Going to Atlas

Now that we've finished the 3 day intensive cooking class, we are going on a 3 day road trip to Atlas (mountains). In addition to the owner of the riad (now, she is a tour guide), a local Moroccan driver joined our road trip. Luckily, he spoke English pretty well (and of course, French fluently). By the way,  he can text in Arabic with one phone, talk to a client in French on another cell phone, then still listen to our conversation in English and join us when he is not talking on the phone. Isn't that amazing???

By the way, tea is a big part of Moroccan culture. They drink coffee too but it seems tea is the standard drink for many occasions. But one unusual occasion is before a meal -  not after a meal like we have coffee. But if we consider the fact that Moroccans don't drink alcohol, it makes sense.

On the way to Atlas, we stopped by at a tea shop.

Until this time, all the tea I had was made by the riad owner. It was pretty sweet but within reasonable sweetness. This tea is real... Very sweet. I knew that this was authentic. 

Along with the tea, we had the leftover sweets that I made yesterday. The Moroccan driver said the fekkas was really good. That was my favorite so I was very glad to know that it was good enough to please a local person.

As soon as we arrived at the hotel, which is amazingly rustic and beautiful, we had another tea.

 Again, this is "authentic" tea. It was fantastic but two small glasses would be enough.....


Followed by the tea, we had a lunch there.

                                     Nice salad, each component was prepared individually.

Don't they look amazing? I thought this was chicken but it was actually turkey. I didn't know Moroccans eat turkey. The seasoning was very good. I wish these were chicken because the meat was a bit dry.


After the lunch, we went hiking. What we found was...

Nice pomegranate trees. they are all wild. Unfortunately, the fruit wasn't ripe yet. I tried one but it was still too tangy.

                   We also found many fig trees. Most of them were not ripened yet. But....

This is perfectly ripened fig. I have to say this is the best fig I've ever had. Perfect texture, color and sweetness. I always notice some grassy aftertaste when I eat figs. So, I had never been a big fan of figs. But this was ripened perfectly on the tree so that the grassiness was gone and it was just sweet.... Unfortunately, we didn't find that many perfectly ripened figs. In a few weeks, almost everything would be like this, though.


After we came back from hiking, it was time for dinner. We had a dinner at the lounge with very dim light, which is traditional in Morocco. Even Moroccan restaurants in the US have very dim light... So, the photo quality wouldn't be great.

This is their version of harira. Compared to the one we made during the cooking class, this was much simpler. More liquid.. I wonder if what we made was gourmet version and this is more standard. But I liked what we made yesterday. By the way, cumin is a condiment in Morocco. So, there was cumin in addition to salt and pepper. I added a pinch of salt and cumin, then it tasted so much better.

This is the first tajine I've had outside the riad. I forgot what meat it was. But it was very "tomatoey". Also, because of the prunes, it tasted very light. I liked it.

It's always nice to have the same or similar dishes in different places. The more I try in different locations, the more I understand the dishes.