A Marrakesh Inspired Housewarming Gift

How easy it would be to give a kitchen inspired gift I would like to receive.  But I would rather give the intended recipient(s) something they would really want.  My latest opportunity to find just the "right" gift was a lot of fun to acquire and proved to be an inspiration in its own right.

**Recipe Below**

Low and behold the gift of this Tagine:

Hand painted Tagine

Our good friends, Doug & Susan, recently moved into their home at the Marrakesh Country Club in Palm Desert.  The best way to describe the styling of the housing structures would be Hollywood Regency.  You know .... mansard roofs and pullman doors.

Courtesy Palm Springs Modernism Week

The tricky part of a Hollywood Regency home paired with the name Marrakesh is how to decorate.  Fortunately the week before our visit to see them and their new home, they came through our town.  I mentioned to my hubby John, "let's pay attention to what they're talking about for their new place.  Maybe we'll figure out just the right housewarming gift."

Like a gift delivered from the gods, our friends brought a design book to show us the ideas they were thinking about.  Susan said she was going for a bit of the glamour age that Hollywood Regency dictates, but wanted to give a nod to the Moroccan influenced name.

While they both slipped away to the restroom, John and I quickly thumbed through the book for ideas.  See what we saw?

After work one evening, we went to the nearest Williams Sonoma and selected our gift.  Very pleased with ourselves, we took ourselves out to dinner discovering a fantastic Pho restaurant in the mall, 9021PHO.  But I digress....

 The gift was well received and the enthusiasm of what to cook in it the next night took on a life of its own.  After much research we decided on a variation from Epicurious's Chicken Tagine with Couscous.  Being we were not in the land of Morocco, we shopped at the next best ethnic store in the Coachella Valley, Cardenas Market.

A market full of wonderful meats, spices and produce but alas no couscous.  Adapt!  Purchased orzo instead.  We  got a little enthusiastic with our chicken buying and bought too much for our Tagine vessel.  Punt!

We decided it was enough that the Tagine inspired us to make this dish and instead chose the casserole in-the-oven route to bake our feast.  The couscous portion of the meal now turned into a toasted orzo with figs to accompany our braised meat.

We were in a bit of a hurry to get the dish in the oven for a slow cook and didn't get photos documenting the assembly.  It is not terribly difficult as you'll see in the recipe below.

The reason we were in a hurry, is we were aiming to have another type of Moroccan experience.  Market shopping...

If one can't go to the Moroccan Quarter in Granada...then the next best thing is....

The Indio Evening/Night Market, picture courtesy Susan Myrland

We perused every one of the stalls at this bi-weekly swap meet while our dinner concoction was brewing.  By the time we got back home, the most aromatic fragrance drifted to our very hungry tummies.  Imagine how pretty this picture would have been if we could have fit it in the Tagine.

Again, no more time for picture taking...we were over the top ready to eat.  But check out the big cinnamon stick floating in our dish.  It permeated every bit of the meat.  Did the same kind of treatment in the broth where the orzo cooked.

If the Tagine didn't cook it, it made a lovely centerpiece

Chicken Tagine (adapted from Epicurious)

• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 large chicken (about 3 pounds), cut into 8 pieces
• Kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper and Ras El Hanout (Moroccan spice)
• 15 cipollini onions, blanched and peeled
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
• 1/2-inch piece ginger, finely chopped
• 1 cup chicken stock or canned low-sodium broth
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon saffron
• 1/2 cup olives, pitted
• 1/4 cup flat-leaf parsley, chopped
• 1/2  lemon, chopped

Toasted Orzo with Dried Figs (My own invention):

• 1 lb of orzo
• 1 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cups chicken stock
• 1-inch cinnamon stick
• 1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1/4 teaspoon of Ras El Hanout
• 1 cup roughly chopped dried figs

To prepare the tagine or casserole:
1. Preheat the oven to 300°F.

2. In a large skillet, drizzle with the olive oil over medium high heat. Season the chicken liberally with salt, pepper and Ras El Hanout. Working in batches, sear the chicken until deep golden brown on all sides, 5 to 6 minutes total. Reserve seared chicken on a plate.

3. Add the onions to the skillet and cook, stirring occasionally, until light golden brown, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the garlic and ginger to the skillet and continue cooking, until aromatic, about 2 minutes. Add the stock, cumin, and saffron to the pot, and bring the liquid to a boil. Transfer the chicken to the tagine or casserole dish along with any juices that accumulated while it rested.  Pour in the onion/spices mixture to the same tagine or casserole.

4. Cover the tagine or casserole with a tight-fitting lid and bake until the chicken has cooked through, about 2 hours.

5. When the chicken has cooked through, add the olives, parsley, and lemons to the pot. Reserve warm over low heat until ready to serve.

To prepare the toasted orzo with dried figs:
1. Heat butter in a 12" non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add orzo stirring frequently, toasting until lightly brown and golden.  Set aside.

2. In a medium pot over high heat, bring the chicken stock, cinnamon, turmeric,red pepper and Ras El Hanout to a boil. Add the orzo, stir to combine, and cover with a tight-fitting lid and simmer for 10 minutes or until the orzo has absorbed the liquid.

3. Fluff the orzo with a fork. Remove and discard the cinnamon stick. Stir in chopped figs.  Serve warm with the prepared tagine or casserole.

A Kitchen Towel Tutorial

The difference between a kitchen terry cloth towel, a flour sack towel and that of a tea towel has everything to do with its application.  Being Mother's Day, I thought I'd share my mom's advice on their utility.  See Mom, I was listening.  :)

But first, here's one of my very first tea towels as handcrafted by my Aunt many years ago.

Hand Embroidered Flour Sack Towel

A terry cloth hand towel does a great job drying hands just as a bath towel does.  But not so good a job at drying dishes. 

A linen or flour sack towel is much better equipped at drying dishes and cutlery.  They are more absorbent and leave little lint behind.

Flour sack towels came into being due to hard times from the Great Depression up to the 1950's.  No wonder I've been attracted to them for my 1940's kitchen.   Frugal women would make many things including kitchen towels with the tightly woven cotton bags from their food staples (cornmeal, flour, sugar, chicken feed).  The food manufacturers caught onto this trend and started to print pretty patterns on their fabric.  When times became more prosperous, food was distributed in paper products and flour sacks and their second-life creations fell out of favor.

Fortunately, they've made a comeback.  Not only are they absorbent, they dry quickly and launder well.

A tea towel with a special linen drying cloth had usually been reserved for drying expensive,  precious tea services and other heirloom pieces.  They also make a lovely bread basket wrap.

While a towel can be utilitarian, I love towels with a personality.  Here's a favorite a girl friend gave me recently....

Thanks Mom for showing me how to appreciate what others may consider mundane.  I love these quirky additions to my kitchen every time I get one.  Happy Mother's Day!

It's Not All About Voodoo Donuts

There's more to the Portland food scene than what you've witnessed on TV.   Then again, can't that be said about anything being misunderstood, even if it's just a bit?  If you are slightly epicurious, then the Epicurean Excursion from the Portland Walking Tours is for you.  (No they didn't pay me...I paid them!)

First mission, knock out all the Portlandia episodes I just marathoned before our trip from my memory.  Portland couldn't possibly be THAT into birds, cacao, green-anything and coffee.  Or could they?

First stop, Cacao Drink Chocolate.  Okay, so much for the safe word exiting my brain. The cup of hot chocolate below is the most silky, rich beverage I've ever had.  And not too sweet at all.  What makes it so?  The store sources their chocolate bars from small producers with the criteria you would imagine (fair trade, organic, limited chains of manufacturing and minimizing fillers such as wax).  The owner celebrates his curation so much so, he showcases the farmer on the labels.

If I learned anything on this excursion, all valuable edibles have a fan base resembling the qualities of a wine aficionado.  Onto the Flying Elephants Deli.

Everything made out of this deli is done with care of using in-season ingredients including their infamous tomato/orange soup.  Amazingly good, we went back here later in our trip for a full lunch.

The savory soup, so popular with locals they begged for the recipe.  And the deli has shared it.  Click here if you're interested.  Smartly, the deli knows it is VERY difficult to successfully use citrus with a creamy base without curdling.  Good luck to you!

No food tour in Portland would be worth its efforts without a stop at one of the infamous food carts permanently parked in a pay parking lot.

The owners of these parking lots reap huge financial rewards by bordering their lots with these food trucks who pay for "parking" as any other vehicle would, but 24/7.  For the vendor, this is a way to have a food business without the huge outlay for a brick and mortar restaurant.  Everyone views this as a win/win.   Because our tour was in the morning, our stop was for liege waffles.

Super indulgent waffles are made with a brioche dough (not batter) and pearl sugar.  Crazy sweet and extravagant.  I'm now deeply wanting a cup of coffee.  Our intuitive guide was on it.  Courier Coffee Roasters to the rescue.

While Stumptown Roasters is the most known, there are roasters on seemingly every corner of Portland.  What makes Courier special is they can only be had if it's within biking distance of the roasting facility.  I'm not exaggerating.  A typical delivery bike just above services many local restaurants.  Not only does their business model exemplify hyper local, but they aim to be incredibly sustainable.  The packaging of their coffee made entirely of compostable paper and they are working on a system of "milk on tap" to circumvent the constant opening of the refrigerator at their coffee bar.

What better way to soak up all that caffeine than a behind the scenes stop at Pearl Bakery.

Another very local approach, using as many organic ingredients as possible they source their flour from millers in eastern Washington and serve McMinnville's locally churned butter.  Bread-aholic or not, it would have been rude not to consume their tasting platter don't you think?

Thank goodness our next stop didn't require eating!


 The Camellia Lounge is a charming tea house where you can sample teas from around the world.  Come the weekends it transforms into a live jazz venue.  Most seductive and never knew existed we learned about tea bricks.

Used primarily in the 19th century, fermented tea was pressed into forms to make better transport of the ingredient.  Today, they are mostly sold as a novelty.

Apparently we still looked hungry and were escorted over to Hot Lips Pizza.  Family owned and hyper-local, the gourmet pizzas are made with ingredients only in season.

It doesn't seem possible, but we had a dessert stop.  Cool Moon Ice Cream makes home-made, hand-churned ice cream made with Oregonian ingredients.  My choice, blackberry ice cream.

Because we could put no more down our gullet, our last stop was Benessere's Oils and Vinegars.  The least "local" stop, was still an informing touch on an ever-increasing focus on quality olive oils and vinegars.

The only missing highlights (in my opinion) would be a local brew stop at Deschutes Brewery and the new/used cookbook aisles (there are 3-4 long aisles) at Powell's Books.   Happy adventuring!