Nous-Nous

The glass tells you the truth before you taste it: dark coffee below, pale milk above, meeting in the middle like two neighbors who already know each other. Nous-nous means half-half, and that is not a decoration. It is the whole order.

You make the coffee strong because the milk will soften it. You heat the milk until it is sweet-smelling and velvety, then pour with a steady hand so the drink stays balanced, neither black coffee nor a bowl of milk. The why is plain: equal parts give you the Moroccan café place between hurry and staying.

This is not ceremony food. It is the small glass on a terrace in Casablanca, Oujda, Rabat, Tangier, anywhere someone has five minutes and still makes room for one more person at the table. Une table, c'est une porte qu'on laisse ouverte (a table is a door you leave open), even when the table is only big enough for two glasses.