Thursday, March 26, 2026

Food and Other Stuff

Len is doing great cooking again.

This Week’s Mona Lisa

Did you say art? You must mean Mona Lisa.

Recent Reading

I lost interest in the middle of this thriller.

‘

The thirteen stories in this collection vary quite a lot, and several of them differ from the novels of Louise Erdrich that I have read. I enjoyed them all. I’ll pick one example, the story titled “Borsalino,” in reference to a particular type of hat that the narrator wears.

The hat: “a soft brown Borsalino, with a wide grosgrain ribbon band
and a generous brim.” It has a very special hat band made of snakeskin.

This story takes place in Venice during two trips that the narrator takes, quite a few years apart. On the first trip when she’s a student, the narrator is befriended by a local man named Enzo, who offers to be a guide…

“So I took the thief’s tour. In through cracks in walls, squeezing around or climbing through damaged gates, we wandered through ornate gardens and empty apartments. Enzo seemed to know everyone who was keeping the city going, from the bakers to the garbage collectors. He knew his way into shuttered shops, the secret areas of churches, cloisters, ancient palazzi. Servants let us sleep on couches hidden from sunlight, under sheets, or wander in the bishop’s residence. We ate bread and cheese in tiny private gardens, sipped from a bottle liberated from a merchant’s fabled wine cellar. Over the days we went to the islands. In Murano, he blew glass with the glass-blowers. In San Lazzaro degli Armeni, he greeted a monk who let us into the library. Enzo spoke, in a language I had never heard before, to a mummy, tranquil and stern, a neighbor of the monk. We went to Isola San Michele, the island of the dead, and wandered into the oldest part of the cemetery, filled with blackened angels and tilted vaults.” (p.99)

It’s clear that Enzo is very special and has a strange place in the world of the cemetery — especially in “ a cozy mausoleum” where he shows her an old mattress in a crypt. And seems to sleep there. “My hat rattled, as if the snakeskin in the hatband had come alive and moved.”

On the second trip, things are a little different. The author has her husband and children with her, and they start the day normally…

‘I went back to Venice another time. It was about sixteen years later, over a decade into my first marriage. We went with two of our children, both girls, seven and eight years old. I had them keep a travel diary for their younger sister, still at home, just a toddler. In the hotel where we stayed, near the Accademia Bridge, a lavish breakfast was served. The girls listed everything on one page, drew it on another. They were enthralled by the tall glasses of blood orange juice. They drew the arrays of folded meats and pallid cheeses, the puffy pastries, pots of jam, giving each a letter grade.” (p. 101)

But then things turn dark. Enzo, she learns, is not human. He’s a spirit that has lived in Venice for centuries. Further, the hat, which she’s brought with her on this trip too, turns out to be a kind of a magic hat, especially its snakeskin hat band.

All the stories have something special in them.

Monday, March 23, 2026

A Walk in the Park

“Muskrats are large, semi-aquatic rodents known for their dense brown fur, webbed hind feet, and long, vertically flattened tail, which they use for steering in water. They are excellent swimmers, can hold their breath for extended periods, and build lodges or burrows in the banks of freshwater marshes, ponds, and slow-moving streams across North America.”

Len’s photo

“The Great Blue Heron is North America's largest heron, a tall, blue-gray wading bird with long legs, a long neck, and a dagger-like bill.”

“The Sandhill crane is a large, gray wading bird known for its long legs, neck, and a distinctive red patch on its forehead, with a loud, rattling call and elaborate courtship dance. Found in North American grasslands and wetlands, they are omnivores that mate for life, and their impressive migration is a well-known natural spectacle.”

Len’s photo

Friday, March 20, 2026

What’s Up?

New in the Kitchen: A Mug Rack

Made by Len.

Currently Reading and Watching

Diet, Drugs, and Dopamine: The New Science of Achieving a Healthy Weight
Reading the semi-autobiographic work by David Kessler about food and anti-food, specifically weight-loss drugs.

Reading news accounts of a hero who betrayed his followers: another revelation of abuse of women by a powerful man. It’s so sad to read stories about so many predators. I wonder what will become of this mural. Shared with Sami’s Murals.

On TV: a remake of the old favorite. I’ve read it over and over, though not recently.
It was the first long book I read when I was around 12 years old.

At Alice’s Apartment

Alice is growing a few pots of herbs in her kitchen.

Dinner at Alice’s apartment.

Freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies from frozen dough made by a friend of Alice.

Dreaming of Hawaii: Old Photos

A turtle at Poipu Beach on Kauai in 2016. Shared with Eileen’s Saturday Critters.

Manta Ray, Kona, 2005

Great White Shark, Kona, 2005

Fish and coral, Kona, 2007

Io Valley on Maui, 2009

Blog post and photos © mae sander

Shared with Readerbuzz Sunday Salon.

Wednesday, March 18, 2026

Fire

The LA Library Fire

How did I happen to be reading about two major tragic fires at the same time? I don’t know, but recently I’ve been rereading The Library Book by Susan Orlean, which documents the disastrous fire in 1986 that burned the downtown library in Los Angeles. Below is a photo of the burning building. Long after the fire, in around 2003, I visited the library, which had been restored — at that time I was unaware of the fire, but now I see how horrible it was.

Note that the reason I started to reread this book is that Susan Orlean has just published a new book, which made me think about going back to this one. My earlier review is here (link) and the NY Times review of the new book here (link)

News photo of the library on fire

Another Major Fire:

The Devastation of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon

The New York Times magazine currently has a story (link) about the horrendous forest fire at the Grand Canyon that destroyed the forest, the historic lodge, and 100 other buildings last summer.
We visited there on one of our cross-country trips in 2011.

Looking through the burned-out building towards the Grand Canyon.
What fabulous views the tourists at the lodge once enjoyed.

The fury and speed of a major fire is staggering to contemplate.

We took this photo at the North Rim Lodge in 2011 when we visited the Grand Canyon.
Its destruction would have been unimaginable at that time.

Photos from the web.

Tuesday, March 17, 2026

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

Tradition

Our Saint Patrick’s Day dinner in 2026. Our red cabbage was a raw salad, and the corned beef came in a
package already sliced, which may be a little off the traditional meal. We ate it the evening before the holiday.

Here is the online summary of this tradition: “Corned beef and cabbage is considered an Irish-American dish, not traditionally Irish. While Irish immigrants brought the tradition of eating boiled meat and cabbage to the U.S., they substituted expensive Irish bacon with cheaper corned beef purchased from Jewish butchers in New York City during the 19th century.”