Wat’s New at Petit Valentien

Sekkardis Alemu Serves Ethiopian Weekend Lunch

Serkaddis Alemu, despite having lived in the U.S. for nearly two decades, remains Ethiopian at heart. She admits, If you sit with any Ethiopian for long, don’t be surprised if the discussion ends up about food. To know the food is to know the people. She’s helping Santa Barbara know both the food and the people, serving Ethiopian lunch on the weekends at Petit Valentien, the restaurant owned by her partner, Robert Dixon.

Alemu points out that she is cooking merely a fraction of her country cuisines, mostly food from the north where her family is from (in Ethiopia, there is really not a single cuisine, even though many stews are lumped under the term wat), though not necessarily the same way.

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