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| “The starter greeted me like a puppy, yapping and leaping, excited to be alive.” A quote from Robin Sloan’s Sourdough. Len’s starter is better behaved than the starter in the novel, which is very naughty. |
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| Len’s bread made a few years ago — he makes it often, and will bake it this afternoon. |
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| I’m rereading Robin Sloan’s novel just for fun. While Len bakes for our coming guests. |
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| Good bread for sale in Ann Arbor: including sourdough loaves at Zingerman’s Bakehouse |
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| Len made them on Saturday. We enjoyed them for afternoon tea and for breakfast. I find it amusing that the spiral design on the plate looks like the spiral on the roll. |
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| French-style oil and vinegar potato salad is another classic dish that we love. I’ve blogged about this often — especially when I make Salade Niçoise in which it is a key feature. Tonight we ate it as a side dish with shrimp. |
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| Recipe from New York Times Cooking |
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| Ingredients ready to cook. Cooking only takes a few minutes. |
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| The owner of Everest Sherpa restaurant is from Nepal, and the decor includes photos of the Himalayas and of famous mountain climbers. The restaurant serves Nepalese and Indian cuisine. The founding owner of the restaurant was one of the first to climb Everest. |
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| Crispy dumplings called MoMo. |
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| Curried chicken served with rice. The restaurant offers a wide variety of dishes. |
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| Crowds of viewers at the Nichols Arboretum Peony Garden this morning. I’ve posted photos of the peonies in many previous years. They are always wonderful. |
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| This year our visit is early enough that we could also enjoy the rhododendrons that grow at the garden. |
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| I’m not making much progress on this book — I might switch to another one! |
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| Also read part of this book. I hope to do better next week! |
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| Rhubarb sauce — a spring favorite! |
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| We decided to make this Israeli specialty for lunch one day, as I noted in an earlier blog post. |
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| I had the Greek salad. My friend Elaine had a bacon & egg sandwich. Nothing was exceptionally good. The fries were served cold. Note to self and Elaine: eat lunch elsewhere. |
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| I met my friend Abby at the Argus cafe for coffee and a long conversation. I also bought the rhubarb here. Argus has two store fronts in one block, one with coffee and the other with farmers’ produce on consignment. |
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| Little goslings are cute, but unfortunately they grow up to be geese. Filthy creatures! |
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| Graffiti along the river walk. For Sami’s murals and graffiti. |
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| Further down the river: a mallard duck inspects a swan’s nest. |
Magic, murder and a mystery rooted in a murky wartime past. Meet DI Stephens and Max Mephisto
Brighton, 1950. When the body of a girl is found, cut into three, Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens is reminded of a magic trick, the Zig Zag Girl. The inventor of the trick, Max Mephisto, is an old friend of Edgar’s. They served together in the war as part of a shadowy unit called the Magic Men. Max is still on the circuit, touring seaside towns in the company of ventriloquists, sword-swallowers and dancing girls. Changing times mean that variety is not what it once was, yet Max is reluctant to leave this world to help Edgar investigate. But when the dead girl turns out to be known to him, Max changes his mind. Another death, another magic trick: Edgar and Max become convinced that the answer to the murders lies in their army days. When Edgar receives a letter warning of another ‘trick’, the Wolf Trap, he knows that they are all in the killer’s sights.
This is a very entertaining spy novel!
Review © 2026 mae sander
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| On our deck: Len has potted the herbs that we bought from the Botanical Garden sale. |
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| At the sale: the plants were displayed in the greenhouse. |
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| Lamb chops and buttered potatoes with herbs. |
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| A somewhat exotic sandwich spread called Amba. It’s an Israeli specialty that originated with Iraqui Jews in Israel. It’s a key ingredient in an Israeli street-food sandwich called the Sabich. We had sandwiches with Amba and vegetables; the classic Israeli Sabich includes eggplant and hard-boiled eggs. |
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| How to Not Know |
This book — just published today — offers a combination of interesting insights (from time to time) with a lot of conventional and somewhat banal or predictable advice. Like the advice you find in newspaper columns. Not terrible, but I guess on the whole I found it somewhat a waste of time. I kind of speed read it. I’d say: don’t bother.
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| 1950s: A child in an Iron Lung, a device to save the lives of those whose lungs were paralyzed by polio. His face is reflected in a mirror to enable him to interact with people around him. (source) |
“For polio specifically, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have reported steep declines in case counts and deaths since the first vaccine was licensed in 1955. Around 1952, about 16,000 cases and 1,879 deaths were reported each year. That fell to fewer than 1,000 cases by 1962 and then lower, to 100 cases per year, according to the C.D.C. report.” (source)
I was in elementary school when the first polio vaccine was released. We viewed it as a miracle of medical science, and were in awe of Salk and Sabin and their colleagues who had created the vaccine. (See my previous post on this here: https://maefood.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-polio-vacccine.html)
Before that, the children with whom I went to school and all of our parents were in terror of polio. Each morning in class we would hear announcements first from the Principal and then from a child representative of each class. One news item from each class might be the name of a classmate who was absent because he or she had contracted polio. The designated announcer would express the hope from the class that the victim would recover. Some did recover. Some came back with a crippled arm or leg which over time would not grow, so that the victim would have a severe limp or inability to play ball or other disabilities. Some never came back and we never were specifically told why.
Don’t ever let anyone convince you that the polio vaccine is worse than the disease. Not for society. Not for individuals. You never want to get polio. You never want your child to get polio. Forgetting (or encouraging people to forget) the horrors of the disease seems to me to be a crime. I’m looking at Robert Kennedy.
News this week of the death of one of the last survivors who used an iron lung reminded me of these long-ago experiences. Simultaneously there is front-page news of the current administration’s war on vaccines. See https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/health/kennedy-vaccine-safety.html and also this article from the NY Times:
Paul Alexander, who died at 78, was paralyzed with polio at age 6 and relied on the machine to breathe.
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| Alice brought us Satchel’s Ribs for dinner. Mac and cheese, coleslaw, potato salad, and cornbread too. |
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| The ribs were Evelyn’s treat (via Alice). We are really home now! |
Photos ©2026 mae sander
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| BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM An old but very amusing film. |
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| Aloo Gobi that I cooked in 2009. |
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| Three Avatar movies from the past and present. |
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| Blueberry Pancakes with powdered sugar and (later) maple syrup. |
