CORRIE FOR YOU, CURRY FOR ME

Hello Friends.

As you can see, the blog is being re-done.

My name here is not Corrie, it's Curry pronounced with a lazy R. As in the spice. A lazy seasoning used for Indian chickens and sauces, usually some shade of yellow, and preferably served with coconut. In French, that would be me... I still have trouble remembering to respond to this.

So I thought it would be more appropriate to call the blog Curry, as it will be limited to my time here in France and therefore my life in the guise of a food. Normal life in America as far as I can tell is really not worth blogging about on a regular basis, as much as I know you all would love to hear about my daily comings and goings in work and school. Yeah yeah, fun.

And as long as we're talking about curry and food in general, I should tell you about going to Fatima's house yesterday. After the fake English class Katie and I met another woman who teaches literacy classes, Jan, and Allison, the Texan lady I mentioned a while ago, to go to Fatima's house.

-Which Fatima is this, I asked them, because Fatima is a safe guess for any North African woman's name.

-Crepe Fatima, they say. (There's another one referred to as Hajj Fatima because she's been to Mecca, and many other Fatimas who I can't keep track of).

Sounds good to me. Moroccan crepes are thick, bubbly, and dripping with honey and butter. Probably the best thing to happen in this world since.. ever.

So we wander through Crepe Fatima's neighborhood, down her cobbly driveway, up the tile steps of her small apartment building, and into her home-- which could be Morocco itself. Rugs, walls lined with pillows and square couches, red geometric patterns, and... curry! The smell is faintly everywhere. Actually, she informs us, after kissing each of our faces twice, it's turmeric. Oh.

We sit down in the living room where her sister is watching TV on a maroon couch. In the course of our three hour visit we saw a Turkish show in Arabic, a long Chinese soap in Arabic, and an Anime cartoon, also in Arabic, lots of drama in all of them. We proceed to talk about women things, like how to cook certain dishes or which skin care products are good or how many kids Fatima has or her sister's health or who had the worst time getting their residential papers this year.

She fed us crepes, of course. And chocolate cake. And dates and chips and almonds and chicken kabobs (turmeric) with baguettes, and mint tea. Loaded with sugar as always. Fatima is from a very quiet village originally, literally, Allison explained to us after leaving, which is why she doesn't say very much... But she sure does make up for it with her cooking abilities.

Conclusion: I won't have to eat again for a year and I'm a little bit closer to my life-long goal of visiting Morocco.