Kilimanjaro plate brings prosperity, health

Cultures everywhere celebrate the new year with foods that represent good luck and prosperity.....

Cafe Kilimanjaro, on Theater Square downtown, specializes in African cuisine and foods of the African diaspora--from African groundnut stew to Caribbean jerk chicken wings to soul-food cadied sweet potatoes.....

The doro wot (a chicken dish with a gravy made of tomato sauce and spices) tastes like home-cooked comfort food.

But its the Kilimanjaro spinach stew, which isn't exactly a stew; the rice and peas (a pilaf of rice and black-eyed peas); and the atkilt wot (a mix of cabbage, carrots, potatoes and onion) that combine to make a vegetarian plate that will make you feel lucky.

Spiced but not spicy, the rice and peas look like a Southerner's hoppin' John.  They are the perfect accompaniment to spinach stew, which is cooked spinach, lightly coasted with tomato and a mix of spices that makes the dish indescribably delicious.  Bits of fresh tomate are scattered over the top.

Atkilt wot plays foil to the spices with compbination of sweet vegetables nd potatoes.

If this vegetarian plate (order it with injera, the Ethiopian flat bread) doesn't make you prosper economically, certainly you health will improve.  Its a plate the surgeon general could love.....

Find Kilimanjaro at 649 S. Fourth St., on Theater Square, near Broadway.  Reach it at (502) 583-4332.