Journaling:
After our walk through Tangier, we stopped at the Blue Door Cooking School to make our own lunch. The staff there was wonderful; it was fun and interesting to spend a few hours talking to people who call Morocco their home. We began with Moroccan bread. The baker mixed up the dough for us, without measuring anything, then we all formed our own little round loaves. They were sent out to the neighborhood oven for baking.

Then we moved into the next room, where each couple was given a cooktop, tagine pot, knife, and the ingredients for our chicken tagine. We chopped and measured, following our hostesses' directions as we assembled the stew. There were some ingredients new to me, like the preserved lemon and the spice mix.

Once the burners were turned on under our tagines, we relaxed on couches around a low table and learned about Morrocan mint tea. Since it was a special occasion, we chose to add several spices, like star anise, cardamom, clove, and rose. As the tea was prepared and served, we continued our discussion of life in Morocco with our hosts.

Finally it was time to eat our tagine! The bread, freshly baked, reappeared, and our tagines were placed on the table. It was delicious. When that was finished, we returned to the living room to share Moroccan pastries. It was so much fun to learn about Morocco and to make our own tagine. I bought the special spice blend to make tagine back home.