I’m here in Ann Arbor, Michigan to celebrate a wedding: the nuptials of Drs. Douglas W. Schemske and Carolyn Johnston. Doug is a very old friend who used to be on our faculty but then moved first to the University of Washington and then to Michigan State. Carolyn is a gynecological surgeon at the University of Michigan Health System.
At the Detroit airport I met up with another friend and a fellow foodie: John Willis from Duke University, Schemske’s old student. (For an earlier food adventure with John, see here.) After renting a car, we made a beeline for Ann Arbor and our pre-celebration destination: Zingerman’s Delicatessen. It’s a famous culinary landmark in the area, renowned for its sandwiches and groceries.
We both chose the speciality: a Reuben made with pastrami, cheese, sauerkraut, and Thousand Island dressing. Each sandwich came with 6.5 oz of meat and two entire half-sour pickles (one plain, one with garlic)
The King of Sandwiches:
A perfect morsel of pastrami:
Om nom nom nom:
And, of course, to raise your lipid titer, you must have Zingerman’s famous mac and cheese, made with four kinds of cheese. Have you ever seen the dish that produces forkfuls like this?:
Zingerman’s is also known for its selection of breads, cheeses, meats, and gourmet packaged goods. Here are their gourmet sardines (I’m not a fan, but perhaps some of you are):
Toothsome breads:
Meats and a wonderful selection of cured hams:
Right across the street is the Ann Arbor Farmers Market, with some of the first veggies of the season:
Choose your own asparagus, spear by spear:
Vendors:
The wedding fest (the official nuptials have already occurred at City Hall) will commence in a few hours, and will be catered by. . . .Zingerman’s!
Nota bene: if you want to make critical comments about my diet (I don’t eat like this regularly) or about eating meat, do so at your own peril.
Mmmmmm Reubens! I love Reubens!
My sandwich of choice when I’m in the U.S.
I haven’t come across anywhere in the UK that makes a decent one…
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Thanks, Dr. C! That made me hungry, and I just ate!
Zingerman’s is great and well known to us fish people, thanks in part to the prosyletizing of Bill Fink, another Harvard survivor.
Re earlier post about tick torture, there are two things lost on an astonishingly high percentage of Americans: compassion for living things, and appreciation of natural diversity for its own sake. I count this twin ignorance as one of Western religion’s greatest failings. I think you might have been still around when Ed Wilson and others held the Religion and Biodiversity seminars at the Divinity School. We’d all hoped for greater impact, or a more enduring one anyway.
Rueben sandwiches are one of my great gulty pleasures, my mouth is watering just looking at it. I go to a deli and any (good-natured) disapproval from my wife is a answered with, “You knew what would happen if you brought me here!”
That sarny looks fit!
Please convey my congratulations to Doug (who used to be a colleague here in Seattle).
I have been to Zingerman’s. You can’t beat it! One of the world’s great food places!
I hope you two had seconds. 🙂
If Zingerman’s still has chocolate-cherry bread, I recommend it verrrrrrry highly. Solid little gnarled up black lumpish looking loaves, with maybe 50% breadstuff and 50% chunks of chocolate and dried cherries.
Delicious plain, fabulous with butter, and holy-crap-that’s-awesome with cream cheese.
Weigh down your carry-on with a few of these 🙂 make that airline spend a little more on fuel.
OMG chocolate, cherry AND bread. My mouth watered right after I read “butter”.
I wonder if I can get that Fed-Exed?
Pastrami is the noblest of the cured meats. ~ George Costanza
Darn you. I am quite peckish right now, and you have the audacity to show me food. Food that looks delicious.
At least there’s a diplomatic balance motif with the asparagus.
That looks like a high quality Reuben. If I go to a new resturant, which has Reuben on the menu, I get one. I then mentally rate the resturant based on how good it is.
I once ate at a pseudoFrench resturant. They made their Reuben by putting pastrami, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and thousand island in a blender, then spreading it on rye bread. I did not go back.
A place just down the road makes very good Pastrami, and I have made excellent Reubens with it.
Nothing against meat here, but for those that do, here in Pittsburgh there’s a place that makes a great vegetarian Reuben called a Melvin. The pastrami substitute is made from some (IIRC) tofu derivative, that I had at a New Year’s fest. Can’t find the name of the restaurant now, either. To be updated, eventually…
Red Oak Cafe?
Possibly, but I think it was another place.
Just confirmed from the host of that event (it was a thank you party for people who had helped support expansion of most of Pittsburgh’s favorite microbrewery), it was indeed Red Oak Cafe.
That pic is making me wonder why I’ve never had a Reuben.
Oh, and did someone say a nom nom (first@0:28).
Aside from expensive restaurants (The Lark in West Bloomfield is probably the cream of the crop…They specialize in lamb chops) here are a few hidden treasures.
Curry on Crust (Indian pizza in Canton, MI):
http://i.imgur.com/NcFVSIs.jpg
Lou’s Deli (Southfield,MI for a killer reuben):
http://i.imgur.com/hvJ4cHJ.jpg
The Turkey Grill (in Detroit and not exactly located in the safest neck of the woods):
http://i.imgur.com/IxlNo9s.jpg
1 more from Lou’s Deli.
Counterman’s Treat (corned beef, Swish cheese, coleslaw, Russian dressing on an onion roll): http://i.imgur.com/99A6RFN.jpg
The Reuben in prior post is Cheryl’s Dream (Corned beef, pastrami, Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, Russian dressing on an onion roll).
I’m with you. It irritates the hell out of me when somebody comments on what I am eating, like they follow and understand the bigger picture of my nutrition. They don’t or the wouldn’t have reason to comment in the first place.
Hear, hear!
I’m 49, eat mostly healthy, my weight and blood pressure are exactly at recommended levels. And as a “foodie” of sorts I’m happy to indulge in trying just about anything. I’d try just about every meal Jerry has ever posted.
I was an a local health food emporium, and was eating a plate full of greens, tempah, yams etc. But I dared to be drinking a diet coke as well. A women with the typical “one with nature” type appearance leaned over to me and said “You’ve heard about aspartame haven’t you?” And started on about the evils of diet soda.
I said, well it looks like today I’ve chosen to happily embalm myself with a delicious diet soda, thanks all the same.
Vaal
Is the Fleetwood Diner still around? Used to be a single old boxcar that served hippie hash.
Zingerman’s for breakfast! Yum. Try Slow’s bbq in Detroit. Totally awesome.