Slow cooking at its best!!

Last night I slept like a log...that is until the call to prayer came blaring out of the speakers at the mosque at 5:30am.  It literally felt like someone was over my head with a magaphone...and that was with my earplugs in! Luckily I was so tired I fell back to sleep when it was all over and woke up to the sound of our alarm.

We were up at 8:00am so we had time to get ready, enjoy our breakfast and get to our cooking class for 10:00am.  At breakfast we were greeted by the stunning fragrance of roses at our breakfast table and the most delicious freshly squeezed orange juice I have ever had....Moroccan's certainly enjoy their carbs!

Once we finished our breakfast, our first test was to hail a cab...I think we earned a gold star with this activity...not only did we hail a cab successfully, we gave directions to a place we've never been, and arrived right on time!!!

Our cooking class was held at the Amal Women's Training Center.  We purposely booked here because this center helps disadvantaged women who are widowed, divorced, single mothers or orphaned.  Here they provide intense training in hospitality, literacy, accounting, management, and life skills over a six month program held six days a week....the center even recently won a grant for entrepreneurship and some of the women have used the funds to start their own successful businesses.  Amal is also rated the second best restaurant in Marrakech.  An incredible place, with the most delightful hostess/instructor/translator Oumaima.

Our group consisted of 15 people from the US, Canada, Vienna and the U.K.  We started off with some information about spices and food pairings...salt & pepper on everything, turmeric & ginger is always given in equal portions, saffron is only rubbed over meat, not vegetables, cinnamon and nutmeg are used as a sweetners for meats, paparika and cumin for vegetable, and lemon juice, garlic and preserved lemon pulp are used as sanitizers on chicken and fish.  

Onions are always placed on the base of the tagine and when making vegetable tagine you must always place the food symmetrically in the dish so that when it is served everyone at the table should have the same food options.

After we mixed our spices, chopped our onions and then added our meat, we put the tagine on our individual kanun that needed to be fanned using a bellows. 

When the coals were nice and hot with a good flame, we left them to simply work their magic, adding water as needed. 

While we waited for things to cook we enjoyed some Moroccan mint tea...this time unsweetened with a hint of orange flower blossom we picked from the tree....I love the intense mint flavour.

When our food was ready, along with our delicious homemade fruit drinks, we all sat together and enjoyed a scrumptious meal of chicken, lamb, beef and vegetable tagines...just as the rain started to come down on us of course.

With a little manovering and an umbrella for style, we all found a dry place to eat...and eat we did.  

Definitely the best way to start our trip to Morocco and something I will not forget.  We even have our tagine recipes so we can try things out when get back home...so be prepared.

After we payed our bill we decided to walk over to the Jardin Majorelle.  This place is now an museum and outdoor 12 acre garden.  It was originally owned by a French painter who then sold it to Yves St. Laurent; he transformed it into what it is today before his death in 2008...his ashes are actually spread here.  

An impressive "garden" full of huge cactus and a variety of other plants.  It had brightly painted walls and pots throughout and the museum was an unexpected surprise filled with Berber traditional skills, jewlery and clothing/finery...a well displayed and quaint little spot that demonstrated the richeness and vibrant culture of these indigenous  and most ancient tribes of North Africa.

We then decided we would take our chance at walking home with our map and hopefully a sense of direction. Along the way we walked by Cyber Park with its well manicured orange trees...free wifi here...found a local mosque just as the call to prayer was being announced...very interesting to see all the men entering off the street...and then arrived at La Koutoubia.  

La Koutoubia is a beautiful mosque and the largest in Marrakech.  It is flood light at night and we can see it from the roof top of our Riad.

It was 5:00pm by the time we finally found our way back to Riad Rose Meryam...sometimes I am amazed at how we found this little spot just inside the walls of the medina.  

Tonight has been pretty low key, relaxing and getting a bit more organized...glad we decided to stay in as we can hear heavy rain coming down at this very moment.

Tomorrow will be our final day in Marrakech and we've decided to do a little exploring of the medina souks, main square and who knows what else.

Until then...

L & L