Day 6 - Cooking in Marrakesh

Day 2 in Marrakesh was Eid, the end of Ramadan. After a month of fasting, this is a big deal - a major holiday with feasts and family. 
Gina had arranged a cooking class for us in the home of a Moroccan family. They started by serving us Eid pastries with mint tea and introducing us to all of the family members - the host's wife, 2 small children, parents, brothers, sister and their spouses.

 A lot of other family members dropped by during the day because of the holiday. 
The wife and mother of our host were the cooking  teachers. The kitchen was upstairs and we were each issued an apron, a cutting board and paring knife. We took our places around a vinyl covered table in the center. We were learning to make a tagine (cooked in a clay pot) and couscous, a typical Moroccan meal.

It involves a lot of peeling, slicing and dicing of vegetables - onions, carrots, potatoes, eggplant, zucchini, peppers.... The spices were ginger, turmeric, cumin... Making couscous is a 3 stage process, adding oil and water at each stage, then steaming some more.

While we were working, the natives were chillaxing. 

It was hot in the kitchen - the house doesn't have air conditioning. After 2 hours, it occurred to me as we were grating tomatoes that they had read Tom Sawyer and knew about the whitewashing business. What a great hack - get tourists to pay you to come and do your kitchen labor!
It really was a unique and memorable experience though. The family was very friendly and hospitable. And the meal was delicious!

Comments

  1. BusterJune 6, 2019 at 12:33 PM

    This is hilarious. Glad you guys are staying cool if/when possible.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AllieJune 7, 2019 at 4:05 AM

    This post was hysterical! It is so fun to follow your adventures

    ReplyDelete
  3. MeryleJune 8, 2019 at 6:16 PM

    Love this!!! What an amazing experience!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 12 Supplemental from Ana Wojtysiak

Image
Katya  "slept in" until  almost 11am today. It turned out she was pretending to sleep because she heard Mom say "sort laundry". When she woke up, she repeated our conversation  word-for-word. The little stinker! Sadly,  it rained  all day. But that didn't mean Mom let us stay inside. We were  dragged  into the rain to visit this Gaudi house in the city called Casa Batllo, (pronounced Bay-oh). I have to admit, it was pretty cool. The whole house was water themed with swirly ceilings and scaly walls.  We took the virtual tour, so we had headphones  and devices that showed us what the rooms would look like with furniture while we walked around in the house. Then, we walked a few blocks (it was still raining) to a really good bakery where we met grandma and grandad. The hot chocolate we had there was like a chocolate  mousse in a cup. Then we had to say goodbye because they were staying  an extra day in Barcelona and we were going to Ro...
Read more

Day 24 At Sea to Italy

Image
You might think that "sea days" might be boring; not with my grandkids. The day started out with a two hour, behind the scenes tour of the ship. Here's the bridge.  This ship has an interesting feature on the bridge. It has an overhang on both sides to view the side of the ship for docking. That section even has a glass floor to allow total vision of that side of the ship. There's a matching overhang on the starboard side. This picture shows that overhang and our French tour guide, Baptiste. From the bridge we went to the engine room. I was shocked to learn that the power for the ships engines came from 2 gas turbines, not diesel engines. Here's a screen they use to monitor the ships air-conditioning. It actually shows they only have 3 working chiller with one being off-line. The Engine room has about 20 similar screens. From the Engine Room we toured the Kitchen. We noticed that they post a picture of each meal on the menu to have a consistent offering. After the...
Read more

Day 16 - Last Full Day in Rome

Image
Just for adventure I explored the long tunnel that links the escalator at the top of our street with the Spanish Steps. The tunnel with it's various twists and byways was over half-a-mile long. At each turn I made a mental note of the signs and arrows I would face on the way back. As luck would have it, I ran into Scott & Jimmy at the base of the steps. They were happy to let me lead them back through the tunnel for a cool trip back to their place. The escalators and moving walkways sure beat climbing the steps. OK, the first time is fun but it gets old after that. Later, I got a bee in my bonnet to show my grandkids the Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon. But when we got to the fountain, it was a sea of tourists. They bring 'em in from all over the world by the busload. Now here's a picture without the sea if tourists.. We made our way through to get crowd to the Pantheon. It was crowded too, but it was much more manageable. I love the inside and the single open-air skyli...
Read more