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Morocco has a nice set of birds - fun to encounter, for a European. Easy to get to know them even in the cities. Here's my hit list:

1. Moussier's redstart - This comes top of the list because
   (a) it's the national bird of Morocco!
   (b) it's endemic to the Atlas mountains - you only find it there!
   (c) we saw it foraging around while we stopped at the top of a mountain pass for a glass of mint tea! (The mint tea was for us. I don't know what the bird had.)
   (d) I took a classic photo of it. Can you see the Moussier's redstart? With its black-white-black-white upper pattern, and underneath its rust-red belly?

   

2. Spotless starling. This looks similar to our familiar starling but is pure black instead of iridescent. It sings differently. And it waggles its wings in an endearing way while it sings. ... You have to see it in action.

3. Alpine swift. These high-speed birds I've seen elsewhere, but the novelty is that there are many of them racing around in the city squares of Morocco, nesting in holes in the wall and then racing around flying low and screaming enthusiastically as they race past you in groups diving for insects.

4. House bunting. This little bird is noticeable for its all-grey head and its all-brown body, which really is a different colour-scheme than most birds you'll see around. It's common in north-west Africa and so I guess Morocco is a good plac to see them. We often saw them living/foraging actually inside riads, and elsewhere.

5. Common bulbul. The bulbul I've not seen before, but it's apparently common all across Africa. It was common in cities, with a pale brown topside and a white underside.

6. White stork. The stork is pretty common where I come from but in southern Spain and northern Morocco there were many. What's especially noticeable about storks is their massive nests, which they build right at the top of mobile phone masts or disused mosque minarets, making intriguing architectural intervensions.

Morocco's street food gave me a lot to discover! Whether from a stall, or from someone pushing a hand-cart through the busy medina (market), I was surprised how many tasty things were commonplace there, and new to me. Here are some of my favourites:

• "Kalinti". It's a chickpea-flour-cake as a savoury snack - imagine it as a kind of vegan omelette, because that's pretty much the texture. Many times in northern Morocco we saw this really popular street-food being sold. The kalinti is served in a bread roll (like a short baguette), always accompanied by spread cheese, plus sauces and other toppings such as gherkins or meat. It's a strange combination, I think - the smooshy texture of kalinti with the smooshy texture of spread cheese?! - but it's a hearty snack, and very popular in northern Morocco! A full tin of kalinti, e.g. a round dish about 60 cm diameter, would easily sell out in ten minutes.

• Chick-peas. At various places in Morocco I saw a seller with a hand-cart, selling cooked chick-peas (presumably fried with a bit of spice). You could buy a simple paper cone of chickpeas to nibble on, or alternatively a sandwich like the above kalinte, i.e. with spread cheese alongside the chickpeas. I didn't see kalinti in Marrakech, but I did see this one.
• Bissara - a simple and hearty split-pea soup. Specialist stalls/shops simply sell this one dish, served with bread and olives. Really good value and a good meal.

And the sweet snacks:

• "Briwate" or "briouate" are samosa-like triangles, and they can be savoury or sweet. Since I avoided the meat, the sweet ones were most interesting, e.g. filled with dates, sultanas and almond paste. My favourite was, I think, a one-off: in Fes, a briouate filled with rice and sweetened with honey/syrup. A delicious hybrid of samosa, rice pudding and caramel flavours!
• There were many pastries, and many pastry stalls stacked SO HIGH with pastries! A favourite that I hadn't seen before was the "gazelle's horn": a crescent-shaped little sweet pasty, stuffed with rich moist almond paste.

Also juices! So many fruit juices! Many stands were simply operated by one person with a pile of fruit and a manual squeezer, which is a good thing to look for since you can guarantee the juice is freshly-squeezed and unadulterated. Some great combos that we had are peach and lemon, avocado and date (with some milk in this one, we think), and sugarcane with lemon. Simply sugarcane, crushed with a bit of added lemon, is surprisingly delicious!

I almost forgot to mention one of my favourite juices: pure pomegranate juice -- multiple times there was a stall which was simply a man with a pile of pomegranates, and a juicer. (OK, also a little tea strainer and some plastic cups.) Pomegranates are expensive, where I come from, because they don't grow where we are - so it's impressive that for an OK price he'll squeeze 3 pomegranates straight into a cup for you. The sweet-sour pomegranate juice is so great on a hot day.

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And I want to mention a couple of things that aren't street food, but

• Zaalouk - a cold cooked aubergine salad - again a good dish for a hot day. It's really quite simple.
• Msemen - square pancakes, with a flaky bready texture. We already know these back home, but they're very Moroccan. For breakfast we often had these with Moroccan cheese and honey
• Mrouzia - ordinarily this would be a lamb tagine dish, but I had a vegetarian creation at NBTA in Tangiers and it really was my stand-out dish of the entire trip. The taste is sweet and dark, thanks to the honey and prunces, then there's ras el hanout, roasted almonds, and sesame seeds all over. Such delicate and complex flavours, that you don't often get in a fake-meat dish. Fabulous. Go to NBTA in Tangiers.

This Kurdish lentil soup is lovely and smooth. Simple but nicely balanced. A handful of rice balances the lentil flavour nicely and the whole thing becomes very smooth (even without blending it).

Thanks to the Asylum seekers' and Refugees Support Group, Nelson, UK, for writing this down, and thanks to the Kurdish woman whose name I don't know, for passing this recipe on!

Makes 6--8 servings, takes 45 minutes.

• 400g lentils (split red lentils, my mum uses - I don't know what's standard)
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1 stock cube
• handful (e.g. 100g) basmati rice
• sunflower oil
• 1/2 tsp crushed chillis
• 1 onion chopped fine
• pinch of salt

Wash the lentils in warm water, then rinse them in cold. Put in a pan with ~4cm of cold water over them, cover, bring to boil.

Once the lentils boil turn the heat down, skim off the scummy bits - no need to be precise, doesn't matter if some remains. Do this while in parallel you start the next step of cooking the onions. (Maybe this means cooking the lentils for 10-15 minutes or so?)

Chop the onions finely and fry in a frying pan with the oil, on a medium heat, until starting to brown.

Tip the onions and oil into the lentil pan, plus 1 mug cold water or more (a pint?). Add salt, chilli, turmeric, rice.

Gently simmer for about 30 to 45 minutes - so that it is the right soupy consistency you want! If you need to add more water as it gently summers, do so.

Oven-roasted fennel is great - it's roasty, and yet still fresh and fragrant. This simple dish makes the most of it. We made this in 2019 and remembered it today! And it's as lovely as it is easy.

Serves 2. Takes 35 minutes.

• 1 bulb of fennel
• 1 packet (250g) of fresh tagliatelle pasta, plain or spinachy (but not wholemeal)
• 1 lemon (juice and zest)
• 1 clove of garlic
• olive oil
• 1 tbsp oat cream
• 1 small handful fresh parsley

Preheat an oven at 180C, and lightly oil a baking tray.

Chop the fennel in half top to bottom, then cut into slices approx half a centimetre thick. (Those cuts are also top to bottom, so that you're left with connected half-moon pieces.) Save any wispy "fennel tops" to one side, to use as garnish at the end.

Crush or finely chop the garlic. Zest and juice the lemon. Put half of the lemon juice into a mixing bowl, and add 1 tbsp oil plus the garlic and a good pinch of salt. Whisk this with a fork, then add the fennel pieces and give everything a good but gentle mix, to get them evenly coated.

Spread the fennel pieces out on the baking tray, then roast in the oven for 30 minutes. Half-way through, turn the pieces over.

Meanwhile, wash and finely chop the parsley.

Five minutes before the fennel is ready, in a large pan of boiling water, cook the tagliatelle according to the pack instructions. Once you've drained the pasta, return it to the pan, and add a dash of olive oil plus the oat cream, salt and pepper. With two forks, toss this around so that all the pasta is separated and nicely coated. Check the seasoning. Then add the parsley and mix again.

Take the fennel out of the oven and add it to the pasta. Sprinkle over the lemon zest and the remaining lemon juice, and gently stir again to mix.

Serve in 2 dishes, with the fennel tops chopped and sprinkled over.

Did you know that cranberries and rice are the 2 crops that can be grown on fully-saturated (i.e. damp) land? I learnt that this week from a colleague who studies how Dutch "polder" land can be farmed to absorb the most carbon.

So I decided to try making a rice and cranberry dish this weekend!

It's getting wintry here, too, so a nice festive wintry dish is needed. I was inspired by this recipe by Little Spice Jar, but I think their way of pre-cooking the rice is odd and a bit complex, so my version is (I hope) easier and makes the most of the saffron. One thing they're right about: use good quality basmati rice. You'll really notice.

Total time: 50 minutes. Serves 2.

• 1/2 a mug of basmati rice (thus approx 160ml - I know it's odd to measure rice by volume, in a recipe, but I do it with a standard British tea mug.)
• 35g approx butter or vegan butter
• 1 small red onion, thinly sliced
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric
• 1/4 to 1/2 to 1 tsp granulated sugar (choose how sweet to make it)
• 1/2 teaspoon sumac powder
• 1 handful dried cranberries (or dried cherries, or barberries)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/8 teaspoon saffron (we'll soak it - see below)
• 1 handful roasted shelled pistachios (or slivered almonds or pecans)

Pre-soak the rice. Measure out the amount, rinse it in a sieve under running water, and then soak it in fresh cold water for 20 minutes. Meanwhile do the next steps.

Heat up a small frying pan on a medium heat. If your pistachios haven't been roasted, you can first toast them at this point, and then put them to one side. You'll be re-using the frying pan.

Boil hot water in a kettle, and then use this to soak the saffron. BUT do this in an exact quantity of water, as follows: one-and-a-half times the amount as the rice. We'll be using the classic way to "steam-cook" rice in a pan, and one-and-a-half times is how much water will be absorbed. Leave the saffron to soak in this warm water for about 10 minutes while you do the next part.

Add the olive oil to the frying pan, and start the onion frying. After about 4 minutes once the onion has softened, add the turmeric, sumac, dried cranberries, and stir. Add the sugar, and a small splash of water to help the sugar get absorbed. Once that has all mixed together, and the onions nicely softened with a touch of caramelisation, take this off the heat.

Drain the rice, using a sieve.

Add half of the pistachios to the cranberry onion mixture.

Now we can assemble the pilaf. Take a pan that has a tight-fitting lid, add the butter, and put the pan on the medium heat. Once the butter has melted and coated the pan, add the rice to it, and let it cook slightly on the heat while you add the rest. Pour the saffron and its water over the rice, making sure to pour it evenly around so that the saffron isn't in clumps, and then make sure the rice is spread evenly with a flat top. Then spoon the cranberry onion mixture on top of this, again trying to make a nice even layer.

Now put the lid on tightly, and don't open it again for the next 20 minutes! For the first 3 or 4 minutes, you should let it cook at medium heat Then turn the heat right down to very low - on a gas hob, I would turn it to the lowest it can possibly go, and on an induction I use setting 2 out of 9. You then have about 15 minutes to prepare other parts of the meal, or to relax.

The pilaf is ready when all the water has been absorbed. When this happens the pan gets hotter, and you can test it by putting a splash of water on the side - it should fizzle away.

Open the pan, give the pilaf a stir (or don't, if you want to preserve the layering), and then serve it, topped with the remaining pistachios and maybe a nice little sprinkle of some more sumac.

I've seen some great music played at some ace festivals this year. Here are my highlights!

• YoungRubbi - a punk/rap kid from Rotterdam, whose energetic, angry but inclusive live set that was everything you need! The circle-pit was full of people of all ages. Here's a highlights video you should watch! (They talk in Dutch in the video. But it's only short. I'm in the video for at least 1 frame.)

• Nai Barghouti - a Palestinian singer with a soaring, beautiful and powerful voice. We saw her at "Le Guess Who" festival backed by Amsterdam Sinfonietta - I'm not always a fan of orchestral gigs but these string players were light on their feet and doing interesting things. Nai ranged across many different moods, and I love to hear this "arabic" (?) singing style, powerful and ornamented. You have to hear her.

• An amazing church concert from Heinali & Andriana-Yaroslava Saienko: Heinali played the most perfectly-judged electronic drone music, to complement Saienko who alternated between soft West-European churchy singing and the more "brassy" East-European style of her native Ukranian singing. This was the perfect music to host in the reverberant church space, a perfect collaboration, beautifully performed.

• Meth. This one's very dark and very heavy, not for general consumption. For me this was the stand-out show of Complexity Festival in Haarlem - far more than all the other heavies that day, they put across a performance that was brutal in its machine-like insistence. It's about human weakness and it's completely unforgiving. The tracks (from their recent album) are themed on vulnerable human emotions handled, largely, through screaming. Of course there are lots of bands that go in these directions, but the single-minded intensity was so complete.

• Ndagga Rhythm Force - at Le Guess Who festival, I'm always looking for some hardcore African drumming mixed with heavy electronics. This time it was the Ndaggas, from Senegal (via Berlin). Intense as it should be. (I'll admit... I'm still thinking back to Nihiloxica in 2023.)

• I Am Oak - he's a Dutch indie musician, who during the lockdowns recorded some lo-fi versions of his back catalogue. This led to the stripped-down intimate delivery of the live gig he gave us this year (at Peel Slowly And See festival). His quirky indie acoustic songs, simple rendition and soft voice are just completely loveable. (Currently touring UK FWIW.)

I'd love to hear your highlights too.

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