Go with the grain: Vegetarian discovers beauty of couscous in exotic Morocco
By Lee Zucker October 23, 2003 Vegetarian Kitchen The RegisterGuard, Eugene, Oregon

I have eaten couscous in North African homes and restaurants on four continents during the past 30 years usually to the point of gluttony. I've loved it in almost all its infinite variety: No two cooks season the crowning stew with the same hand there's always a little more of this, a little less of that. A succulent adventure. The rare occasions when couscous has been underwhelming or even truly awful have been on our continent, where it's common to play fast and loose with tradition to save time and effort, even on great classics.

   Road to Morocco Belltown's new couscouserie offers authentic culinary romance.
September 10 16, 2003 RESTAURANT REVIEW by Hasan Jafri on Seattle Weekly

WHEN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE finally fell apart in the 1920s, three European powers agreed to carve up the Maghreb (Muslim North Africa). Britain got Egypt, Italy took Libya, and Morocco went to France. The high-level land grab left its cultural mark, as Arabs will be the first to tell you. Respectable Egyptians suffer from the stigma of being stuffy and unexciting, the big bores of the Middle East, while the lower-class Egyptian, like your average English yob, is a soccer hooligan. And Egyptian food, while we're on the subject, is nothing to write your mummy about. So there. Libyans, like Italians, became enamored with the cult of the charismatic and deranged dictator. Mussolini is long gone, but Libya is still stuck with Col. Muammar Qaddafi. But Morocco! Morocco got lucky and inherited the French flair for food . So while the rest of the Maghreb is busy coming to terms with its colonial past, Moroccans have conquered the world with a secret weapon: couscous. If you, gentle Seattleite, haven't been won over yet by this classic Berber banquet dish, it's likely because until recently there was no real Moroccan restaurant or couscouserie hereabouts. But Marrakesh has arrived in Belltown. So line up to be won over............................

    How to go on the lamb Sweet and spicy blend of meat, fruit and nuts makes a Moroccan stew

The exotic atmosphere alone is enough to make an evening spent under the tented ceiling at the Village Crown Moroccan worth a trip to the East Village. Ellen and Eli Vaknine make periodic soujourns to Morocco, where Eli was born, to find just the right mosaic tiled tables, ceramic vases, patterned rugs, sconces and mirrors to set the mood in their restaurant. But it's the food that keeps bringing people back................

CAMBRIDGE, MASS. When cooking m'semen pancakes, Hajja Aicha's hands aren't out of the frying pan, but they do stay clear of the fire. Decorated by a deepbrown pattern of henna dye, Ms. Aicha's nimble fingers prod, adjust, and flip the flaky Moroccan pancakes that are cooking perfectly before her eyes in the kitchen at Argana, a popular Moroccan restaurant in Cambridge, Mass. To observers, it seems to be the culinary equivalent of walking on a bed of hot coals. But despite the ample availability of spatulas, it's the only way Argana's baker will make them

    Mideast traditions revisited
Wednesday, January 3, 2001 By JOAN BRUNSKILL THE ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW YORK
The 30 plus years since Claudia Roden wrote her landmark "A Book of Middle Eastern Cooking" have been full of further discovery and change, she said. What this book is all about," she said, "is that during the years I've gone on following up, finding out more and better ways people can do these dishes

    Moorish and mouthwatering
(Filed: 05/10/2002)
Moroccan dishes with their spicy exotic flavours are perfect for autumn, says Jennifer Joyce - and they can be made in advance

    Omnivore: almonds
(Filed: 24/04/2001) Edited by Elfreda Pownall
You can taste the calories in amlou - its three ingredients are Moroccan almonds, argan oil and honey - but that didn't stop Omnivore spooning it from the jar with gay abandon..........................

    Omnivore: mint
(Filed: 31/12/2001)
Moroccan or Corsican, apple or ginger? Edited by Elfreda Pownall. There are more than 100 varieties of mint, but only some are suitable for cooking. 'The best mints to grow are spearmint - chefs use it as a garnish for its neat, flat leaves - and Moroccan mint, which is good and strong for rubbing around a salad bowl to perfume it,.....

    Something Moorish
(Filed: 22/08/2001)
Rowley Leigh takes a cook's tour of Moroccan food I SHOULD have gone to Morocco in the Sixties, in my hippie days, but although Crosby Stills & Nash sang entrancingly about the Marrakech Express, they were never my favourite band, so I took the hippie trail to India instead.

    Part one: mint condition
(Filed: 10/08/2002)
In the first of a four-part series Diana Henry embarks on a cook's tour of the Mediterranean, the Middle East and north Africa Places, as well as tastes, are locked up in food. The clear perfumed stillness of a bottle of rosewater, the velvety skin of a fig, the sunburnt colour of cayenne... Our love of foods has as much to do with what they represent as with their taste. Nearly all the ingredients and dishes that, for me, have this other-worldly quality are from Spain, Portugal, the southern regions of France and Italy, the Middle East and north Africa........

    The spirit of Morocco: Passion for cooking shows in Aziza's soulful, delicious food.
Michael Bauer, Chronicle Restaurant Critic Sunday, February 17, 2002
A warm feeling infuses Aziza that can't be duplicated by most restaurants. It starts with the name, which honors the owners' Moroccan mother, ...