Elk and Moose

These are the animals shown on Michigan’s shield along with a sun rising over a lake. I spent almost a week visiting a friend’s house, bought by her father in 1947, that is literally on the shore of Lake Michigan. Factoid: Some people refer to Michigan as the “Mitten State” because of its shape. If you go with this, her house would be on the bottom of the palm.

While I was there my friend worked on getting the house in shape for upcoming summer renters. We still found time to pick wildflowers, walk on the beach, (some people were in the water which was about 60 so way too cold for this eastern wimp), pick up stones and paint a watercolor of them, cook, have dinner with her friends, eat outrageously huge portions of ice cream at a local stand, visit several Farmer’s Markets and so forth.

In my friend’s parents’ early days the house stood almost alone but over the years others have bought or built around it. There is a lot of construction going on, some building new homes and some fixing or enlarging existing houses. The place has a vibe of beach-cum- rural living- cum- farming with a good sprinkle of independence.

Peonies at a market

Most of our lunches were salads in some form. One day, in a very successful effort to use up a bunch of bits and pieces hanging out in the fridge we had this:

Salad Lake Michigan

Salmon left over from being cooked the day before

Quartered small previously oven roasted red potatoes roasted with olive oil, onions and rosemary

A slice of grilled zucchini cut up

One slice leftover tomato

½ a yellow pepper cut into small dice

1 large radish cut into small dice

Gently combine all the above in a bowl

The dressing was roughly ¼ cup mayonnaise combined with roughly ¼ cup of my standard vinaigrette as follows;

Vinaigrette MG

½ cup olive oil

Less than ½ cup balsamic vinegar

Squeeze of honey (or a few pinches of sugar)

About ¼ tablespoon Dijon mustard

Salt and pepper

Pour dressing over the salad and toss. Pile the salad over lettuce, preferably from a local market.

Put on mittens and while serving sing a chorus of Hail to the Conquering Hero. If you’ve forgotten it, this should do the job.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mURDwg_wilE