Cooking Class

Today was our cooking class that we booked on line at Faim d'Epices.  They were to pick us up in front of our hotel at 10:00.  We were down a little early and the cab drivers/guides told us that was a long ways away.  They would take us.  No we'll wait.  Tours were offered and suggestions made.

Within a few minutes up pulled a nice van with the name on the side.  We hopped in the front seat and there were three other couples in the back that we couldn't see over the headrests.

It was at least a 20 minute ride out in the middle of nowhere, near Timbucktoo.     Highway turned to country road with speed bumps, turned to gravel.  No speeding and good driving.

We arrived and the owner, Michel, greeted us and invited us into the lobby where we sat as he gathered tea or coffee.

We introduced ourselves to each other and decided we would have a fun day.  A couple from Manchester a little younger than us, their pregnant daughter and her husband, also from Manchester.  A newly married couple from London, first grade teacher and website designer.  And a couple Stanford grad students, one lived in California and the other Switzerland.

Michel was a bit of a goof ball and entertaining.  Originally French it took a little time to get through his accent.  But he spoke slowly and made sure we understood what he was saying.

He explained we would watch bread making, learn about spices while the dough was rising.  Make our bread, watch salads be made, cook our  beef tagine (kind of a stew), cook our bread, make crepes, then eat.

Watching bread making

A lot of moving from our cooking station to the demonstration counter.  Our instructor, Nazhel, lives in the city and rides her moped out each day,  There were a couple staff that did some food prep and stocked and cleared the stations.  Very well orchestrated all day.

His color is purple as all the accent colors were purple, his hat band, watch, shoes, cushions, and toilet seats were all purple.  Even the blacked out sunglasses he made us wear as he held the different spices under our noses.  He showed us real saffron and explained why there was no way they had real saffron in the spice shop we visited.

The saffron flowers only grow between 4,000 and 6,600 feet elevation, they must be harvested before sunrise,  they only take the stigma of the flower and it takes 1,000 - 1,700 flowers to produce a gram after drying.  The spice shop was selling it for $6.25 for 3 grams  when it is really 5.5 - 7 Euros per gram.  We used two stigmas of saffron in our dish.

 Boxing the bread

Iron Chefs

 Nazhel our instructor and the Stanford Trees.

 Parents to be

 Grandparents to be

  You ate my mother?

We ate our labor (not goat) outside, complimented the chefs, had dessert with crepes and ice cream.  We were delivered back to the hotel a little before 5.

It was our theme night dinner and they loaded us on buses and took us to Place Jemaa el-Fna.  That is the huge square of the food carts, snake charmers, monkeys, and total chaos!  We ate a a fancy touristy place and had beef tagine that wasn't nearly as good as what we made.

A late night for us as the bus got us back at 11.  Long, but fun day.