Weekend

 

Windows of the People’s Food Co-op.

Ann Cleeves: another Inspector Ramsay novel.
Not a very good book! Too many hints make it seem contrived.

Marina Chang: Tastes of the Pyrenees
Appealing recipes — I may try some of them.

Blog post © 2025 mae sander for maefood.blogspot.com

Another Quiet Week

 A New Resolve

We rejoined the fitness center that we dropped during the pandemic. (Ok, that’s a long time!)
No photos allowed inside so I used the picture from their website.

An Interesting Mystery

Black Beadle (published 1938). E.C.R. Lorac (1894-1958) wrote a huge number of
police procedural novels about the detective Robert MacDonald (Goodreads lists 45 of them!)

After the murder of a quite unpleasant man at the beginning of Black Beadle, Inspector MacDonald investigates four suspects. These possible murderers represent four social types in England just before the war. As the inspector says they were “men of such different types that it seems almost ludicrous to group them under a common heading.” (p. 161) 

It’s a tightly plotted novel with an interesting theme underlying MacDonald’s efforts: the exploration of contemporary views on Jewish people and Jewish stereotypes in England, mainly by the focus on one suspect who is Jewish and one upper-class suspect who despises Jews. There is also a heavy consciousness of the persecution of Jews that was underway at that time in Germany. 

I think the author meant well, but I found the book to be uncomfortable reading because I see even these well-intended attitudes as condescending and now outdated. Just one example, the Jewish character is often identified as “the Jew” — for example:

“The appeal made to him by the Jew had been, in its essence, an emotional appeal.” (p. 112)

 

“He sensed that the Jew was upright, humane, and sincere, but there was in him that touch of the fanatic which rendered him doubly dangerous.” (p. 105)

 

I’ve read one other novel by this author, and I may read more. Quite a few of them are still in print or in e-book form. 

Kerrytown Lunch and Shopping

Lunch at one of our local favorites, Miss Kim in the Kerrytown shopping center downtown
Carrot salad, broccoli salad, Korean fried chicken, and spare ribs.
A Zingerman’s chocolate cupcake for dessert

From one of the interesting shops in Kerrytown: a ceramic light-switch cover.

Horror Show in Washington

Shared with Sunday Salon at Readerbuzz.

Blog post and photos © 2025 mae sander

The Ann Arbor Art Fair

Art and People

Evelyn and Miriam at the ceramic fish artists’ booth. The family is spending the weekend here,
partly to visit the Art Fair.

Two of the ceramic fish.

Skin art (we saw lots of this)!

After over a 24 hour delay, thanks to the airline chaos this weekend, Alice is here in time for the end of the Fair.

Food at the Art Fair

Friday: a black bean burger. Saturday: candy-coated nuts.

At the Carl Milles Fountain

The beautiful Carl Milles Fountain is always surrounded by Art Fair goers and food stalls.

Appreciating the fountain.

Ibrahim, the Vendor of African Art

As we often have done in the past, we found Ibrahim, who deals in African tribal art.
He usually finds a place to set up (unofficially) but this year he was disallowed,
so he only spent a few hours selling from the back of his van.

Some of Ibrahim’s selection of masks: not the one we bought.

In the center of our mantlepiece: the sculpture we bought this year.
The other two sculptures are from earlier years at Ibrahim’s stall.

Saturday Night Dinner

Blog post and all photos © 2024 mae sander

Shared with Deb’s  Sunday Salon.

Trying Korean Beer

Celebrating our Anniversary.

Sometimes I feel adventurous. At Miss Kim, a restaurant that we always enjoy, most of our food selections were already favorites. However, I picked a completely unknown beverage: Makku, a Korean rice beer, brewed near Seoul. The primary ingredient is fermented rice, and its alcohol content is around 6%.

Miss Kim, a Korean restaurant with innovative versions of the cuisine.  It’s very well-regarded.
I decided to try the Korean beer for a change. It was tangy but not very beer-like.

Rice beer (lower right in the photo) is white and opaque, without much foam — new to me!
The foods: carrot salad, sautéed broccoli with caramelized fish sauce, lettuce-and-pear salad, and smashed potatoes are all delicious favorites of ours. Our main course (not shown) was roast duck breast.

I was unable to find an indication of the alcohol content on the beer can. It also lacked the legally required
mention of the Michigan can deposit. I find this unusual. 

A Little Bit of History

An 18th century Korean drinking party by painter Shin-Yun Bok. (source)

Alcoholic beverages have been produced and consumed in Korea for centuries, and are mainly brewed from rice and a traditional yeast starter. According to an article at liquor.com: “This brewing system is at least 2,000 years old and was driven by jesa, or ancestor worship. Members of Korea’s noble class would offer their best crops, foods and homebrewed alcohol to their deceased forebears.”

European-style Korean beer is a recently introduced product, but a rice beverage called makgeolli — on which Makku is based — is an older Korean tradition. Makgeolli is low-alcohol, and some times called beer, sometimes wine.

An article in the LA Times (“The Secret History of Makgeolli”) explained how fermentation of rice was banned for a long time in Korea, but the tradition persisted illegally and in secret as a home-brewing activity, mainly done by women.  Makgeolli, as the article described it, was “yogurt-tart cloudy rice beer that Koreans have been drinking for centuries. The practice of making it at home was derailed in the last century, but a new generation of Koreans, both on the peninsula and in diaspora, are reclaiming old traditions.” 

More about the Korean brewing traditions that were forbidden in the 1960s because of rice shortages during the post-war era, and finally legalized again in the 1990s:

“Makgeolli is one drink in a family of Korean rice brews that can all be made by roughly the same process: Steam rice, mix it with water and nuruk, a wheat cake fermentation starter, and let the microbes go to work. Makgeolli falls under the umbrella of takju, the cloudy rice beer you get when you first strain your mash; the results have a creamy, horchata-esque mouthfeel.”

 The entry in Wikipedia considers makgeolli to be a wine, and describes it thus:

Makgeolli … sometimes anglicized to makkoli (/ˈmækəli/,^[1] MAK-ə-lee), is a Korean alcoholic drink. It is a milky, off-white, and lightly sparkling rice wine that has a slight viscosity, and tastes slightly sweet, tangy, bitter, and astringent. Chalky sediment gives it a cloudy appearance. As a low proof drink of six to nine percent alcohol by volume, it is often considered a "communal beverage" rather than hard liquor.

Blog post © 2024 mae sander

Korean Cuisine

This library book, Korean Home Cooking by Sohui Kim, has been an inspiration for some
great dishes this month. We are intrigued by the many recipes for Kim Chee, though don’t plan to make it.

The food photos in the book are beautifully styled. Imagine my surprise when the plate for a tofu dish (left)
was exactly like a plate that I’ve had for many years (right).

I made some tofu and also delicata squash to go with the sauce in the recipe. Delicious!

Again, the image from the book and my plate, with the tofu and squash arranged on it.

Miss Kim Korean-Style Restaurant

We had a nice dinner at this local Korean-style restaurant. The chef/owner
is very creative with Korean-inspired cuisine.

Ji Hye Kim, the owner of Miss Kim, has been a semifinalist in the Outstanding Chef category of the James Beard Award and in the restaurant category, as well as receiving recognition from the Food & Wine and Eater lists. The restaurant, founded in 2016, is part of the Zingerman’s group of Ann Arbor food establishments. We find the cooking, the atmosphere, and the service at this restaurant to be quite enjoyable.

A complimentary appetizer (banchan) —
 grated carrots with coriander.

A lovely asparagus dish served with pecan halves.

Fantastic stir-fried broccoli with a slightly sweet sauce.

Tteokbokki — Korean rice batons. Tasty and interestig.
This was my main course. Len had fish, but it was disappointing.

Dessert seems to be perfectly American: molten chocolate cake!

The Seoul, Korean Restaurant

About a month ago, we ate at The Seoul, another, more traditional Korean restaurant near the University of Michigan campus. We ordered noodles and Korean fried chicken, not Korean Barbecue, their signature dish.I didn’t post any photos at the time, so here they are.

Very nice complimentary appetizers: traditional in Korean restaurants.

Blog post © 2023 mae sander