Cooking in Morocco 3: Fun in the kitchen

The Moroccan cooking class felt like a professional cooking show, with all the beautiful vegetables and spices already displayed in dishes in a beautiful, enormous kitchen. 

Dressed like the locals.

We jumped in to help as much as we could. Apparently, not all people who have taken their cooking class were willing to get their hands dirty! What's the point of a cooking class if you aren't willing to learn by doing? This earned us brownie points with everyone there and they taught us a few extra dishes in return. 

The kitchen was also a flurry of languages. Comments and instructions went from one end of the chain to the other and back again, going through Moroccan Arabic - French - English and then back again with the response or jokes. As the person in our group with the most French speaking experience, I got to do the bulk of the French to English translation. I love cooking, but I also had a lot of fun practicing my translation - it's been a REALLY long time and I was surprised at how much I remembered. All this translating might seem like it could bog things down, but it was a fun flurry of languages and passion for cooking and it certainly kept us all laughing all the way through! 

Beauty in nature.

Plating our food so it looks as beautiful as it tastes. 

We all took turns frantically scribbling everything down in the notebook. This was the only way to remember everything since we were cooking 10 dishes approximately simultaneously. 

We took the class very seriously...really.

I assure you, we were working very hard...

One piece!

Master Chef Bram finishing the sugared apples with fleur d'orangier yogurt. 

Making meatballs for the kefta. 

The best part of a cooking class is the end - tasting all the wonderful things you've created! There is a special prize for anyone who reads through to the bottom (spoiler: it might be recipes!).

Our first course - Moroccan salads. Includes aubergine, green beans, and the salad that essentially means 'salad of whatever you happen to have lying around'

The suspense! This was also our only meal with wine on the whole trip - we decided to try a local vintage with our fancy meal.

An easy dessert, but hard to beat. Moroccan oranges are the best! This is simply sliced oranges with strawberries, cinnamon, and powdered/icing sugar on top. Simple, beautiful, and delicious!!

Salade Aubergine

Ingredients: 

• Aubergine - cut up, remove some skin, rinse in H2O 
• Paprika - 2 heaping teaspoons 
• Cumin - 2 heaping teaspoons 
• garlic - 2 heaping teaspoons 
• olive oil - 2 tablespoons 
• salt - 1 teaspoon + some later 
• coriander 1.5 teaspoon 
• 1 cup water 

Directions: 5 minutes in pressure cooker. Squish them. Taste and season and let them boil down until it's a thick consistency.

Tajine Viande Agée Kefta

Ingredients: 

• 7 tomatoes 
• 1.5 tablespoons parsley 
• 2-3 teaspoon garlic 
• 1 heaping teaspoon cumin 
• 2 heaping teaspoon paprika 
• 1 heaping teaspoon salt 
• olive oil 2+ tablespoons 
• Ground meat - ground with onion, parsley, cumin and salt 
• egg 

Directions: Slice bottom of the tomato and then grate tomatoes into skillet. Mix in parsley, garlic, cumin, paprika, salt, and olive oil. Put tajine on fire and cover (or use a regular large sauce pan with lid). After 5 minutes, stir well. Make meatballs from ground meat (mix in onion, parsley, cumin, and salt if not pre-ground in). Add meat balls to tajine and cover. Wait until meatballs start to cook. Add egg on top and recover. Cook ∼20 minutes.

Bon apetit!

Cooking in Morocco 2: Teaching the Teachers

As anyone who's ever stood in front of a classroom can tell you, you learn a lot as a teacher. Our cooking class was no exception.

We started out with some general prep. Three of us washed chicken pieces by using lots of salt under the skin to remove the connective tissue and mucous.

Nico managed to get out of this job (there was only so much space at the small sinks), so they jokingly decided to "punish" him by assigning him a tedious job next: peeling all the garlic cloves. Instead of being dismayed, he started grinning and asked for a metal bowl with a metal lid. After a few questioning looks, they dug in the cupboards, dubiously handed him what he asked for, and then gathered around.

Nico put all the garlic in the dish, covered it with the metal lid, and shook like mad! He took the lid off to a pile of peeled garlic and a round of applause. For people who peel a ton of garlic cloves on a daily basis, this was a wonderful discovery! They delightedly proceeded to try it out for themselves. Nico certainly earned his honorary title they used for the rest of the day: 'Chef'.

Round of applause for 'The Chef'

They found more garlic cloves so everyone could join in on the garlic-peeling fun

Normally, fun things have disclaimers like "Don't try this at home" but we're willing to make an exception in this case. Here's the YouTube video where Nico first saw this trick so you can absolutely try this at home!

Cooking in Morocco 1: The Market

While we were in Morocco, we took a cooking class from the woman who ran our riad. She let us pick our favorite meals and then guided us from buying ingredients to final presentation of the dish. It's way too much for a single post, so I'll break it into a couple of pieces (with a recipe or two at the end!).

Our cooking class started out with a trip to the market to buy all the ingredients for our meal. I couldn't read our shopping list, but luckily our guide had no problems!

First stop: chicken!

We expected to pick up a butchered chicken. We were very wrong...

They reached down and grabbed a live chicken. He looks so peaceful on the scale... 

Then they broke the chicken's neck and butchered him while we waited. A few minutes later, he handed us a package of chicken that looked like it could have come from any supermarket. It doesn't get any fresher than that!

Lots of stray cats. No stray dogs. Muhammad said something like "a love of cats is an aspect of faith" with a particular story about him cutting off the sleeve of his prayer robe rather than disturb his favorite sleeping cat. Needless to say, we saw lots of stray cats fighting over the entrails of the chickens. 

Another stray cat in a different market area. He saw me taking a picture and came over to say hello :)

Only dog that we saw at the market...

 Back to the ingredients for the recipes...

Fresh olives - good for recipes, if they last beyond snacking :)

We bought some beef for kefta (little meatball tagine). The guy grinds it up for you and even adds the onions, herbs, and spices!

 Speaking of spices: Look at all the saffron! Everything was incredibly cheap, too.

Lots of fresh vegetables in every dish. One of my favorites is the aubergine (eggplant) salad!

Who needs standardized weights and measures? Let's just use a ball of rubber bands, some metal weights, and some scraps of veggies... Although it's hard to complain when food was so cheap.

With all the ingredients for our meal purchased, it was time to head back to the riad and get our hands dirty!

Stay tuned for Cooking in Morocco Part 2: Teaching the teachers!

My seventh continent!

23 April 2015

Written at approximately age 16:

"Life goals: Learn to drive a manual transmission, become fluent in a foreign language, visit all 7 continents"

Who knew I'd need to start a new list so early in life? The trip to Morocco represents my seventh continent and a big life goal checked off my list.

Look at my new passport stamp!!!

My amazing friends created a certificate for me:  a Doctorate from the University of the World. My committee consisted of one signature per continent from someone who was on the trip with me. Nico managed to do this all without raising any suspicion :)  I love my 'honorary doctorate of exploration' and I can't wait to frame it! (Although I don't even have the real PhD framed).

Signatures from my 'committee': Leanne Walker/Shultz (Australia, Asia), Beth Fernandez (Africa), Bram Van der Geest (North America), Caroline Wilson (Europe), Andy Hein (Antarctica), and JJ Thorne (South America), 

There was a fancy 'commencement' ceremony held on the rooftop terrace of the riad our first evening in town. 

Another celebration of 7 Continents in the desert.
These are all the passport stamps - 1 from each continent!

But this wasn't the only milestone celebrated on this trip:

Nico: 1 year at Amazon!

We each have our own milestones, but we've also been together for 10 years!
Can't think of anyone else I'd rather share my last continent with :)

 I guess it's time to start thinking about adding some new life goals to my list...

A cocktail party education

14 Feb 2015

A cocktail party can be a very international educational experience (and much more fun than sitting in a classroom!). Things I learned at a cocktail party:

1) Making cocktails is messy business
Making mixed drinks (pouring, using a shaker, etc.) is not as easy as it looks when the bartenders do it (my drink-coated table and floor will attest to this!). We had milk punch (alcoholic milkshake) and brambles (a fun, British drink) - we got the hang of it eventually!

2) Party games are different across the ocean
I went to a well-respected party school for college (Go UW-Madison!) and thought I had a good handle on party games. However, I learned two new games. One is distinctly British and the other is too much fun not to share:

Save the Queen:
Using a British coin (which has a picture of the Queen on it), you have to try and get the coin into someone else's drink. If they are holding the drink, you can slip it in. Otherwise, you have to throw the coin in. If you succeed, you exclaim 'Save the Queen!' (because she's drowning!) and they have to finish their drink. Of course, beware that you don't accidentally swallow the Queen in your haste to save her from her watery fate...

Paper/Guessing Game:
Using whatever theme you want (anything from all nouns to famous people or Valentine's Day), each player fills out three slips of paper with appropriate (or inappropriate!) words. Then the game is played using teams and three rounds. In the first round, each person gets 1 minute to try and get their team to guess as many of the words as possible by describing them in any way, but without using the word on the paper (a la Balderdash). When the minute runs out, the other team gets 1 minute and it goes back and forth until all the words have been guessed. At this point, everyone on both teams has heard all the possible words. You would think that would make the following two rounds easier...
In round 2, the format is the same, but you only get a single word descriptor. Finally, round 3 is miming only.

3) Names for Disney heroes/villains are not the same across languages
This difference is apparent mostly when trying to use the name in a party game with people from at least 5 different countries! Our particular example was Cruella vs Crudelia. I looked up another example as well as my homework.

• English: Huey, Dewey, Louie
• Finnish: Tupu, Hupu, Lupu
• Swedish: Knatte, Fnatte, Tjatte
• Danish: Rip, Rap, Rup
• Norwegian: Ole, Dole, Doffen

4) Innocent handwriting misinterpretations can lead to hilarity.
I'll leave you to invent a definition for 'spankles'!

Cheers!