8FFLFOE MOUNTAIN VIEW VOICE
■ FOOD FEATURE ■ MOVIE TIMES ■ BEST BETS FOR ENTERTAINMENT
MICHELLE LE
Katia Essyad, owner of Casablanca Market, shows students how to make taktouka during a cooking class held in her Mountain View home.
MICHELLE LE
Moroccan dishes prepared in the class include, from left, potatoes mixed with harissa, cumin, paprika and parsley; chicken with preserved lemons and olives; and organic medjool dates with a mix of coconut, orange blossom water and candied almonds.
By Andrea Gemmet N F O O D F E AT U R E
A NIGHT in MOROCCO CASABLANCA MARKET’S MOROCCAN COOKING CLASSES CELEBRATE GOOD FOOD, COMMUNITY 20
■ Mountain View Voice ■ MountainViewOnline.com ■ March 29, 2013
T
he cooking class starts with a pop quiz. “Chef Casablanca” invites her group of students to gather around an inviting spread of appetizers and try to identify the spices and f lavors in three kinds of fig spread, marinated orange segments and spiced strawberries dressed in a creamy sauce of Greek yogurt and creme fraiche. The fig spread proves the group’s undoing, as no one correctly guesses that one of them is laced with chocolate. The Moroccan cooking classes led by Chef Casablanca take place in a downtown home. Katia
Essyad, the owner of Casablanca Market in Mountain View, teaches classes that offer a full sensory experience. Students smell fresh ground spices and touch the fresh vegetables as they chop, peel, seed and dice them, and then, at the end of the evening, tuck into the feast that they helped prepare. With Berber-made plates on the table, hand-knotted rugs on the f loor and a tiled nook furnished with vibrantly colored cushions and pillows, it’s like entering another world. Born in Rabat, Morocco, Essyad is a self-taught chef who says she draws inspiration from her mother and the women with whom she grew up. She keeps her menus