Entries tagged with 'Michigan'
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"The balance of sweet, buttery bread, tangy pickles, oozy cheese, and salty meats is a kind of Motor City Muffuletta." [Photograph: Michael Nagrant] I usually write about all things Chicago, but when my grandfather, a very influential foodie role model for me, recently passed away, I found myself back in my hometown of Detroit. As you can imagine, such rough circumstances call for massive carbohydrate comfort, and so I spent plenty of time chowing down on local favorites and childhood touchstone eats: Lafayette Coneys, Olga's Snackers, Buddy's Pizza, and Better Made BBQ chips. The thing is, I can find a decent chili dog, barbecue chips, and great pizza in Chicago. I, however, have never found the 3-D Special Sandwich in...
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"Like any hot dog style that's been around for almost 100 years, the Detroit Coney has migrated far and wide." [Artwork: Hawk Krall] Past Weeks' Dogs Seattle Style DogHalf-Smoke24-Hour DogThe Philly ComboTijuana Dog Detroit's Coney Island hot dog phenomenon has almost nothing to do with Brooklyn's Coney Island (similar to its cousin the Texas Weiner, which has absolutely no relation to Texas). At first glance, the Coney might just look like your average chili dog—but don't say that to anyone in Michigan, Ohio, upstate New York, or any of the other far-reaching places where the Coney has migrated. In Detroit, a "Coney" is a natural casing beef and pork dog covered in ridiculous amounts of Coney Sauce, yellow mustard, and...
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On the kiddie ice cream totem pole, the Superman flavor is pretty high up there, somewhere near bubblegum and cookie dough. But the poor squirts who don't live in or near Michigan probably haven't experienced the red-blue-yellow trio of creamy goodness. Our recent Superman ice cream post inspired Quinn of the Michigan culture blog The Mitten to cruise around the Ann Arbor-area and get to the bottom of this dessert enigma. What's the Michigan connection? Where exactly does the "blue" flavor come from? According to Jim and Forrest Karnopp of Cafe Luwak in Ypsilanti, Michigan, Detroit-based Stroh Brewery stopped making beer during prohibition and segued to ice cream, bringing Superman ice cream into this world. But to this day,...
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Photograph from powerbooktrance on Flickr Editor's note: Grand Rapids is the home of the Koeze Company, who, as far as I'm concerned, make the best peanut butter in America. They also make terrific cream nut clusters, fresh roasted nuts, and lots of other good stuff, so I figured who better to tell serious eaters where to eat in Grand Rapids than Jeff Koeze himself. Jeff would never say this himself (he's far too modest) but Koeze's two locations are a must for serious eaters in Grand Rapids. Beyond that, here are Jeff's recommendations. —EL Breakfast The wheelhouse for Grand Rapids food is breakfast. My favorite is a vegetarian place called Gaia Cafe. I like it not just because their...
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Photograph from jamelah on Flickr Superman ice cream is a Michigan thing involving three flavors (in shades of blue, red, and yellow—your standard Superman colors) working together, sort of like Neapolitan. So is it just vanilla ice cream with buckets of food coloring? Apparently no, at least not in the case of the blue flavor. Blue Moon, another Michigan (or maybe more Midwestern in general) thing—and not beer in this context— is a super sweet Smurf-colored flavor that apparently "just tastes like blue." Some guesstimate that the yellow is vanilla (others have said banana, but they have little support) and that red is cherry, raspberry, strawberry, or another generic sweet-ish red fruit. It sounds like a bubble gum ice...
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Southern Foodways appears on Fridays as part of our collaboration with the Southern Foodways Alliance, an organization based in Oxford, Mississippi, that "documents and celebrates the diverse food cultures of the American South." Dig in! Interested in Southern food but find yourself geographically challenged and living above the Mason Dixon line? Never fear—Zingerman's Roadhouse in Ann Arbor, Michigan is here! Zingerman's is devoted to finding (and making) the best foods in the world, and they're kind enough to ship their treasures right to your door. The Roadhouse (one of several jewels in the Zingerman crown, including the Bakehouse, the Creamery, the Delicatessen, and the Coffee Company) specializes in really good American food—their description, not mine! Alex Young, the chef at...
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The Zingerman's group is kind of like the Warren Buffet of the food world. Culinarily speaking, no matter what owners Paul Saginaw and Ari Weinzweig get their hands into, like Buffet's stock picks and corporate bids, things tend to blow up. So far they run a successful deli and gourmet carryout store, a coffeehouse, a coffee roaster, a slightly upscale roadhouse, a bread-baking operation, a creamery, a catering operation, and even a staff-training consultancy, all based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The crown jewel in their empire is the Zingerman's gourmet deli located blocks from the campus of my alma mater, the University of Michigan. In my first few weeks at Michigan, rumors abounded about this exotic deli where you...
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Whether I’m pursuing goat eyeball tacos or iconoclastic farmers, my brain, nose, and palate are trained to dig out the obscure or novel. It seems I’m always on the hunt for the story about a former Wiccan high priestess CIA agent who chucked it all and became a sushi chef. What’s been there everyday just seems to fade into the background. For example, because most of my family still resides in southeastern Michigan, I’ve been driving the stretch of I-94 between Chicago and Detroit almost every month for more than seven years. With its ubiquitous orange construction barrels, or, as we call them, Michigan flowers, and because of lobbying of Hoffaesque union folk for continued work, some part of I-94...
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Though I was glad to see the New York Times cover Zingerman's today in its business section, the piece somehow failed to convey the idiosyncratic soulfulness of both the Zingerman's family of businesses and its co-founders Paul Saginaw and Ari Weinsweig. That family of businesses includes a world-class deli, the best food mail-order and online catalog I know, a bakery that turns out very good baked goods and bread, a creamery that churns out the best cream cheese I have ever tasted as well as a number of other fine artisanal cheeses, a roadhouse restaurant where they smoke their own meats, and even Zingtrain seminars where they dispense their unique set of business principles. Having known them for more...
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Though I was glad to see the New York Times cover Zingerman's today in its business section, the piece somehow failed to convey the idiosyncratic soulfulness of both the Zingerman's family of businesses and its co-founders Paul Saginaw and Ari Weinsweig. That family of businesses includes a world-class deli, the best food mail-order and online catalog I know, a bakery that turns out very good baked goods and bread, a creamery that churns out the best cream cheese I have ever tasted as well as a number of other fine artisanal cheeses, a roadhouse restaurant where they smoke their own meats, and even Zingtrain seminars where they dispense their unique set of business principles. Having known them for more...
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