9 posts tagged “michigan”

Although it's our last free weekend until mid-August, I'm going to try to convince John-Patrick to agree to an impromptu road trip this weekend.

I want to go to St. Ignace / Mackinac Island area.

• We can get a car for $16/day
• We can stay for free at my family's cabin (which my dad already booked for us in hopes John-Patrick will say yes) in Wellston, MI. 
  
• Castle Rock, a formative part of my childhood (we camped there every summer for years)
• A kitchy Indian Villiage, for research of course, so I can refresh my How We Cartoonify and Then Exploit American Indians presentation in my Race & Ethnicity class.  Plus, again, rubber tomahawks were another formative part of my childhood.
• I think we would also have to do the Mystery Spot...
• ...and the Weird Michigan Wax Museum....
• ...and the Man Killer Clam.
• Plus, we always do Friday night pizza.  Why not do it tomorrow at The Deerhorn?  (They have some of the best pizza on the PLANET.)
  
• And on our way up tomorrow, we could stop and have lunch in Grand Rapids, and pick out his tux, whereas we weren't sure when we'd be able to get there otherwise.

Seriously, how could he say no?????

I just spent the weekend in Michigan, at "Sister Haven"  --an annual event on my mom's side of the family, when all the women converge into a rental house in South Haven, MI for a weekend of cook-offs, shopping in South Haven and Saugatuck, beach combing, and the like.  Here is this year's crew:

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Really, this is just a photo-heavy way of beginning a post about a very simple point.  I love Michigan.  I really do.  It's home.  But it's also empirically good.  It has snow.  It has forests.  It has water.  It has Grand Rapids.  It has football and cherries and islands.  It has soda and cereal and cars.  It also has people who love to talk about home so much we always have our maps "on hand" (har har):

Michigan

Here is some more photo fun from our trip to Michigan.  It's nice to be back home today, but we already miss The Fam.

More wedding reception preparation:

And finally, the celebration!

And as usual, no matter how long our trip, Sunday came all too soon.  The view before catching the train home:

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Here are some photos from this week's trip to Michigan.  So far it has been everything we were hoping for.  I have some serious Michigan pride, and in the summertime it kicks in even stronger.

The train ride in on Tuesday night:

How do you eat your pizza:  folded, flat or with a fork and knife?
Submitted by danimass.

I am pleased to publicly answer this most imporant of questions.  My answer, like pizza, is complex and contextual.  I have worked to refine this process over many years of pizza-eating.  I am happy to share my progres in this life of pizza eating with you this morning.

deep dish pizza

I'll begin with Chicago pizza, which I really don't like.  I eat Chicago-style pizza about once a year, and I eat every bite with a fork.  I do this for several reasons: 

1. It is not really pizza.  I can better accept that I am not eating real pizza when I eat it with a fork.  I pretend it's some other kind of dish.  Perhaps a baked Italian casserole of sorts. 
   
2. It is an act of defiance.  Eating it with a fork is like giving it the middle finger.  "Because you are not pizza, picking you up with my hands makes no sense."  It is subversive pizza activism.  No pizza?  Well, grab a fork.
3. It's fucking huge.

Homemade veg pizza

Another time when a fork is called for is with either

1. a pizza loaded down with vegetables.  I happen to believe that only cheese pizza is real pizza.  However, if there must be vegetables on the pizza, they should not be so piled on as to distract from one's ability to pick the piece up.  In the specimen to the left, this has clearly gone wrong.  If I ever have anything other than cheese on my pizza, then MAYBE a little spinach, tomato, and a bouergoisie cheese like feta or goat cheese may become acceptable.  But you never pile it up like this.  It defiles the pizza.
2. homemade pizza.  Homemade pizza is really hard to make.  The secret is in the dough, and most people simply don't have that secret.  Including us.  John-Patrick has made some great doughs, and he has made some miserable doughs.  Most homemade pizzas produce pizzas which are either too thin or too hard in their crust.  As such, a fork becomes necessary.

Now I will move on to my preferred pizza forms:

I eat the following types similarly, but I want to address the chain pizza issue.  This is especially important living in Chicago: Land of Shit Pizza.  Pizza is one of the things I miss most about Michigan.  And it is also part of the reason I'd love to live in New York someday.  Because so-called New York style pizza here in Chicago (more often, and more appropriately called thin-crust) is garbage, my happiest pizza moments come from chain pizza chains.  While I love to support local businesses, the predominance of local pizza joints in Chicago, none of whom serve good pizza, makes it so that my favorite chain pizza (Papa John's, Hungry Howie's) are often found outside the city limits.  Not having a car, I suffer.  I have considered bringing a Papa John's pizza home from Evanston on the el, but I have never done it.  Sbarro comes close, but those are mostly downtown in the loop, and I don't spend much time in the loop.  Plus, the particular franchises are hit-or-miss.  The Sbarro in the DePaul center on State street is the best bet.  The one in the building a block or two west, which also contains an Arbys and a few other places, is almost never good.

I will say that I have found exactly one excellent pizza place in Chicago: piece.  They also have excellent beer.

So yes, I love, and miss, chain pizza.  A visit to Michigan almost always includes chain pizza.  It makes me very, very happy. 

Here is how I eat this real (chain, and New York) pizza.  I pick it up flat, and eat it from my hands, flat, until I get near the crust.  Leaving about an inch of cheese and sauce out from the crust, I then perform my signature move: I fold it.  This creates not the traditional New York vertical fold down the center of the triangle.  This creates a horizontal fold, what is sometimes called the taco-approach, at the crust.  It's sort of like eating a hot dog at this point in the pizza-eating process.

To eat with the pizza: It should almost always contain alcohol.  (However, a cold diet cola is always a nice alternative.)  Beer is the clear choice, although a glass of wine with a homemade or a wood-fire pizza is a good choice, too.

I also have a range of tips on cooking frozen pizza.  But I'll save that for another post.

It is the source of tremendous inequality.  This inequality is only growing, and it is inherent to the workings of capitalism.

It results in the loss of good jobs.  My hometown was recently ranked as among the 20 worst for unemployment in the entire country.

It increases and legitimates poverty.

It disproportionately affects African Americans and Latinos and other nonwhites.  Racial inequality is deeply linked to capitalism.

It disproportionately affects women.  Sexism and capitalism support each other.

It's gotta go.

Although this doesn't address the strongly racist assumptions undertaken by many who oppose affirmative action, I still think every person in Michigan should read it.

However, this is the really stunning performance in my mind:

Note in particular:

The Tigers are behind 3-1 in the World Series at this point, which is disappointing.  One of my students today insisted that the Tigers are going to pull from behind and make the comeback of the century, and I hope she's right.  But hey, it might all be over with tonight. 

I shouldn't say this, because I am definitely pulling for the Tigers.  But one nice thing about how they've been playing in the last few games is all the errors.  I know that sounds counterintuitive.  But remember, I'm a Cubs fan.  There's something cozy about watching people trip, stumble, throw too high, allow doubles.... it's like being home.  It makes the Tigers really feel like my team, even though I've really only adopted them post-season out of a love for All Things Michigan.

I hope tonight's game doesn't end it all, especially because I won't even get to a TV set until 10:15pm EST at the very earliest.  I'm hoping for a Saturday evening with the baseball game on.  Fingers crossed!

I cannot contain my excitement. 

I know they have been predicting snow for the end of this week for a few days now, but I somehow just didn't believe I would be so lucky, ya know?  Especially in Chicago.  We never get snow.  Or, at least to a Michigander, it feels like never.

So as I was getting ready this morning, I kept feeling excited that it was cold and thinking about how this is my favorite time of year, and just generally being positive about what I percieved to be the facts --snow was not in my immediate future.  And then JUST as I was getting my shoes on, BAM!  SNOW!  LOTS OF IT!  Big wet flakes, hard to see across the street, already accumulating on people's cars and heads and leaves.  I felt like I had won the fucking lottery.

I basically RAN down the stairs and outside to be sure I could walk in it.  I fear it won't last.  So I had the happiest walk to school in a good 8 months.  I felt unstoppably happy, and was grinning like a fool at everyone I saw.

Now, I want you to get a sense of what my grin looked like.  Raise your eyebrows like you're happy and excited.  Smile.  Now show your teeth.  Now, while doing all of this, open your mouth.  This was beyond a shit-eating grin.  It was scary clown material.

So I finally and reluctantly made my way into my building at school, still making my stupid grin at everyone I encountered, because damnit it was still snowing and I was covered in it.  I got into my office, sad because I can't see outside any longer, and decided to make my way down to the bathroom to smooth over my wet hair. 

Ready?  Wait for it....

I had SO MUCH MASCARA around my eyes that I looked like a complete lunatic.  Remember the grin?  Picture that with huge black circles around both eyes.  I looked like a fucking nut. 

Thing is, it still hasn't penetrated my mood.  If anything, it has improved it.  I love that I looked so insane, and that a good 6-7 people saw me in this state and didn't go, "Um, sweetie?  You look like a rabid raccoon."  haha 

So now I'm at school for the day, I look like shit, and I'm still happy as can be.

I am unstoppably happy this time of year.  I should be in a good mood from now until about early February. 

I really should move to the UP or Canada or Alaska or something.