On that note, I have been in North Carolina for almost 2 months now working as a travel nurse. I have found no shortage of things to do in this area and love it here. One of the things I like to explore when I travel is of course, the food! I like to try foods that are different from what I am used to, prepared with some amount of labor, love and local ingredients, quirky and unique, and special to the area.
Lately, I have kept myself busy with many different kinds of Southern food. I’ve been visiting some places featured on the Pecan Trail, which is a list of 20 local restaurants putting pecans in the spotlight. I recently attended a local “Brews and Bites” pairing dinner, which was a lovely evening and exactly one of the type of things I like to do. One of my special finds here is a local bakery run by an interracial gay couple that makes the most INSANE cakes I will ever lay eyes on (shout out to Sugar Art Custom Cakes and Sweets 👏). Their cake creations are true works of art. They make great, funky cupcakes too: bubblegum, pink lemonade, funnel cake, maple bacon, honey bun, Kentucky butter, and peach cobbler doughnut are some of the funky flavors I have had. Yes, I’ve eaten all those cupcakes 😆. So that’s a quick, food-related update on my life for y’all.
It was summer 2008. I was staying in Morocco on a college campus taking a 6-week intensive Arabic language course over the summer. There was a small group of us students taking this program. On one of our outings, we got to visit the famous Fez souk, or sometimes called the Medina of Fez. Now, in order to picture what this particular place is like, try to imagine a huge, oriental-themed flea market but the layout is actually in the form of a maze or labyrinth. That is exactly how I remember it: a thousand stalls and shops selling all kinds of wares, a hundred winding, never-ending alleyways branching off into yet more alleyways. Every inch of space filled with the brightest colors and shiniest metallics, every minute your face practically grabbed and turned by some unseeable force that seems to tickle your ear with its whisper of, “over here, look at me!” Now, this was a long time ago and it was my first big international trip as an adult so of course, my mind may be exaggerating some of these details in my remembrance but here is how the layout of the place felt to me lol:
Oh, and did I mention it was hot? Very hot and noisy. Hot, because not only is Morocco of a desert climate but in the souk there are hundreds of bodies in a close space, all brushing up against each other to do their shopping and selling. Here are some actual pictures of it, courtesy a Google Image search of ‘Fez Morocco Souk’:
As you can see from my description and the pictures I showed above, you can imagine it might be a place that would be easy to get lost in. And that, my friends is exactly what happened.
Once we got to the souk in Fez via bus ride, we were given permission to go off and explore on our own but were advised to stay in groups and had to be back at a certain time. So I branched off with a group of about 5 or 6 fellow students and we eagerly took to exploring. It was very exciting simply to be walking around in an area that was so different than anything we had ever seen. We did a lot of looking and a little shopping (for me, it was a bit difficult to shop as you are expected to barter and haggle over the prices, a practice completely foreign to most Americans).
After many hours had passed and much wandering, we began to think about stopping somewhere for lunch. I just remember being so hot, hungry and thirsty and none of the restaurants we passed were beckoning us. So, we wandered for longer both looking for a place to eat and drink but also looking for a route to get back to the bus. If we passed one place that looked good a couple people in the group didn’t think so. If we passed another restaurant then some people in the group thought we should continue on in what was beginning to feel like a futile attempt to locate the bus and the rest of our tour group. And so on and so forth and several more hours of wandering and um, oopsies. We found ourselves in a wee bit of trouble.
The thing is, we let ourselves get near desperate due to being hot and tired from hours of walking, a bit dehydrated from running out of water, very hungry, and not full-on “scared” but definitely worried, anxious and concerned that we hadn’t yet found a route leading us back to the bus. We were all huddled up trying to think about what exactly to do next, when in that very moment a Moroccan man came up to us and intensely asked if we were looking for a good place to eat. Of course, we were and hadn’t had any luck yet at finding a suitable place and I think we just collectively decided, “meh, why not? We’re in a group, what’s the worst that could happen?”. It seemed like fate anyway, the way he had just appeared out of the blue asking about food.
He instructed us to follow him and follow we did. For about 30 minutes. Thirty very long and scary minutes. Through ever more and more desolate looking alleyways. These were not your average, centrally located, sunlight-seeping-through-and-happy-rainbow-colors alleyways. Oh no sirrie bob. These were the isolated, shadowy, hazy, dismal, run-down, crumbling cement walls, garbage strewn about type of alleyways. The kind yo mommas all warned you about. In other words, scary A.F. especially in a foreign country where none of us spoke the language with any sort of adequacy. They looked something like this, except worse.
But we kept walking along following the man ahead, agent of our doom, who kept looking back at us to make sure we were still there. Whenever we lagged too far behind he yelled at us to pick up the speed and stay close. I think we were just too scared and exhausted to resist and turn back, probably thinking we would become more lost if we did. At one point, we passed a group of young and tough looking Moroccan men who were hanging around a building corner smoking. As we passed, we could hear them whispering and feel them staring all while they blew cigarette smoke at us and flicked ashes. They looked something like this:
It was like a scene in a comic book or a movie, right before the bad guys attack the innocent passersby and the superhero of the week swoops in to save the day. Except we didn’t have a superhero. I thought to myself, “yep. This is it. We are definitely going to be harmed or robbed in some way.” I was thinking of how we could make a run for it while still staying together. Maybe one of us could fake a seizure and the others could start yelling and that would scare off everyone and give us a little time to run away while trying to retrace our steps? These were my actual thoughts as I was genuinely scared. We all were.
Well, finally we arrived at one of the most dull and unassuming exteriors and doorways. I never would have thought there was a restaurant beyond this door, or much of anything beyond really. Maybe something as nondescript as the exterior surface alluded to. When we caught up to him, the man opened the door and ushered us into the room. As I took a few steps in, I had a very acute, disarming sensation of literally crossing a threshold into a different world. And there likely will never be an adequate way for me to describe what I saw next without sounding like I am exaggerating so here goes. The door opened into what appeared to be a very large family home that had been converted into a restaurant. Practically every INCH of the floor and walls had the most brilliant tile-work and mosaics, even going up most of the way to the ceiling. There were many different shiny Moroccan lanterns hanging from the high domed ceiling. There were candles lit and it felt cool inside, like a gentle breeze was blowing around us (the tiles probably doing a lot of the natural cooling). The light inside was a bit dim, almost like a calming mood-lighting. There was a water fountain in the middle of the restaurant. There was a second floor with handrails and a balcony and rooms tucked away up there where I’m guessing this family lived. There was faint Arabic music playing in the background. The whole scene, or spectacle really, was truly unbelievable. We were greeted by a different man (the husband & father, manager of the restaurant) and ushered to a table where a young woman (a daughter) brought us mint tea, warm bread, and different kinds of olives for starters. I saw several women in the kitchen doing the cooking (wife and daughters).
Once the appetizers were finished and the hosts could tell we had gotten comfortable, they started bringing out heaping, steaming dishes of Moroccan food like tagine, couscous, roasted chicken with olives, salads, more condiments and of course desserts and more mint tea. The food was almost like manna, delicious and rejuvenating to the soul. Fresh out of the fire and yet the perfect temperature where we could dig right in without burning ourselves. The hosts spoke a little English, about as much as we spoke Arabic but somehow we communicated. I truly felt that we all shared this special meal in a meaningful way. I could feel their pride in each bite, in the presentation of everything, and just in how everything felt. The way they delivered the dishes and invited us to eat, then stepped back, attentive but not hovering, confident that everything was perfect and would without a doubt be to our liking. It was almost as if they had been cooking and preparing all day just for the special occasion of our arrival. Nobody else was in the restaurant. It was just us silly, tired and lost students, the Arabic family of chefs and this meal of nourishment.
We reluctantly finished our meal and physically couldn’t take another bite for fear our stomachs may explode. We paid for our bill, which was practically nothing, just a few American dollars. At the end of the meal, our host asked us to please sign the guestbook. We made our way over to it and began looking through the pages and entries. Many different people had eaten at the restaurant over the years and many of the entries were in languages we couldn’t decipher. However, we came to one very special English entry. It read, “if you are an American and were brought to this restaurant the same route we were, you are probably thinking that you will be robbed, or worse, killed. But relax. Don’t worry so much. Sometimes you just have to trust people.”
Oh.my.goodness. I still get chills when I think of this exact moment in time. The shock and dumbfounded looks on all our faces followed by the sheer joy and laughter. It was all just so wonderfully ironic! We had all been so terrified. So unwilling, so skeptical. And yet, at the end of this reluctant journey to get a meal, we found a true treasure.
Well, I don’t remember much after that to be honest. Somehow we all made it back to the bus safely and reunited with our tour group, wobbling around with very full bellies. But nearly 12 years later, I still remember this moment in time with such clarity and it is one of my favorite memories. This experience was so special to me and it really sparked a fire within me that is fueled with great travel and food and of course, adventure. I think Anthony Bourdain summed it up best:
All I left behind was a large tip and my signature in the guest book. But what I took away with me was a great lesson. So, thank you to Anthony Bourdain for reminding us all about the important things in life. For encouraging us to be real and raw, brave and vulnerable. To be simply curious about the world and engaged with its offerings. Most of all, to be humane. And to sit down and enjoy a damn good meal with each other. As Bourdain once wrote, “To experience joy, my father taught me, one has to leave oneself open to it.”
Because, sometimes you just have to trust people.
Little Big Life 