The City Grit Dinner of Hiyaw Gebreyohannes

Tim Tim Salad: Heirloom Tomatoes, Kale, Crispy Injera, Roasted Peppers, Jalapeño aioli with Avocado Compote Hiyaw Gebreyohannes who cooked his style of Ethiopian food at City Grit on March 27.

Kitfo: Steak Tartar, Fresh Cottage Cheese, Collard Greens

Preparing the Foie Gras

 Hiyaw Gebreyohannes and his team in the kitchens at City Grit

Above: The Injera (is a yeast-risen flatbread with a unique slightly spongy texture, traditionally made out of teff flour, is a national dish in Ethopia and Eritrea.) Below: Plantains and Ginger: Ginger Elixir, Plantains, Honey wine ice Cream

Chef Hiyaw Gebrayohannes doesn’t know if it was a conscious thing to start selling the food he grew up with, but he thinks it was more instinct, probably. The moment of clarity was sitting in his parents restaurant in Michigan and seeing his dad cooking, and his mom trying to convince him to stay in Michigan and run the business and him arguing with them and saying they should “just package the food and sell it like that”, and when he went home that night, he couldn’t get the idea out of his mind. Now Hiyaw runs Taste of Ethopia, which currently has 7 cuisines to go, and if you go to the hot bar at Wholefoods in the North-East region you can pick his food straight up and dine on it at home.

This last week, March 27, Hiyaw cooked at City Grit. City Grit is the brain child of chef, Sarah Simmons and her business partner Jeremie Kittredge, and it’s housed in a phenomenal space—an old school house In Nolita, that’s an antique store by day, and a restaurant by night (guests have been known to purchase the furniture, and lighting fixtures between entree and main). The place features supper-club style dinners, and a guest-chef series of well-known and emerging chefs. This means that the menu gets to change frequently, and organically, and in the larger picture, it gives an opportunity for emerging chef’s to be able to showcase their (maybe, unseen) culinary work.

Hiyaw wanted to make all the dishes to have the ability to be served with the Injera. (Injera is a yeast-risen flatbread with a unique slightly spongy texture, traditionally made out of teff flour, is a national dish in Ethopia and Eritrea.) And that worked. The menu was inspired from his travels within Africa and his childhood dinners. He wanted to create something that was authentic to the flavors but yet have a beautiful presentation.

Photographer Matthew Cylinder went along and photographed Hiyaw a few hours before the event...

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Taste of Ethiopia has currently 7 cuisines you can pick up in New York and eat at home: Misir (spicy red lentils), Kik (Yellow Split Peas), Gomen (Collard Greens), Yatikilt (cabbage and Carrots) Injera (Ethiopian Flat Bread), Dora Wet (Spicy Chicken) and Loze Wet (Peanut Chicken) at Wholefoods, Fairway, Park Slope Food Coop, Westerly market, Union Market Brooklyn, Foragers City Grocer, Brooklyn Fare, and more. And how do they taste? The food is restaurant grade, and it has such a depth of flavor, it’s filling and also reasonably priced. I like to pick up the Misir (really spicy! red lentils), the Kik (Yellow Split Peas) and the Gomen (Collard Greens) and mix them together. Of course Ethiopian food gets obvious comparisons to Indian food because of the similar heat and spices, but this feels a less fatty, but still spicy version of an Indian take-away, and 5 out of the 7 options are vegan! I don’t know of any other dishes of this calibre that you can pick up, sup on for a couple of days, and still feel really good about what you’re eating. I even froze some leftovers and they re-heated up just fine.

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To check out more about Chef and Owner Hiyaw Gebreyohannes Taste of Ethiopia, click here.

To learn about City Grit, click here.

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PHOTOGRAPHED BY MATTHEW CYLINDER 

MATTHEW CYLINDER is a photographer and artist based in Brooklyn, NY. When he's not eating whole mangoes, or whole loaves of bread, you can find him with a Sharpie in hand sketching surreal images that enlighten some, and scare others. Check out his work here.

Food Porn: The New Food & Wine Cookbook is out.

The new Food and Wine "America's Greatest New Cooks" book is out. And since I'm obsessed with the word 'favorite', I asked one of my 'favorite' photographers Christina Holmes, 5 questions concerning her... well, favorites.

What was your favorite unused outtake image? That would be the play nougat series from Julianne Jones. (Below).

What was your favorite shot in book? Tough. That would have to be a toss up between the Mescal Cured Salmon from Alex Stupak, (below) or the Tart Flambé from Julianne Jones. I feel they transport me when I'm looking at them to a moment where I was actually sitting there eating enjoying the food, or at least wished I could have been!

What was your favorite overall recipe? This is a tough one, but it would be between the Spring Papetoui from Julianne Jones (clean, fresh, and flavorful), and the Smokey Collard Greens from Sarah Simmons (below) unexpectedly wonderful, the Port Ossobucco from Jimmy Bannos (had such great depth to the dish) or the Chipotle Roasted Carrots from Alex Stupak, which had great flavor and a perfect fresh kick.

Ok, confess, what was your favorite dessert, from ALL of them? I do think I ate the entire Almond Cake from Belinda Leong! (far below) And same thing for the Kaffir Lime Custard from Bryant Ng (below) as it has such lovely subtle flavor and wonderful texture.

...and what was your favorite part of working on this book?

Honestly it was the freedom that F&W gave me to really create imagery that I believed in. They allowed me to shoot how I wanted to shoot and do interesting, unique and off-the-cuff imagery. Things like creating the ingredient portrait openers that were used for the Table of Contents (very top image). Those just happened randomly and organically starting with the very first morning of our two week adventure as I was waiting for the first recipe to be prepared each morning. In the end each of these individually strong still-life images quietly began representing each of the chef's ingredient inspirations for what recipes they held for the reader. So if I guess I really had to choose one thing that I loved most about the book, it would be the moments where I was working together with my incredible team; I truly got to create images that represented the true aesthetic of my work.

Thanks for the interview Christina! x

Behind the scenes: The making of the book.

Food & Wine Cookbook edited by Dana Cowin Creative Director: Stephen Scoble

Photo Editors: Fredrika Stjårne,

Anthony LaSala, Sara Parks

Photographs by Christina Holmes Designer: Michelle Leong Food Stylist: Vivian Lui

Food Assistant: Craig Leickfelt Prop Stylist: Pamela Duncan Silver Photo Assistant: Jake Vinsek

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CHRISTINA HOLMES: is a New York based photographer with deep roots in Michigan. When it comes to her favorite foods, her list is long! She will eat anything from Il Buco restaurant, she covets the Mushroom & Egg pizza from ABC Kitchen, loves the pork belly at the Breslin, the olive oil gelato at Otto, the olive oil cake from Abraco, the chocolate chip cookies from City Bakery, and any dessert from Lady M! Her clients include Food & Wine, Bon Appétit, Whole Living, The Cooking Channel, Sweet Paul, Chop’t. Check out her work here.