There comes a time in everybody's life where you come to the conclusion that you really need to cook a damn good tagine. And on the morning ofthe 11th January 2011 I realised that today was the day. We handed over our money, a snip at about £15 each, or so we though, and began a three hour long process of learning how to develop a tagine to moroccan perfection.

We cut up onions and threw in spices in the cramped back kitchen of the riad. Four children stood silently watching us, their snotty noses dripping and mounths hanging open in only the way a small child's can. The lady who was showing us how to create Tagine must have misunderstood the brief. Rather than a cooking class in moroccan cooking, I think she had understood 'masterclass' to mean, please teach these poor westerners hwo to cook. That morning I learnt how to open a can of tomatos and peel an onion, two tasks I have now perfected. The thinly sliced vegetables were laid in thick layers around the tagine, the smell of thousand spice drifting around the kitchen and the spices shaken over the legumes were caramelising in the olive oil. Finally, she threw some olives in and whacked the clay lid on the tagine.

Two hours later, after poking our head into the kitchen several times and marvelling at the smell of charring, we finally took the courage to ask whether it was ready yet. Added to that we were starving. The proprieter of the riad had quite an overwhelming persona: his bushy moustache and knack of finishing our sentences incorrectly for us, made him somebody we tiptoed past, desperately hoping that he wouldn't stop us and try to engage us in light conversation.

I speak french to a good level and have a remarkable talent at speaking English, so apparently I spoke two out of the three languages he did. This didn't seem to bear any relevance on whether he would be able to understand us or not, as after speaking with him for just seconds, he would politely have suggested a camel trip or a drive to teh Atlas mountains, regardless of whether we were just saying hello.

Nevertheless, there he was, in front of the kitchen, vexed that we hadn't wanted to eat his wifes marvellous tagine yet.

'On the contrary' I reassured him quickly. 'We've been waiting for it to cook'

'It's been cooked for over an hour now' he said suspiciously. As both Sam and I had been waiting outside the kitchen on an uncomfortable pouffe for over 45 minutes we were both unsure as to why they hadn't alerted us to its readiness. Keen to eat however, we apologised, and were treated to crusty bread, plates and plates of tagine and the most marvelous desert ever.

Les oranges a la canelle were the nicest thing I have ever eaten, ever. They were the juciest slices of oranges, a wonderful palatte cleanser, with cinamon sprinkled over them. The sliced oranges were segmented in such a way that the juicy pockets burst in your mouth, creating a cinamon syrup. I could have eaten plate after plate of oranges.

So taken with this desert, I tried to replicate it back in the UK but ended up chewing bitter orange slices. I would have fought through 100 conversations with the manager to get another plate of those oranges, which left your fingers sticky with syrupy sweetness.