flow­ers and saf­fron, Moroc­can style

Fri­day dawned hot and fair, and Avery woke me up to drag me up the steep flights of stairs to the roof ter­race, where every­one, includ­ing Pete who had just arrived before I awoke, had assem­bled for break­fast. Could there be a more idyl­lic set­ting? Every­one remarked on the beau­ti­ful ancient mosque adja­cent to the riad (Moroc­can for “home”, but only if your idea of home is a small palace), and the morn­ing prayers ema­nat­ing from it at 4 a.m. I was smug in my pos­ses­sion of a very effi­cient white-noise-mak­er, and had not been awak­ened at all by the sounds (turns out “Ama­zon rain­for­est” trumps prayers as far as deci­bels go, or maybe I was just very tired).

I have to say that life is a lit­tle more glam­orous, a lit­tle more edgy, and I in par­tic­u­lar a lit­tle more self-con­scious when one’s break­fast com­pan­ions include two pro­fes­sion­al pho­tog­ra­phers and one fash­ion design­er! Not that he ever said any­thing about my admit­ted­ly low­brow Gap and what­ev­er else cloth­ing, but Vin­cen­t’s friend Emmanuel’s impec­ca­ble style and run­ning com­men­tary on all things cloth­ing-relat­ed was a def­i­nite kick to my lazi­ness as far as fash­ion goes. He is one of those men on whom cloth­ing hangs like on a hang­er, broad-shoul­dered, tall and quite per­fect look­ing, and I found myself want­i­ng to hide behind Avery’s cool sense of style. But at the same time, he exists in a sort of oth­er­world­ly state of inno­cence, float­ing through con­ver­sa­tions, meals, shop­ping trips and par­ties in a sort of gen­tle kind­ness. Emmanuel is one of those peo­ple for whom John’s and my invent­ed phrase “shiny-object syn­drome” was intend­ed: his eye is con­stant­ly being caught by some­thing that will then inspire his fash­ion designs, be it a rare plant in the Yves Saint Lau­rent gar­den, a length of fab­ric in the mar­ket, or Avery’s hair­style, and he flits from sub­ject to sub­ject with absolute spontaneity.

Then Mike was a source of con­stant laugh­ter, as well as doc­u­ment­ing our hol­i­day with the devo­tion of a kind­ly paparaz­zo. He has the pro­fes­sion­al’s abil­i­ty to frame shots, find the per­fect angle, and some­how turn quite an ordi­nary sit­u­a­tion into an event to record. Avery admired his trick of hold­ing his cam­era over­head as he walks, to cap­ture the activ­i­ty behind him with ener­gy and sim­plic­i­ty. I guess prac­tice makes per­fect! He and John spent a lot of time talk­ing cam­eras, and I’m cer­tain­ly look­ing for­ward to his pic­tures of the week­end. But most­ly Mike’s con­tri­bu­tion to any sit­u­a­tion was his bub­bling, con­spir­a­to­r­i­al, seduc­tive laugh­ter. What a gift to find most of life amusing!

And Boyd was… Boyd. Total icon­o­clast, refus­ing to pre­tend enthu­si­asm for the swarm­ing mar­ket when all the rest of us were in a state of avarice and bar­gain-hunt­ing, watch­ing the activ­i­ty with the indul­gence of a favorite uncle, find­ing us all quite nut­ty. I have a feel­ing that there are still waters run­ning deep with Boyd, because Vin­cent (who knows him very well) kept say­ing, “Where’s Boyd?”, and Boyd would protest that he did not always have to be out­ra­geous, he could sim­ply enjoy him­self on hol­i­day, could­n’t he? Was he on good behav­ior for us? He said not, and we can only hope to get to know him bet­ter and see how his fun­ny, iron­ic demeanor devel­ops. Com­plete­ly good company.

Pete was what I am now com­ing to think of as his typ­i­cal self: unruf­fled, always calm, act­ing as the per­fect foil for Vin­cen­t’s change­able, mer­cu­r­ial charm. He can tell a sto­ry bet­ter than any­one I know, I think, one involv­ing a farm­house (could the sto­ry have been set in Moroc­co? per­haps) that was an absolute tip, a dis­as­ter of mess and filth, and when the own­ers invite guests in, they look around at the debris and moan, “Oh, no, some­one’s left the cow flap open!” Loung­ing in his tra­di­tion­al Moroc­can long robe (must find the word for it, like an Ara­bic sari-ish), he radi­at­ed benev­o­lent good humour all weekend.

Then there were Peter and Jane, the gallery own­ers from Not­ting Hill whose space had engen­dered in my such envy last fall, and who were part of such a fes­tive evening at Vin­cen­t’s house around the same time, as well. We’re hop­ing to make it to their next show, “Paule Veze­lay and her cir­cle: Paris & the South of France,” open­ing on Thurs­day. Check it out if you can; Peter and Jane have a very quirky and stim­u­lat­ing aes­thet­ic and you’ll be glad you put their gallery on your radar screen. I hope there’s a spe­cial place in the after­life for peo­ple who are nice to oth­er peo­ple’s chil­dren. Both Peter and Jane, and in fact every­one Vin­cent invit­ed to share his birth­day, treat­ed Avery like an actu­al per­son, which was a relief since they could eas­i­ly have seen the one small child invit­ed as crash­ing bore. What nice people.

Break­fast was a tri­umph of sim­plic­i­ty: glo­ri­ous fresh-squeezed orange juice, a frost­ed glass of mixed local fruit (peach­es were very much in sea­son) topped with unsweet­ened yogurt, rich cafe au lait, and every day a dif­fer­ent lit­tle bread: Fri­day was a lemo­ny corn bread in thick slices, Sat­ur­day lit­tle crepes, and Sun­day rolls speck­led with some native seed. Just deli­cious. After con­fer­ring in the sun­ny court­yard (while Avery amused her­self with the flower petals strewn all over the floor, more falling from the bougainvil­lea as the min­utes passed) we decid­ed to head to the Jardin Majorelle, a glo­ri­ous tan­gle of inter­na­tion­al plants orig­i­nal­ly designed by the painter Louis Majorelle in 1924 and recent­ly restored by Yves Saint Lau­rent, amaz­ing­ly. The gar­den is near­ly as remark­able for the over­whelm­ing blue (a sort of impos­si­bly cobalt shade) of its pots and walls, as for its flow­ers, but it is worth a vis­it in any case. Both Emmanuel and Mike snapped innu­mer­able pho­tos as we wan­dered among the wind­ing paths. Bam­boo so old and tough that peo­ple have scratched graf­fi­ti into it! Cac­ti sprout­ing blos­soms, strange spi­dery ferns grow­ing per­fect­ly hor­i­zon­tal­ly, amaz­ing. On a tru­ly hot day it would be an oasis of calm and cool, and as it was on our per­fect day it was a real pleasure.

From there we emerged into a sort of unof­fi­cial taxi rank and were imme­di­ate­ly set upon by what might have been three broth­ers, or at least three very sol­id busi­ness part­ners, who assured us that they were absolute­ly nec­es­sary for our hap­pi­ness. Vin­cent dis­cussed with them var­i­ous lunch pos­si­bil­i­ties, and we end­ed up in the opu­lent and oh so exot­ic Palais Chahra­mane in the Jew­ish quar­ter of Mar­rakech, eat­ing until I thought we would have to be rolled out. A first course of seem­ing­ly end­less dish­es of veg­eta­bles to share, accom­pa­nied by typ­i­cal Moroc­can round bread: steamed car­rots, cour­gettes, hari­cots verts, aubergines stewed with gar­lic and toma­toes, gor­geous lentilles with pars­ley, still al dente, mar­i­nat­ed cucum­bers, roast­ed beets. Then it was onto a Moroc­can del­i­ca­cy called a pastil­la, which I can describe only as a sort of bak­lawa stuffed with roast chick­en. Seri­ous­ly. A crispy, del­i­cate, sug­ared puff pas­try crust, with chick­en and cin­na­mon inside. Glo­ri­ous! Then a tagine of chick­en, scat­tered with oil-cured olives and scent­ed with pre­served lemons (although the lemons them­selves were not part of the fin­ished dish, as I have had before), slow-roast­ed lamb shank that had the con­sis­ten­cy of a Peking duck, rich­ly fat­ty and crispy, falling off the bone.

The best dish of all, though, to my mind was my plat­ter of tiny lit­tle Moroc­can meat­balls, kef­tas, served in a toma­to sauce with two per­fect­ly poached eggs nes­tled among them. The fla­vor of egg yolk plus gar­licky toma­to plus lamb was ridicu­lous­ly and unex­pect­ed­ly deli­cious, and although it had sound­ed odd on the menu, I’m so glad I tried it. Not that I plan to drop an egg in my next skil­let of spaghet­ti and meat­balls, but still, it was a del­i­ca­cy, and tast­ed very for­eign and exot­ic, and after all, that’s the point, isn’t it?

Final­ly there was an enor­mous mound of cous­cous topped with roast­ed pep­pers and aubergines, and although I don’t nor­mal­ly groove to cous­cous, I tried it in the spir­it of the day (and also to keep up with Avery who was eat­ing her weight in every­thing). It was a rev­e­la­tion: supreme­ly fluffy and light, with real fla­vor. It must be a dif­fer­ent vari­ety alto­geth­er to what we get here, or in Amer­i­ca. Just when we thought we could­n’t eat anoth­er bite, along came a huge plat­ter with a tow­er­ing pile of oranges, their shiny green leaves still on the stems. Vin­cent asked for a lit­tle dish of can­nelle, cin­na­mon, and showed us how to dip the peeled sec­tions of orange into it. Now, I have always been a bit anti-oranges, not being a girl who adores pith, but I was glad I devi­at­ed this time, because the fla­vor of the oranges was beyond any­thing I have ever had before. Some­one remind­ed me that the road to the air­port was lined with orange groves, and cer­tain­ly these were the fresh­est I have ever tasted.

It was such fun to sit back among the glit­ter­ing cush­ions, look up at the walls and ceil­ing entire­ly cov­ered with bright tiles, lis­ten to the out­ra­geous con­ver­sa­tion, def­i­nite­ly not rat­ed G, but since Avery did­n’t seem to mind, we did­n’t mind. I think it was a case of the bits of the con­ver­sa­tion we would­n’t have want­ed her to under­stand being so over her head that it did­n’t mat­ter! For some rea­son, too, Pete got stuck hum­ming the theme song to “I Dream of Jean­nie,” and by the end of the lunch we all were as well. And “Avery, if you had to be one of the Flint­stones, would you be Fred or Wilma?” My French came back in leaps and bounds, remind­ing me as I was remind­ed in Paris last fall, use it or lose it.

Lord have mer­cy, we ate. Then we came out into the sun again and there were our taxi dri­vers, wait­ing to take us to the mar­ket, the souk Jemaa El Fnaa. Now, I am not much for bar­gain­ing. I like to know what some­thing costs and just either do it or not. But bar­gain­ing was expect­ed, and Avery took to it like the prover­bial duck to water. It’s a bit of a tragedy, though, because some­how since her pur­chas­es the lit­tle guys have gone miss­ing: two lit­tle leather camels com­plete with bri­dles and hal­ters. Can we have left them in the riad? Brigitte has not found them so far, but I haven’t giv­en up hope. Avery went in with a cer­tain amount of mon­ey and great deter­mi­na­tion, and emerged total­ly tri­umphant, like­wise with a silky bright blue top and trousers, and a lit­tle pair of slip­pers for Anna. To match her own pair, a gift from Vin­cent. Can you imag­ine, each of us found a pair of exquis­ite leather slip­pers, called baboush­es, each a dif­fer­ent col­or and every­one’s the per­fect size, by our beds on arrival at the riad. Vin­cent sets a very high bar for the role of host. Hey: it was his birth­day; why was he giv­ing presents? Because that’s Vincent.

Every­one was shop­ping for tex­tiles, sil­ver, shoes, bags, and then John and I were intro­duced to Vin­cen­t’s car­pet source, Brahim Frifra, of the Bazar El Ham­ra, tucked away in the secret recess­es of the mar­ket. Not for Vin­cent the eas­i­ly acces­si­ble, open shops at which less­er mor­tals find their wares. No, we had to be led down a dark pas­sage, to a pad­locked door hid­den by a poster of the sights of Mar­rakech, which was furtive­ly moved to one side and the door opened by a silent lit­tle man, who led us through a filthy court­yard, past a tiny bak­ery set back in the wall, past an old marche des esclaves, slave mar­ket, up a crum­bling stair­case, down anoth­er pas­sage through which dust motes danced in the light, and then… the most beau­ti­ful car­pets you can imag­ine. John bar­gained, more and more were brought out to show us. “Spe­cial price just for you. Spe­cial spe­cial price, will not be any low­er,” and tat­tered books of busi­ness cards of “famous” and “impor­tant” cus­tomers rev­er­ent­ly dis­played for our admi­ra­tion. Final­ly we set­tled on a large one, a medi­um-sized one, and a small one for Avery, just like Goldilocks.

I got my wish and vis­it­ed one of the spice stalls, with tow­er­ing pyra­mids of dusky cumin, papri­ka, corian­der, every spice you can imag­ine, piled in cans out­side, and inside a ver­i­ta­ble shangri-la of spices, oils, pig­ments, medica­ments, you name it. I bought a mix­ture called ras el hanout, a Moroc­can sort of cur­ry pow­der, smelling strong­ly of cumin, and a bag of lemon gin­ger pow­der, a small mound of Moroc­can saf­fron which the pro­pri­etor assured me was miles bet­ter than Indi­an saf­fron. And a jar of some­thing called argan oil, reput­ed to cure every­thing and make it taste bet­ter at the same time.

At last we made our way to the grand square in front of the mar­ket and, if you can believe it, hailed a caleche, a horse-drawn car­riage to take us back to the hotel. So exot­ic, so for­eign! Just won­der­ful, heav­en­ly to sit down final­ly, even with Avery on my lap so we could all fit, and jounce along past all the don­key carts, the snake charm­ers, the cov­ered-up women, fer­al cats, and drink it all in. I often feel that the world is becom­ing one enor­mous Star­bucks, enlivened by Wal-Marts and McDon­ald’s and dressed by the Gap, so to find myself in a place of such wild weird­ness was tru­ly a relief. I have to get out more, clearly.

Arriv­ing at the hotel, sweet Moham­mad asked if there was any­thing we need­ed, and it was but the work of a moment to ask for a cou­ple of glass­es of ice, and after run­ning down a list of pos­si­bil­i­ties, a glass of jus de peche for Avery, and retire to our room. How cosy to hear a dis­creet “knock knock” on the wall out­side our room, and Moham­mad come in with a sil­ver tray. What lux­u­ry! After we all relaxed for a bit, had a cock­tail, and scraped the dust off our­selves and pret­tied up, it was time for a can­dlelit din­ner around the shal­low cen­tral pool. Love­ly bro­chettes de viande and lit­tle parcels of pas­try hold­ing cheese, or spring-roll-like crunchy veg­eta­bles. I wish I knew what they were called, but they are a sort of Moroc­can ver­sion of the Indi­an samosa.

Vin­cen­t’s sis­ter Pam arrived, stir­ring up for me a whole life­time-ago mem­o­ry of her hold­ing week-old Baby Avery in our New York apart­ment. Isn’t it hard to sep­a­rate a real mem­o­ry from a pho­to­graph? Would I remem­ber that day with­out the pic­ture of us all, Vin­cent, Pam and our friends Chris and Mar­la, all star­ing down at the baby in Pam’s arms, me to the side and John behind the cam­era. A long time ago. I felt so lucky that we were still friends with these love­ly peo­ple, ten years on.

And how cosy, too, to car­ry a very tired Avery to her own room adja­cent to ours. I remem­ber child­hood evenings of being put to bed while a grownup par­ty was still going on, and how peace­ful it felt. A day and evening to remember…