HOT DOGS
At Carrefour two days ago I stocked up on breakfast things: eggs, bread for toast, milk, muesli cereal, honey, butter, jam and orange juice. Breakfast I can manage.
But for today lunch I decided to eat out, going again to Superbe Pastille, but again they were closed. Their website said they would be open, but it said the same yesterday. So I decided to go to the next closest restaurant mentioned in “places to eat in Essaouira”, Triskala, a highly regarded Moroccan restaurant.
It was right next to the city wall on the ocean side in a beautiful room with rounded arches and colorful wall hangings and with soft music playing. Not knowing what anything was I ordered Karkade to drink. It was served ice cold in a brass cup and consisted of hibiscus blossoms, lime, orange and a variety of spices—delicious.
As a main course I had bream fish with candied carrots, salad and broccoli. For dessert I had a chocolate covered pear soaked in a sweet syrup, also delicious. With it I had mint tea served from a tiny metal teapot into a thimble sized glass.
It was raining light outside and gloomy but inside the room was warm and colorful. At first I was the only person there but the room quickly filled up with a couple of French families and others. I couldn’t eat alone so I FaceTimed Susie and Todd in Madison county and invited them to observe my meal. Susie told me about plans she was making for us for a whirlwind tour of Morocco in our last week here. I spent part of the afternoon after returning to my cheerful apartment renting a Fiat Mini for our tour. Susie will drive and I’ll look out the window as Morocco whirls by.
But at supper time I had a decision to make. It was chilly and still raining lightly outside. I wanted a hot bowl of bean soup and a honey sweetened crepe. But I resisted. I wasn’t too hungry and had to deal with the results of my visit to Carrefour. I can’t just throw the stuff out, or can I? I’m not going to eat the second half of the mushy onion rings so I’ll have to throw them out for sure.
I decided on Hot Dogs for supper. I like Hot Dogs, that is why I bought them and they are easy to heat in boiling water. I knew the package I had bought were Hot Dogs because they looked like Hot Dogs and because the label said they were Hot Dogs. So I boiled two up, put one on a warmed up piece of break with a couple of pieces of Swiss cheese and a thick coating of mustard and ketchup.
In spite of all the ketchup and mustard I could still sense the Hot Dogs. But it is taste that is very hard for me to describe. The best word I can find is slippery. The Hot Dog had little other flavor than its slipperiness, a kind of waxy slipperiness.
I ate both of them and thought of a steaming hot bowl of bean soup and a sweetened crepe.
They didn’t fill me up but I wasn’t tempted to have more. Instead I had one of my breakfast bananas for dessert, to clear my palate so to speak.
And now I am beginning to have a problem. When Raja showed me the apartment when I first arrived she put out clean towels and plugged in some of the appliances and then smiled and left. But she didn’t tell me what you do with the trash in Morocco. When I throw away the half bag of mushy onion rings and the last three Hot Dogs and the container for the roast chicken the garbage can lined with a plastic bag in the kitchen will be almost full. What am I going to do with anything else that I bought at Carrefour that is inedible as I shift to bean soup? How am I going to dispose of it and the rest of my trash?
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 