Thanksgiving Prep

 Stuffing… Preping Vegetables

Yams for a soufflé and vegetables for roasting on the grill.

Lots More…

Duck… Sweet Potato Soufflé

Roasting the Vegetables

Photos © 2023 mae sander

Thanksgiving Breakfast

 

Why I am Thankful on the Day Before Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving pumpkins (real and ceramic): a holiday decoration here at the home of Evelyn and Tom
where we are visiting for the holiday.

Preparations: Miriam making cranberry sauce. I’m thankful to be with family on this holiday.

Mac and cheese step 1: a white sauce enriched with egg yolks. The macaroni part of the dish
will be made today, while the topping will be made at the last minute to keep it crisp.

Bread for stuffing and candied pecans for garnish for another dish.

Last minute trip to the supermarket

Wednesday morning: turkeys waiting for buyers. The store was not yet crowded.
Turkey is not on our menu for tomorrow. We were at the store for just a few more items.

When I think about what Americans have to be thankful for, our abundant supplies of food
are a major reason why we should be grateful. I am also thinking of families who need help.
And victims of many misfortunes, wars, and disasters throughout the world.

At the lake

 

I’m thankful for our beautiful country. On Wednesday afternoon we took a walk

around Burke Lake near Fairfax where we are spending the holiday.

Photos © 2023 mae sander

On the way

 

Beaujolais Nouveau 2023

The release of the new wine from Beaujolais each November used to be a much bigger deal than it is now!  For a number of years, beginning in 1951, the current vintage would be held at the winery until the third Thursday in November, and then shipped to Paris and other cities in Europe. It became trendy to send some by air freight to the US so that Americans could have it quickly, but demand was often higher than this method could handle.

In the 1980s, Beaujolais Nouveau really became popular in the US.
Recently, the wine of this region has been less popular, but it’s coming back.

By 2010, the rules changed. Since that time the newly-bottled wine has been shipped by sea to the US early in the month, but held by the wholesalers until the legal release date, this year Thursday, November 16. There’s still a lot of excitement about Beaujolais Nouveau, and the various shippers (especially our favorite Georges Duboeuf) create beautiful labels special to each year. We always enjoy drinking this iconic wine, which has such a short lifetime.

According to the Wine Spectator:

The 2023 harvest began, as is usual, on Sept. 1, following a difficult August that brought a heat wave, then hail damage in spots, then more heat that damaged younger vines and those planted at lower elevations. The temperatures put harvest on a rapid timeline, giving growers a sense of urgency to get the Gamay grapes off the vines to avoid excessive ripening. The resulting wines do have a bit more heft than the average Nouveau. ...

Wine lovers thirsty for fresh Nouveau to pour during their Thanksgiving feasts have it right: These wines are food-friendly and best enjoyed within a few months, so buy and drink now. 

At our local wine store — the 2023 vintage.

Beaujolais Publicity: Idyllic image of the vineyards in summer.

Blog post © 2023 mae sander

Shared with Elizabeth’s blog party.

 

Detroit Street Art Part 2

 

As I mentioned last week (here), after a visit to the Detroit Institute of Arts, we spent some time following a map to find murals and street art in the area of Detroit near the DIA (Mural Map Detroit Arts). The number and variety of paintings on buildings, fences, and railway underpasses is amazing. Today, I am sharing a few more of them, with the artists identified where I am able to. This post is shared with Sami's Monday Murals, where I've found a community of bloggers who seem to love street art as much as I do!

By Birdcap & WC BEVAN

By Tony WHLGN

By Ghostbeard

Blog post © 2023 mae sander

Books, Bakes, and Netflix

The sky has been beautiful this week!

Reading

"Foster," a novella by Irish writer Claire Keegan is narrated by a child trying to understand what's happening when her father drops her off in an unfamiliar family for several weeks. Poor kid never quite gets what is going on. You, the reader, can almost guess. At the start:

"She leads me into the house. There’s a moment of darkness in the hallway; when I hesitate, she hesitates with me. We walk through into the heat of the kitchen where I am told to sit down, to make myself at home. Under the smell of baking there’s some disinfectant, some bleach. She lifts a rhubarb tart out of the oven and puts it on the bench to cool: syrup on the point of bubbling over, thin leaves of pastry baked into the crust. A cool draught from the door blows in, but here it is hot and still and clean. Tall ox-eyed daisies are still as the tall glass of water they are standing in." (Foster p. 8).

Mystery Reading List

Beginning to run out of ideas on what to read, I was happy to see a Washington Post article titled: "The 10 best mystery novels of 2023: Richard Osman, Brendan Slocumb and Elly Griffiths are among the authors who kept us happily guessing whodunnit this year." I've read and liked three of the ten selections. I'm not crazy about The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp but I might try one or two more from this list to see if there are some good new ideas.

One of the Washington Post's 10 best mysteries of the year so far.

Leonie Swann is a pseudonymn for some German writer whose real identity seems unknown. The internet seems to have virtually no information about this author. I can't find any real reviews of The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp. I wonder how it ended up on the Washington Post list. 

I find this novel mildly offensive because of its very ugly ideas about elderly people and how brain-dead they are, and how they try to overcome their miserable mental and physical decline. The characters int he book rarely walk: they hobble or dodder or stumble. Their minds are foggy. Maybe some readers find this funny, or at least think elderly people are a fair target for insensitive humor. I don't find it so. 

It's true that each chapter has the name of a very typical British food, and that this food plays a role in the chapter. Chelsea Buns, Cottage Pie, Curry, Victoria Sponge, Scones, Bangers and Mash, Biscuits, Gin and Tonic and on and on. But this isn't the Great British Baking Show. This foodie stuff isn't enough to make me like the book. In fact, it's sort of mechanical and annoying.

The murder-mystery plot is not terrible, but not great either, and the ending is contrived. Maybe it's supposed to be some kind of farce or satire. Not very successful...I don't recommend it.

Two Books on Bread

The Bakers of Paris and the Bread Question 1700-1775 (published 1996) and Good Bread is Back (published 2005) by Steven Laurence Kaplan: two very scholarly and excruciatingly detailed books about bread. Topics include the history of bread in France, its social implications, economic consequences, controversies over acceptable ingredients and techniques, technical baking details, and more. These books focus on the 18th and 20th century. I found them tough reading, and didn't really read every bit carefully. But if you want to know about French bread, I think Kaplan is really the world expert and there will never be another.

Actual Bread in Our Kitchen

Reading about French bread inspired a bake from the famous Poilâne book...

Len's beautiful and delicious Poilâne loaf.

New Netflix Series

In eight episodes, this animated series follows a wandering samurai (or ronin) in ancient Japan has all kinds of adventures on a quest to find their father. The art work is fabulous, with echoes or even direct copying of Japanese woodblocks and other art works. The adventures are a bit predictable, but the beauty of the scenes and the use of Japanese themes kept me watching. In fact, I will probably watch Season 2 if it doesn't descend into too much repetition. Definitely adult content! Not for prudes or the faint of heart!

Reviews © 2023 mae sander

A Beaver Dam at the Botanical Gardens

The Matthaei Botanical Gardens were established in 1907. A few weeks ago, for the first time in its history, Fleming Creek, which runs through the garden, became the site of a beaver dam! We noticed it on a walk a couple of weeks ago, and came back to see how the beavers were doing. What fun.

Walking towards the trails, you cross a little pond, and then go along Fleming Creek to the beavers' site.

The dam is a bit chaotic: sticks and brush that the beavers piled up to make their dam.
They seem to work very fast!

We watched from the platform, which conveniently was already built before the beavers moved in.
Then we crossed the stream and looked at the other side.

Water spills over and through the piled-up sticks and leaves, and collects behind the dam.

Screen shot from the official trail cam image of the beaver (link).
Beavers work at night when the gardens are closed to humans.

Update: Several commenters asked if the beaver dam was to be removed or destroyed. ABSOLUTELY NOT!! The management of the Botanical Gardens are delighted by the return of this Michigan keystone species to the garden. Beavers were once common throughout the state, and are slowly coming back.

Photos by mae sander © 2023

Shared with Eileen's Saturday Critters.