Carpe Gateau

"Wait a minute? Isn't she in Thailand now?" 

YES! I have arrived safe and sound in Thailand. After spending a week in Phuket at the beach and under the sea I am now in Bangkok (BKK from here on out) But, in the interest of keeping the blog chronological, giving myself some credit for blogs I've written and failed to post, and closing out the Morocco part of the journey...ahead are a few posts that are ancient but still entertaining:)

Carpe Gateau or 'Seize the Cake!'

The last French class I took in the States was this past fall. I liked the teacher but found myself at the slow table with the guy who asks really obvious questions. One of the classes was devoted almost entirely to bon bons. The professor brought in a power point presentation with colorful and detailed pictures of different sweets from France and discussed the history and ingredients of each. While I appreciate bon bons, at the time I didn’t understand the fuss and how this lesson was supposed to improve my language skills! Since coming to Morocco I wonder no more.

Imagine streets where every other business is a café (and none of them say ‘Starbucks’) or a ‘patisserie’ which, although it sounds blasphemous, trumps any Italian bakery I have seen on Long Island . I have a mental map of all of my favorites that can be accessed at any moment. In this strictly Muslim country, everyday looks like Christmas in the windows of these delicious pieces of heaven. Giant plates are piled high with delectable truffles, or horn shaped pastries filled with almond or fig filling. My favorites are the chocolate covered, nut-filled sweets with a walnut on top. A common snack here is mint tea (served in a tall glass, hot, and brimming with real mint leaves and enough sugar to make you a diabetic) and Moroccan pastries. The sweet stuff is either cookies or sweets from the closest patisserie or a piece of ‘gateau’ (cake) that is so perfect looking and tasting you would swear it wasn’t cut out of a giant sheet like its brothers and sisters. In my experience, cake either tastes better than it looks or looks better than it tastes but somehow the French (and now the Moroccans) have succeeded at winning first prize in both categories.

So now that I have teased out the sweet tooth in each one of you, I will leave you with a few picturesque examples as a final torture…I mean temptation…

banana-chocolate crepe :)

 

 

Oops I took a small bite before I took the picture:)