June, 2025: In and Out of My Kitchen

 New in My Kitchen

A small milk pitcher. New one next to the larger one I’ve had for some time.

Two of these plates are new, by Ann Arbor potter Maki Lin.
I had four of them already.

A Few Things We Have Cooked in June

Some by me, some by Len

Shrimp and salad with a closeup of the new plates.

Spaghetti and meatballs.

Len’s baking: a cinnamon roll.

Beyond the Kitchen

Walks along the Huron River

How we look from the drone. Photo taken Saturday at Hudson Mills Metro Park on the Huron River.

Little girl who was fishing in the Huron River.

Feather in the grass on Sunday.

Water lily in the Huron River at Gallup Park on Sunday.

Dinner at Miss Kim

We had dinner at Miss Kim on Sunday night with all of our out-of-town visitors: Arny, Tracy, Elaine, and Larry. On Monday all of them are leaving our area for further visits with relatives elsewhere. It’s been good having all of them here. 

Evelyn, Tom, and Alice in Paris

Alice’s goat-cheese salad:
“Salade Chèvre Panaché de salades, tomates cerise, concombre, bacon grillé, toasts de chèvre, noix.”

Balloon in the Tuilleries Garden. Remaining from the Olympics.

Photos by Mae, Alice, and Evelyn © 2025

What to eat?

 

Along with our friend Elaine, we tried this Nepali-Sherpa-Indian restaurant and found the food quite delicious. We enjoyed Mo-Mo (dumplings), two types of chicken, and one lamb dish. The restaurant is not new, but it was our first time eating there. Very pleasant!

At Home

Ready to carry out to the garden for an informal meal with neighbors.

Michigan Grown.

Want to cook…

A perfect artichoke from the blog “Dreams of Sourdough” —
I keep dreaming of buying some artichokes like this Parisian one.

Baking chocolate chip cookies is another dream. I have the chocolate chips!!

From Joan Nathan’s memoir: baking challa. I may try her recipe some day.

What will this be if it’s not blue?

Jello will be discontinuing artificial dyes.

Blog post © 2025 mae sander

Quiet Times, Good Times

Reading

Like many fantasy novels, The Bird King is around one third longer than it should be, as if the author didn’t quite know how to end it. Set in the historic era in Grenada, at the end of the fifteenth century, when the Moors were just being expelled from Spain, the book has a lot of interesting ideas about the relationship of Moslems and Christians at that time. I enjoyed these historic or almost-historic elements of the book. The presence of supernatural creatures was ok until it wasn’t.

This book seems more like a reference work than a readable history.
I read only parts of it. The author has written better books!

High Island Blues is set in the exact locations where we were birding in Texas in April.

This book was a gift from Deb at Readerbuzz, which was wonderful of her! Not only the setting, but the activity of birding and the goals of the characters in High Island Blues are very much like the goals of the birders that we traveled with. Obviously, the major difference is that no one on our tour —that I know of — was motivated to murder anyone. The birding sites named in the novel are the same ones we visited. Two characters in the novel at one point go into Houston to have lunch at the Galleria Shopping Center, which was the location of our hotel at after the tour. As the characters drive through Houston and around the birding areas, I could picture just these places where we drove on our tour.

At one point, we saw an old motel in Winnie, Texas, near the birding sites. This motel was mentioned by name in the novel. We were told that our tour company used to have people stay there, but it has declined in quality. We stayed in a much newer hotel, happily.

The characters in the novel in fact stayed at an old house with a colorful landlady, which I suspect was entirely fictitious, and which enabled the author to create a conventional plot of the English Country House genre, but of course set in Texas. A very successful artistic decision!

As mysteries go, this is a great read. The author has written many successful books, some of which are also TV shows. I’ve loved the “Vera” TV series based on another series of books by the author, Ann Cleeves.

High Island — site of the action in the novel. Our birding trip to Texas in April visited
there, and the experience was just like the description in the book, despite the gap of 30 years.

A Swainson’s Warbler that we saw in Texas when birding in the sites noted in the novel.
Just before finding the body, the key witness was searching for this bird.
(Len’s Photo)

What’s on TV?

Blog post © 2025 mae sander

Shared with Eileen’s critters

Kitchens, March 2025

New in My Kitchen in March

New spoon rest or teabag holder that Evelyn made me.

What’s new on the refrigerator this month? Just one new and timely magnet.
For a thought-provoking essay on Orwell see: “We are all living in George Orwell’s World Now”
in the New York Times Magazine.

Things We Ate in March

Vietnamese shrimp and snap peas. Recipes from Andrea Nguyen.

Favorite dish: au gratin potato casserole prepared in my French baking dish that I’ve had for many years.

Roast lamb, roast potatoes, broccoli, and a glass of red wine.

An omelet and a pita bread.

In our kitchen one morning. Toast, jam, butter, orange juice, coffee. Other mornings, other selections.

Alice at our favorite bakery, Tous Les Jours — lunch. Yes, we three ate all these pastries!

A visual recipe from the website Recipe Tin Eats. It was very good!

A great meal from Carol’s kitchen.

Recently opened in Ann Arbor: one of a small chain of Vietnamese/French coffee shops. 

Beyond my own Kitchen: US Food Aid Disrupted

Destructive actions by our government have been constantly increasing. 

“Last week, the USDA cut an initiative called the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program, which helped schools receive fresh ingredients from small farms.” (source)

Food-insecurity is a major concern that has been addressed by some very effective programs during the past five years, but those programs are being abruptly discontinued. Farmers have suddenly been abandoned by government programs that purchased their goods on behalf of food banks. Agencies like Feeding America are struggling to cope with these losses. 

“USDA had previously allocated $500 million in deliveries to food banks for fiscal year 2025 through The Emergency Food Assistance Program. Now, the food bank leaders say many of those orders have been canceled.” (source)

Food banks throughout the country, which have struggled to help those in need as their numbers increased, are now profoundly challenged as many millions of dollars in food aid has been cut off: 

“USDA’s cancellation of the Local Food for Schools and Local Food Purchase Assistance programs has garnered headlines, but they are just two of more than a dozen programs supporting small farms and regional food infrastructure that have been impacted. (source)

Source: “Feds cancel #4.3M worth of poultry, cheese, eggs to Michigan Food Banks” (March 29, 2025)

Here in Ann Arbor, throughout our state of Michigan, and in most other states, needy families that relied on USDA food supplies for nutritional help are facing a grim future. 

“Nearly $5 million worth of food for Michigan food banks has been cut by the Trump Administration, according to the CEO of one of Battle Creek's food banks. Although that number accounts for about 4% of food distributed to Michiganders across eight counties, South Michigan Food Bank CEO Peter Vogel is hopeful the cuts won't cause southwest Michiganders to go hungry. Canceled meals, including products such as chicken, eggs, pork, turkey and cheese, were expected to be delivered this spring and summer.” (source)

Farmers, already jeopardized by international trade cancellations in the tariff wars, are additionally faced with these newly cancelled orders. (The impact on farmers of new tariffs scheduled to begin this week is a major issue, separate from the various program cancellations.)

“Funding pauses at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are affecting sustainable agricultural programs in Michigan. The program Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities funds 41 projects, including 28 in Michigan. Grants support programs that increase economic opportunities for farmers who use sustainable practices. The disbursement of those funds has been stopped, according to two of those projects in Michigan.” (source)

Thinking of my own kitchen, where I am so extremely fortunate, makes me also think of the less fortunate people in my community, my state, and my country — one of the tragedies that is unfolding in the tsunami of federal injustice.

Blog post and original photos © 2025 mae sander.

Other photos as credited.

Shared with In My Kitchen at Sherry’s blog.