Thelin Emily Kaiser - Unforgettable: the bold flavors of Paula Wolferts renegade life

IN AN IMPOSSIBLY NARROW LANE in the crowded ancient medina of Marrakech, a motor scooter zipped past, a horned ram bleating between the drivers legs, bound for sacrifice for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. I jumped to get out of the way and promptly collided with a family headed home for the holiday, a small lamb chewing on weeds while straddling the shoulders of the man. I cinched my coat tighter against the wet, cold December day and pushed on against the crowds.

It was December 2008. I had come to Morocco on an assignment for Food & Wine to profile legendary cookbook author Paula Wolfert, a longtime contributor to the magazine whom I had edited as a staffer there since 2006. This was the culinary equivalent of a journey through the Arabian dunes with T. E. Lawrence or a trip to Kitty Hawk with the Wright Brothersthe chance to tour the place where a titan of my field first made her name. She and I had met in person only twice before, once at a food conference and then for lunch at her house in Sonoma. She had returned to Morocco because her publisher, HarperCollins, had suggested she update her first book, the 1973 landmark Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco.

In Couscous, Paula writes how Eid al-Adha, the Festival of the Sacrifice, occurs on the tenth day of the twelfth month of the Muslim calendar year and commemorates the sacrifice of Abraham. Every Moroccan tries to get hold of a sheep a kid or, if he is very poor, a fowl. The point is to make a sacrifice and then enjoy it. As a resident of Morocco in the late 1960s, she purchased and fattened her own live lamb for the holiday and, working from a cookbook published by House & Garden magazinedecades before DIY butcherytaught herself to cut up the carcass. Any odd bits that shed butchered badly, she chopped to make kefte, delicious Moroccan meatballs.

I had been looking forward to this trip for months, but when I arrived, Paula e-mailed profuse apologies that she had been delayed and wouldnt be able to join me until the next day. I wandered the medina alonefor as long as I could stand it. I loved it but felt I might drown in the riptide of rams, goats, carpet sellers, spice merchants, and charcoal smoke. I retreated to the rooftop caf of my hotel to sip hot mint tea.

When we met the next morning, the holiday was over. The rams and goats were gone, but the crowds were denser than ever. Paula tucked her bobbed chestnut hair behind her ears, linked her arm in mine, and together we traversed the Djemaa el-Fna, Marrakechs vast central square. Although the square teemed with people, the tension I had felt the day before melted away. She led me first to the best stall for