Maureen Abood

08/09/2026

Oh summer, please slow down! I’m working on “pauses” and July helped me with that, plus many other moments for pure gratitude.

1-3: Lake Louise! No words necessary.
4-5: Maureen goes Mahjong with the wonderful Mahj Squad teaching me how-to. How ‘bout those tiles?! So pretty.
6-9: Northern Michigan bliss. A special feature with Lebanese Baking (fruit edition!) in MyNorth & Traverse Magazine Traverse N. Michigan. magazine.
10-13: All our littles are not so little anymore! Precious at every age.
14-16: July 4 joy, including flag cake and fireworks over the bay
17-19: our local Pond Hill Farm does everything right! Especially pizza! Just as Dan Shaheen

07/20/2026

Love seeing my recipe for Toum garlic sauce in Food & Wine, along with wonderful ways to use it! Get the link in comments!

This iconic Lebanese sauce blends garlic, oil, lemon juice, and salt into a fluffy, garlicky condiment that you'll want to put on everything 🙌. Get the recipe for Toum in the comments!

07/11/2026

THIS! What a feature about the fruit-love of Lebanese Baking, so beautifully written in MyNorth & Traverse Magazine by Cara McDonald. You'll get the wonderful story and recipes in the link below in comments.

07/02/2026

Ohh June! Thank you for all of the special moments like these:
1.2. Dan Shaheen keeps making life a pure joy, celebrating our June anniversary.
3 look at this ambiance, soulful Otis Harbor Springs
4 5 6 7 scenes from up north, our beloved little St Ignatuis chapel and what we see driving to and from Goodhart, good for the soul
8 9 10 11 mission accomplished: old family photos as a gallery wall at home. Seeing our Lebanese forbears daily is so so lovely and inspiring
12 13 14 loved talking Lebanese Baking and my mission with the gang MyNorth & Traverse Magazine 9&10 News . The feature by Cara McDonald in Traverse Northern Michigan is just beautiful.
15 16 continued sweetness from my Camino de Santiago experience: a bottle from the winery we visited on the Way. A bracelet of the charms of the journey.
17 18 Strawberry Moon shines over Little Traverse Bay, what a light! It encouraged my mint, my na’na, to grow into this healthy bundle.
19 My Michigan cherry pie. First of the season, in the trunk and on the road!
20 celebrated the gorgeous and dear dear michael shaheen on his 40th.

06/21/2026

I’m sharing something a little different here today. It’s an excerpt from really the first piece of food writing I ever published, which was placed in the Washington Post. I remember writing and writing and writing over the course of a long period of time after my father passed away. Many good things came from it, including editing an essay that launched my pathway to storytelling and food. My deep desire was, and has always been and always will be, about exploring the meaning behind what goes on in the kitchen and at the table. Our social media can trick us into moving too quickly and glossing over the surfaces of things and sometimes that’s OK. But more often, it’s so good for us to go a little deeper and feel what there is to feel. And ultimately, to grow. Even these excerpts do not capture the depth of what I was exploring in the essay that I wrote, which won some special awards and I credit that to our shared desire to go deeper. I hope you read the whole thing. You can find it on my website, or below.

“Some of you say, ‘Joy is greater thar sorrow,’ and others say, ‘Nay, sorrow is the greater.’ But I say unto you, they are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.” –Kahlil Gibran

https://maureenabood.com/lebanese-hushwe-and-from-the-kitchen-a-family-farewell-for-my-father/

06/04/2026

So much about baking and cooking can teach us about ourselves. And life! Yes, we have the end result—the food—as our goal, but there is so much more on offer in the making. That includes: Finding rest, strength building, patience-seeking, practice-making, mistake-lovin’, legacy-leaving, and on and on forever. 💚