The Breakfast Hour

Zahra sets the courtyard table before anyone is awake. I don't know exactly when she does it — I've never managed to be up early enough to catch her at it. By the time guests come down, the table is already there: the bread warm in its cloth, the argan oil in its small ceramic bowl, the amlou in another, the eggs done the way she's decided they should be done.

The bread comes from the communal oven at the end of the derb. It has been there longer than the house has been a guesthouse, longer than anyone can reliably remember. The baker knows our bread by its shape. We don't have a mark — Zahra just uses the round one with the slight thickness in the middle that means she pressed it herself that morning.

The light comes down through the open sky above the fountain at a particular angle in the morning. The courtyard was designed for exactly this — three hundred years ago someone understood where the sun would be.

Guests ask what time breakfast is. We say eight, which is technically true. But the better answer is: whenever you come down. The table holds. The fountain runs. The medina does its morning thing on the other side of the door and you sit in the courtyard with your tea and the bread and the light doing its slow arc through the open sky above you.

Amlou is the thing people ask about most. It's a paste — almond, argan, honey, made in the Souss. You eat it with the bread. It is indescribably good. We get ours from a woman in the souk whose family has been making it for three generations. I have tried to recreate it at home and failed completely.

Some mornings guests don't come up for a long time. They sit in the courtyard first, in the chairs by the fountain, and just exist. This is correct behaviour. The house encourages it. The rooftop will still be there. The bread — well, Zahra will make more.