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Every year, I like to launch a celebration to commemorate the beginning of summer. This year, I contacted my friend Zohar Benjelloun, co -founder of Souvenir Shop, a film production, fashion and the arts, about the organization of the party at home in Brooklyn. Zohar’s dining room gives a beautiful garden that I thought would be an adequate backdrop. She kindly agreed and began to plan a special menu with me.
Zohar is from Casablanca and suggested that we make a version of Cuscous and the lamb tagine of his family. Initially, the plan was that we both cook the meal together. But as the date approached and our schedules were filled with the work and commitments of parenting, we think: Why not rely on another person for real cuisine?
People are always surprised when I say that dinners are not just about cooking. The kitchen is a part of the equation. But there is also much more. My advice for people who want to organize more dinners is to sympathize with yourself. You don’t need to do everything. Call friends. That could be for anything, from the kitchen itself to asking a friend to make a floral arrangement or help to decorate the table. The idea, of course, is not to load anyone with a task that finds discouraging, but that people feel included and lean in their interests. From my experience, people love to get involved.
Zohar asked his commercial partner Sam Bloom, who enjoys drawing, that he illustrates the name cards with a quick drawing for each guest. This added a good personal touch. For food, we call Siham BourhaneAn consummated Moroccan chef who prepares Moroccan parties made with her husband. Our menu presented a lamb tagine with raisin plums, chickpeas and caramelized onions, along with couscous with vegetables. The lamb felt festive and made a beautiful centerpiece on the table. They all gasped when Siham brought the big smoking dish to the table. We also serve Moroccan salads, including a carrot salad, Zaalouk (eggplant salad), grill pepper salad and a tomato and cucumber salad. These salads are common throughout Morocco and offer good acidity to counteract the rich lamb tagine. We end with a sweet note with the recipe of Zohar’s mother for pill à la crème: a dessert of fried war dough, Crème Anglaise, almonds, berries and vanilla ice cream.
Siham made cuscous from scratch, as many people do in Morocco. Zohar grew up seeing his mother steam to the semolina with water to make the cuscous every Friday. This is a tradition in many Moroccan houses. The couscous itself is made of semolina flour and is something similar to pasta (there is no grain called cuscous). Traditionally, the semolina is encouraged by hand and steamed using a coussier (couscous vaporizer) to form small vaporized granules. The process takes a long time and repetitive, which for me felt meditative. Alternatively, the commercial cuscus is also available (see my guide on how to cook this below), but if you enjoy Cuscous, buying a COUSIER is a decent investment. The vessels also tend to be quite beautiful. Everyone crowded around Cuscos, which became the heart of our party.
The guests were a mixture of friends and others who came as strangers and left as friends. There was a wide range of ages and many children. Mixing generations add depth to dinner. I always tell people not to be afraid to invite guests of different ages. It would surprise you how much people can share with each other. There was also a mixture of history, religions and ethnicities.
All at the party also turned out to be immigrants, not by design, but by chance. At a time when the United States feels that it is approaching itself, and when politics can feel alienating for us as immigrants, it is more important than ever joining solidarity and resistance, while remembering that life continues to renew. Politicians and governments come and go. But there will always be a summer.