A Moroccan food odyssey

Hey all

Thanks for your messages and emails, it's been great to hear from you over the last few weeks. We're in London now, staying with our friends Mike and Kristen (thanks SOOO much for having us guys!), again minus Hamish's bag which doesn't seem to like to board the appropriate aircraft at the appropriate time. Hopefully it shows up tomorrow.

I thought I would give you a quick update on Morocco, and promise to post more in the coming week. We had an amazing 2 weeks, 1 week of which was traveling with friends Becs and Christian through some cute wee sea ports and hillside towns in Morocco. The perfect way to end our trip, and we will miss the smiling faces of our travel buddies now that we're back in the real world!

My favorite Moroccan experience was in Essaouira, a sea port about 3 hours from Marrakech, and involved a delicious seafood lunch at the back of a fish market with not another tourist in site. We chose our fish fresh from the sea at the market stalls; it was filleted and gutted at a nearby stand and taken to a grill at the back of the market to be cooked and served up to us at little wooden tables with olives, harissa, tomato salad, bread and drinks. Delicious!

In fact, we ate like royalty every day in Morocco, with delicious tangines, couscous, brochettes (meat skewers) and fresh sea food. Oh, and pastilla! Chicken or pigeon filo pastry with almonds, cinnamon and spices and icing sugar (of all things).

Next update, crazy incidents involving modes of transport.

And photo credits to Becs, Christian, Hamish and me. This one has been a real collaboration.

x

Night markets, Jemaa el Fna, Marrakech

Cooking our dinner, Marrakech

Mint tea, or Berber whiskey

Olives for Africa

Freshly squeezed orange and grapefruit juice

The fish markets, Essaouira

Our fish salesman 

Sardines ready for the grill

Accompaniments 

The leftovers (not that there really were any)

Markets, Essaouira

Moroccan crepes with honey

Donuts, Moroccan style

Another fish dinner, El Jadida

Tagines and pastilla, Meknes

The most amazing sandwich ever

which was almost as big as my head

The team ready to depart for Fes

Our new friend, Aziz in Moulay Idriss