The Incredible Edible Cheesecake

Mmmmmm...Cheesecake. If you know me, you know that I don't have much of a sweet tooth. I'd much rather do dinner all over again, or a big stinky cheese board.  I guess that is one of the ways in which the great Kingdom of Morocco has changed me.

I’m pretty sure that it all boils down to (no pun intended) the five million cups of sweet green tea I’ve consumed over the past nineteen months. Thanks to those five million glasses of sugary goodness, I now get random cravings for something sweet. And crunchy, the lack of texture to food here (everything is pressure cooked to the consistency of baby food here) leaves me pining for some kind of crunch when I eat. And salads, and broccoli…mmm yes, there is lots of eating to be done when I depart this country.

Back to the cheesecake, some time before the day camp we put on, I stopped by my host family’s house for tea. While sipping on that sweet green tea, Baha produced a magazine turned to the page of a picture of a giant pumpkin cheesecake. And as the culture is here, she didn’t come straight out and ask me to make the cheesecake, instead she asked me to translate the recipe (the magazine was an old issue of Country Living or something like that, left behind from a previous volunteer, for Yassmine to enjoy the pictures) knowing full well that I would offer to make the cheesecake with them.

And so on my next trip to the (not so really) big city of Midelt, I purchased the items necessary to make the cheesecake. I made an executive decision though. If I was to make a cheesecake, it would be much filthier than pumpkin flavored. Chocolate-cookie-crust with a coffee-cream-filling. Yep, that ought to do the trick.

The afternoon before the day camp, I returned to my host family’s to make the cheesecake. Before the kitchen action took place, I explained the condition of making the cheesecake. We would bake it that afternoon, but it wasn’t to be eaten until the following afternoon, when I returned from the day camp. 

Jokester that she is, Mamksu giggled her way through telling me, “mashi mushkilinu mish shan agadar addiddu jaj n tellaja d additsh shwiya” which translates to, “it’s not my problem if a mouse goes in the refrigerator and eats a little.” To which I playfully responded, “mish shan agadar additsh l’helwa qbl adaydugh nk adbbi affuss n agadar taxatar” which made us both laugh even harder. I told her that “if a mouse eats some of the cake before I return, I will cut the hands off of this big mouse.”

Alas, the cheesecake was fully intact upon return. Max and Patrick joined me that evening and together with my host family we celebrated the day camp’s success by devouring that chocolate-cookie-crust cheesecake with a coffee-cream-filling in its entirety.

Mmmm Mmmm Good. 

Electric Sunset Leaving Mamaksu's

Miriam x


P.S. There were lots of pictures to accompany this post, but my computer crashed as I was writing this entry and all of my pictures were lost. :( BooHoo.