for the ellusive mitad and could only find one web site that sold it and it was $190. Really steep for what we wanted, especially as the one in DC is only $90.

Well a freind of our found a site that sold it on line, for about $90 but we had no idea what we would be buying, as it was sold in a box, and the pixture was of the box it came it.

So I started to do some digging on the site, and found the company that made the Mitad, then went to that company’s site, but they didn’t have anything out there about a mitad at all. So I looked up the product code and it matched an electric grill they make, specifically a Lefse Grill.

So now I dig into the world of Lefse, a potatoe based crepe from Norway, that happens to be made on the same cooking device as Injera is…. WOW!!!!!

Now the big kicker is that you can find this bad boy at TARGET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, you read that right, just drive right down the road and walk into Target and buy an electric Lefse Grill and you have half the battle done with your Injera. Now the big kicker and all the oil lovers will hate me on this one, if you ever use any form of oil on this grill it will never correctly make your Injera ever again. You have to use rape seeds and a clean cloth to “oil” the surface when you cook the injera, but if you really want to make the injera, then this is for injera, and injera ONLY. Cooking other products on this surface ruin it for what you want it for, but just like a wok, you never need to wash it either. Just run water and clean it with a clean cloth allowing the residue of the rape seeds to remain and create “character” on the teflon surface. If you use oil then you have altered the surface of the pan forever! Period, there will always be a residue on the surface and it will not perform correctly for you. Hey, this isn’t my stuff, I’m just playing the parrot and repeating what I read. You could go with the non teflon as well, but the Ethiopians prefer the teflon as it’s a bit more like the ceramic mitad back home. Of course you could buy the $190 mitad, as it is ceramic.

Now you also have to have a lid for your mitad, so swing by the pots and pans and pick up a 16″ pan cover as well, and you will need a decent blender as well. But you know, some secrets are best left up to the women to divulge, so I will keep you injera scientist on the edge of your seats and make you wait for Heather blog entry about how the blender plays into the Injera……

When we told our Ethiopian friends that Target sold a Mitad they couldn’t believe me, in fact I’m not sure they do now, but I looked at the bottom of theirs and sure enough it is the exact same thing that Target sells. In fact as far as I can tell Bethany house is the ONLY manufactor of this product at all!  You can buy one all over the place and you will find 3 names for it, Aluminium, Silverstone, and Heritage Lefse Grill. The aluminium is just that, no teflon coating on it, and apperently the best one for Lefse. The Heritage and the Silverstone are actually the same thing, the true Bethany House name for it is the Silverstone Heritage Lefse Grill.

Now all this and no, we don’t have one yet, but Christmas is around the corner….

Personally I was just blown away as this is the exact same grill sold as a mitad in the Ethiopian stores in DC and Seatle, but it has a different name elsewhere. Not that I think that there is truly more Norweigan influence on the online market place than Ethiopian, but I guess the guy who marketed it first was hungry for some lefse not injera. Who would have thought that the Norwegian and the Ethiopians would have developed a cooking style with any similarities at all?

And who would have thought that it would be the crazy hippie ferenj that discovered that Target sold a Mitad?

she needs a name

the blue battle axe needs a name, and other than names I’d rather the kids not call the family vehicle I’m stumped.

So what do you think she looks like? The Blue Meanie is the best I can come up with and still allow the kids to use the name…. and fits the mood of the beast.

Mind you I’m happy to have a family vehicle that runs, doesn’t need work, and fits our family of 6, but unless you just found me you know my feelings on vans.

Also I am trying to convince Heather to let my hot rod buddies and biker buddies with paint guns to go hog wild on her and to add a little “Avery class” to the paint, she isn’t too keen on the idea…. not even if it is free…… I even offered to do neon pink flames with red, yellow and green scalloping………………………..

Wednesday Caption Me #15

Drumroll please…………

thank you Lucas……..

you can stop now………

no I really mean it………….

stop playing my djembe……………..

for real, stop it……………….

I’m not kidding, I can’t talk when you are banging on that thing……………..

STOP NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, good, no, don’t pick it back up, you are done, I have an announcement to make,

Obviously I didn’t make it to Ethiopia before Christmas, thus the contest continues a bit longer…. but if you read my wife’s blog you know it’s not for long, so the Grand Prize winner will be announce before Timket!! And you will get your prize in January, so keep playing!!!

Also I am looking for a few guest writers to fill in for me while I’m in Ethiopia on this trip (told you to read my wife’s blog) If you are interested drop me a line and let’s do cyber coffee….. I think it would be cool to get a few writers to all take one day and answer the same question, this needs to be done soon so hurry as the deadline to be a guest writer on the Avery show is next Wednesday.

Caption Me #14 Winner

“Walking in Memphis.”

     by Laura December 12th, 2006

(the fine print) by winning this contest you are hereby obligated to raise Max telling him the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth…. you know who I am talking about… you blogged about the fatso last week (is it still rude to call him fat when every poem written about his character does the same?)

project(RED)

Apparently I ruffled some feather with my ONE bracelet post last week, my wife’s feathers included.

 If I came across anti project RED to you please believe me that was not my intent. I had a conversation earlier that day with a person who had just finished using her Motorola(RED) cell phone and was complaining about all the consumerism around Christmas and all this “red” stuff. She went on to go on about they are doing “red” t-shirts, shoes, phones and all this stuff just to get people to buy “Christmas colored stuff”

I don’t make this stuff up people.

Go back and read it again, yes, she was using one of the “red Christmas phones”

I did tell her what the stuff was all about, and hopefully educated her a bit, but was very disenfranchised with the concept as a tool of education. I still am a firm supporter of the RED campaign, St. Bono told me to be, I don’t have a choice.

No seriously, I really do like the (RED) stuff, and I love that there are companies out there willing to give 10% of the proceedes to African development. For that I have to applaud them and give kudos and props. Of course if they went ahead and paid some of the emplowees a fair wage (by no means do I mean an American wage either) then perhaps some of the need would go down as well. But that isn’t to say I think they should stop what they are doing.

For those that have posted, e-mail and called me taking offense to my post I am sorry, in no way did I mean to offend, or to say that in making my own bracelet that I felt in someway supperior to those with the rubber ones. I actually didn’t even post the full thought process that I have on the ONE bracelets. I love the attention they have gotten, although I still see more Armstrong bracelets than ONE bracelets, in fact I have yet to see a ONE bracelet in my dive of a city… but I digress, and in no way am I a tree hugger, far from it actually, I like to hunt, and by hunt I mean kill animals for the purpose of eating them later, so my tree hugger card is revoked, but I do care deeply for our environment, and I would have thought that something as socially active as ONE could have developed something slightly more eco friendly than the rubber bracelet. I know leather would have excluded a ton of prople, metal is too costly, but the kids in Africa that wear the white arm bands use torn pieces of fabric. In fact, Mandela uses a ripped up fabric strip when he gives his speeches. I find it ironic that in promoting and end to extreme poverty they turn around and promote bad enviromental principles.

Please don’t read that to be that I want anyone to stop what they are doing, I want people to continue doing whatever they are doing to make a difference. I just want people to know what they are doing, I never want to have a conversation like I did last week again.

By the way, I do have a favorite GAP (RED) shirt, I just have never seen it in person, just on the website, it reads : UNCENSO(RED)  I wear a 3xl (if it runs big or I lose 25 pounds a 2xl)

I really do like the shirts, just not fads. And there is a difference between a fad and a movement, unfortunatly there are both going on right now. You will know who was on board with the fad and who got on board with the movement in 5 years, the fad people will be doing what ever is hip then, and the end to extreme poverty will be so “yesterday”

But for the most part if you are reading this blog and have made it this far, well I wouldn’t think the “fad” people would care enough to read this long into my soapbox.

Once again I’m sorry to those I offended, it wasn’t my attempt, and to the lone soul that dares to be misunderstood by wearing a (RED) shirt to our countrified church, major props and kudos to you…. you are doing what I want to see more people doing and that is STICKING OUT, making a visual statement, and declarin enough is enough to the world. There is a major difference in wearing the statement because you care and are trying to make a difference, and wearing the latest fad because MTV told you to.

This Weekend

What a crazy busy weekend, I woke up saturday morning to dice 12 pounds of onions for Heather then headed out the door in my biker regalia for a poker run in 20 degree weather. I was a little late as my bike refused to start, but eventually I got there, cold to the bone.  We wound up raising about $1300 for the family, a carpenter volunteered to widen the doors in the house for the wheelchair, and to build a ramp, and we had someone donate an electric wheelchair as well. Very cool!!!

Then I came home to help Heather get thenings together and our new Ethiopian friends came over to join us for some ferenj cooked Abesha food.

This photo is the end result:

The injera was bought, but everything else was made at home, including 12 pounds of netter kibe. We finally had some Ethiopians to test it on, and they said it was all perfect except for the doro wat. But in all honesty that is because Heather hates whole chickens and calls them disgusting and cooks with the boneless, skinless, tasteless chicken breast. Actually other than a decrease in the fat content I dont know that the taste is hampered in the doro wat, but they were shreded to make it easier to eat, and there were no bones, so they considered it to be over cooked. They said the taste was dead on, just the consitancy was off. We talked for a long time about everythin, about what they miss the most, what is hard to get used to, and found that the thing that was missed the most was kifto. She refuses to make her own as she won’t use store bought meat for something that has to be fresh. You should have seen her face light up when I told her you can buy a fresh slaughtered side of a caw if you go to the farms, she wanted me to draw a map to where a farm is so she could go right now, unfortunatly though, I only know where the goat farms are. I kind of mapped them out as I was thinking about when Yosef and Mihret get home as they will be able to get beef at the store, but to get goat you have to go to the farms.

 The kids all had a blast and we really enjoyed getting to know them, but all good things come to an end, and we had a company Christmas party we had to go to:

The party was what we expected, all the people I have to deal with at work, with alcohol added. Some of them had added quite a lot of the alcohol as well. The pastor’s wife watched the kids for us while we were there, and we wound up staying at the pastors house too long when we picked up the kids just talking and hanging out. I was so tired when we got home it wasn’t even funny, and wanted to skip church but we were presenting the “Yesus on the Streets” program at the church so we had to go, and look refreshed and presentable as well. “Yesus on the Streets was very well received and we continue to look forward to more ways to reach the people of Ethiopia with the love of Christ.

Coming home from that everyone laid down to take a nap, while I played on the internet.

I finally woke every one up at 5 pm as we had to go get our new van from the family that gave it to us. I think it would look better if Heather would green light my hod rod buddies to have fun painting flames and the like on the van, but until I get that green light you can look for me in this battle tank on the roads:

my ONE bracelet

I’m sure if you read my blog you’ve seen the people walking around with the white bracelets, and know what they mean, but if you just randomly fell into my site let me give a bit of the back story.

The white band is our common symbol of the global fight to end poverty.

It was agreed as a worldwide symbol by the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, the world’s largest ever anti-poverty movement with organisations representing more than 150 million people in over 80 countries.

Rumour has it that it was started by Nelson Mandela, the “President of the World”

Now of course there are a ton of people making money off what has become a “fad” now, you can’t call yourself a post modernist and not have some fashion accessory showing your link to global justice. And even though the ONE groups sells their bracelets for just a buck I can’t bring myself to spend a dollar on a piece of non biodegradable consumerism driven fad linking me to millions of red GAP t-shirt wearing teens and soccer mommies.

But that said I am a huge supporter of ONE and Make Poverty History, but I can’t get past the irony of wearing overprices cheap advertising to promote making a difference on extreme poverty.

So I decided to grab one string and make my own.

Yep, this is my white arm band, self made, and it’s one string with no break, and it perfectly cyclical. Yes, that means I had to make it while wearing it, and there is no way to take it off other than to cut it.

I’m not against the rubber wrist bands, but I would like to see more people making there own bands and taking real ownership of making a difference in extreme poverty and global justice.

Wearing the band is just a tool to open the doors to get people to ask. But to those that already know, it’s a way to find kindred souls.

Local Ethiopians!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

OK, it’s a rather long story to a short point, but worth the ride I’m sure!

Last Sunday we came home from church a bit late (we like to talk OK) and I hit the kitchen to try to find something to eat. Now I had been joking with a buddy of mine at church that there is always stuff in the house to eat, but never anything us fat guys like. Of course Heather then pointed out that’s why we were fat, but I digress…..

So I started rummaging through the kitchen in an attempt to find something and finally settled on fried bologna sandwiches, only to find out we are out of bread. So on total impulse I suggest we go out, and the wife wants pizza, so lets try a new place, why not?

So we head across town to a Pizza Inn we had never tried before (I know they are all supposed to be the same, but trust me they aren’t)  and we rolled in 5 minutes after they shut the lunch down!!

Heather thought she remembered a Pizza Village on the other side of town, so we head in that direction only to wind up at the location she was thinking of, but at another Pizza Inn. It was then that she remembered Pizza Village was the pizza place from when we were in college together!!!!

Now this entire trip was because we both hate the local CiCi’s with a passion and we are boycotting Pizza Hut and those are the only two other options open to us in this dive of a town (restaurants suck around here) But faced with the dilemma of angry kids and empty stomachs we headed to the lesser of two evils, the evil place known as CiCi’s. I guess ChuckECheese was an option, but somehow those words never came out of our lips, that place is as close to a parent’s own personal hell as I think a human can imagine…………

So we make it to CiCi’s and we are enjoying a creation known as “Buffalo Wings Pizza” poor buffalo sauce, terrible dough, crappy chicken cubes and stale cheese….. yep, we are at CiCi’s but we are also sitting next to the game room. Now this was done on purpose, you see our son has decided he wants to be shy now, so he won’t go away from us into the game room unless we are right there next to the game room, for some reason both of our kids have an absurd fascination with kidnappers, but I digress. So our kids would wander back in to the video games, that they have unfortunately learned require quarters to really play, but thanks to the wonders of plastic and magnetic strips, we had NO CASH!!!

Of course that didn’t stop them from going back there and pretending to play, nor did it stop the Palestinian mother next to us from allowing her 6 kids from doing the same. Now some may be wondering why I actually bothered to label the mother here, as to her nationality and how I came to this knowledge, but I am getting there.

You see as we were eating we heard the boys in the video room, at a moment that both of our kids we sitting at the table eating with us luckily, hollering “DEATH TO AMERICA” and “AMERICA SUCKS” Now if this wasn’t a kicker enough the game they were playing was “Race USA” You remember the video game from when I was teen, you pick out your car then race on different roads all across the US, if you make it to the checkpoints you get to keep going……

Looking around the room there was us, a Mexican birthday party, an birthday party with all black kids, and a few other very white families. Well as you can imagine we were kind of judgemental about the kids and the mom in the durka sitting next to us. I decided it would probably be a good idea to go back and supervise the kids, and get them ready to go, of course they were begging for “just one more minute please!!!!” and thankfully they were oblivious to the “death to America” boy who was still hollering at his video games.

 Well Heather started to be convicted about her attitude as God was speaking to her heart that God loved this family just as much as He loved ours, and that we needed to show them that love as well. So Heather struck up a conversation with the mom about the youngest daughter, who was exceptionally striking and had beautiful bouncing curly dark brown long locks of hair. As they had the “mom” conversation the Palestinian mother asked how many kids we had, Heather said right now we only had two, but we were adopting two from Ethiopia as well.

Well the kid, who was hanging around as a stranger just told her how cute she was and she was the typical 4 year old who loves attention, piped up that her freind Joseph was from Ethiopia. Her mom didn’t have a clue as to who Joseph was but doubted that he was really from Ethiopia, and Heather asked her what her friend looked like, and she replied he was dark brown. Well the 17 year old sister piped in that she knew who Joseph was but that he looked “Indian” not “African”

Well it was enough to spark some hope in us, so on a CiCi’s napkin Heather wrote a note about our adoption, and desire to connect with local Ethiopian families and her cell phone number and gave it to the mother to pass along to Joseph’s mother.

We are having lunch with an Ethiopian family this Saturday.

 Yes, we are just as dumbfounded as you are right now, the steps that led to this discovery is such a “God thing” it’s just funny. We could have missed this treasure in so many different ways, not being there at the right time, not sitting in the right spot, not showing love to those that God loves dearly, it’s just one of  those things that when you sit back and look at the big picture you are just dumbfounded at how God accomplishes these things.

Of course I will fill you all in after the weekend as they will be coming to eat lunch with us and Heather will be cooking her injera and doro wat, so we will have an official Ethiopian review of whether we got it right or not.