Category: Food

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I don’t care how you say it, it’s still a jelly doughnut

It’s not just “super Tuesday,” you know; it’s also Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, etc., etc., and around here, that means it’s time for one of the few foods I think of as being at least kind of unique and/or a “specialty” of the greater Detroit area, the jelly doughnut confection known as the Paczki. (BTW, the other food I associate with metro Detroit is the coney island hot dog and the restaurants that serve them, the diners known as “Coney Islands.” With foods like these, it’s shocking that Detroit has long been considered one of the fattest cities in America, isn’t it?)

I read a nice entry on the local food blog Kitchen Chick, one that even includes audio for the proper pronunciation of the Polish word “Paczki.” Her first recommendation for the best in local/ Ypsi-Arbor Paczki was the restaurant Amadeus, but considering that this was a bit out of the way and it sounded like special ordering was involved, I took the next best option and went to the Copernicus European Deli in downtown Ann Arbor. They get their Paczki in from some bakery in Hamtramck, which is a town completely within the boundaries of Detroit and known for its Polish population.

I went on my Paczki run before going to the gym (no kidding). If nothing else, it was nice to visit the Copernicus Deli, which was connected to a bulk food place and a Brazilian food place on Main street in Ann Arbor, and it was clearly a very local and very Polish-immigrant-run business. At least I think they were speaking Polish. Nice little shops.

The flavors available were plum (aka prune), strawberry, raspberry, cream, and rose. I asked about the rose one first, and the woman explained to me it was a kind of jelly that had a sort of floral taste. So I ordered a couple plum/prune and a couple rose, and I ate one of each on my way to ride the stationary bike and lift weights. So I figure I didn’t gain any weight today, but I sure as heck didn’t lose any either.

The details here are all in the filling. The plum/prune one reminded me of these things my Grandma Krause made once in a while called Kolaches, which is another one of these East European pastries, so I guess that makes sense. The rose one was interesting, kind of like a strawberry or some other smooth and red berry jam with a flowery smell and aftertaste. And I mean that in a good way.

But I have to say, with apologies to Detroit-city purists/loyalists, you can call ’em what you want, but they are still jelly doughnuts, ones with really good filling, but jelly doughnuts nonetheless. They were sugary and doughy and heavy and– dare I say it?– nothing that special.

Don’t get me wrong– I’ll probably have one next year, and I may very well get mine from the Copernicus Deli again. But it’s not like I’m going to start a calendar count-down to next year’s Paczkis.

Oh PS: Will likes ’em too.

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AA Food (W)Hole fish monger gets fired; naturally, I have an opinion

As I noticed in today’s Ann Arbor News, an employee at the Ann Arbor Whole Foods store (aka, the Food (W)Hole) was fired for grabbing a “customer.” See the story here, but the brief version (as I understand it) is pretty simple: John Schultz, who was a fish monger at the ‘hole until all this, checked out of work and helped grab a dude who everyone agrees had shoplifted hundreds of dollars worth of stuff from the store. Some time shortly after this, Schultz was fired for violating a company policy on touching customers.

A few thoughts on this:

  • My gut feeling here tells me there is so much more going on with this story that has not reached the regular media or the blogosphere yet. I don’t know John Schultz or know what kind of employee or person he was (though see below) and I wish him only the best in his future. But I am betting that someone at the local ‘hole wanted him fired for a while now and they used this as an excuse.
  • As numerous others have pointed out, if you are a shoplifter, then it seems to me that you are no longer a “customer.”
  • I saw this guy’s picture in the paper tonight, and I am quite sure I have purchased fish and other meat products from him. As I have mentioned in this blog several times before (I like this entry and this one too), I’m a regular shopper at the ‘hole, especially for their seafood and meat products, not to mention coffee, bakery items, wine, and “prep food” items. This is beginning to change a bit though– not because of this incident, but because it’s time to cut down on some expenses. In any event, I recall having good encounters with this guy. So, from a regular customer (e.g., someone who actually gives them money instead of stealing from them) POV, I think it was kind of dumb to fire him. But like I said, I am betting that the reality is that some manager had an “issue” beyond this incident.
  • I know a couple of folks from EMU who have worked for the ‘hole at different times (summer work, part-time while they work part-time teaching, etc.), and I have to say that as much as I enjoy shopping at the store, none of these people seemed to enjoy working there.
  • I’m sure I won’t actually do this, but I am very tempted to hug a Food (W)Hole worker the next time I am in the store, just to see what happens. Maybe even one of the cute ones.

Best of luck to John et al.

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X-Mas in Iowa post (I couldn’t resist)

MY millions of loyal readers will recall that I said I wasn’t going to post until after the Christmas season, kind of in an effort to get away from teh Internets for a while. You can tell how well that’s worked out. Jeesh. Actually, the only reason I’m posting now is to procrastinate a bit and to post this video I made with my cell phone:

Annette and I were in a drug store and they had a row of all of these reindeer things that rocked in rocking chairs while singing “Grandma Got Ran Over By a Reindeer.” Naturally, I had to push the button to make all of them work. You can imagine how proud Annette was. As you can see, I recorded it with my lame cell phone video camera; rotate your monitor 90 degrees clockwise of optimal viewing.

Other Iowa travel news:

  • No travel problems to speak of on the way here, but we are nervously watching the weather channel for our return on Monday.
  • While Annette has attempted to be an earnest and good person (she is at the gym as I type), I apparently have seen this as an opportunity to fatten up on cookies, sugar, BBQ, and eggs, not necessarily all at the same time.
  • The grand kiddies seem to enjoy running about the house and screaming. Joy.
  • You have certainly heard of this whole Iowa caucus thing. It puts a whole different vibe on stuff here compared to Michigan. Literally, every other ad on TV out here is a political spot. My father told me that something like 25% of Iowans have met at least one of the candidates ; I know my mother has seen both Hillary and Obama. It’s all a little bizarre to me.

Anyway, back to reading and chasing after kiddies. Enjoy the reindeer over and over again.

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Eddie Izzard videos

My friend Rachel sent around this video, a lego set-up of Eddie Izzard’s riff on the Death Star Canteen (fwiw, lots of the “f” word here, and I don’t mean food):

Well, it turns out this is a bit of a mini-genre on YouTube on Thorn2200’s channel. Funny stuff. Just to round out the selections here and keeping with the food theme, let me also pass along “cake or death:”

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No postings = no news; but why not read about vinegar?

I just kind of realized today that I haven’t posted to my unofficial blog for quite a while. There’s been no particular reason for this lack of postings here, and I actually have been posting frequently enough on my official blog and on EMUTalk.org. I guess there just hasn’t been a lot of unofficial news. Let’s see….

  • We had a much smaller version of our annual fall Indian food fest.
  • Annette had her birthday last weekend, which included a much needed new computer and a lovely dinner and night out with a sitter and everything.
  • And I’m going to be getting geared up for some midterm travel. I’m going to New York City on Thursday for a conference (more on that on the official blog I am sure, and then we’re all going down to South Carolina next week for a Wannamaker Thanksgiving.

So like I said, no postings is no news, which is fine with me. But if you are really looking for something else to read, why not follow this link I found via boing boing about all the cool things you can do with vinegar?

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Camping: Initial reactions

More or less in the order in which I remember them, here are a few recollections and reflections of our recent camping trip– before photos and video, which I haven’t had a chance to process yet. That’s coming soon.

  • I was out shopping on Thursday in preparation for our Friday trip and talking on the cell phone with my colleague and friend Linda. She asked me what I was doing and I told her that I was getting ready to go camping. “Really. Really?! Really?” was more or less what she said for a few moments. This seemed to be a common reaction from friends and colleagues.
  • On said shopping trip, I scored what would prove to be an excellent purchase, a Coleman GeoSport Shade canopy contraption that was on deep discount at Target. We’ll get to the usefulness of this device in a moment.
  • The drive up to the Pinery was dominated by construction and then by lying to the border patrol (“No, we didn’t have any alcohol or food in our car in preparation for a camping trip; why do you ask?”).
  • The Pinery itself is a provincial (e.g., state) park in Ontario on the shores of Lake Huron about 45 miles or less northeast of Port Huron, Michigan. I mentioned our trip to several long-time locals here and it seems like everyone in this part of Michigan has been there at one point in time. It’s quite nice, a very large park with lots of camping and a nice combination between camping in the forest (e.g., “pines”) and the beach a short walk away over dunes that are kind of like Sleeping Bear but without the crowds and with smaller dunes.
  • We got there later than we wanted but still much earlier than Jim and Rachel and their kids, and we set up our camp in some wind but no rain. And this brings me to my first observation about camping: it seems to me that camping is a “meta” activity in that much of one’s time camping is setting up, cleaning, rearranging, fussing with, and, at the end of the trip, packing up the camp stuff. So this setting up part was one of the more important and amusing activities on the trip.Thankfully, we rehearsed putting up the tent the week before and the instructions for assembly are much more clear than you might think.
  • Observation #2: what counts as “camping” is very much a variable. It reminds me a bit of living in Richmond, VA when I would have conversations with folks from places like Alabama about what it was like for me to live in “The South” and they would say to me “honey, this ain’t the south.” (FWIW: as someone who was born in Wisconsin and who grew up in Iowa, when people claim that Michigan is the midwest, I pretty much always say “honey, this ain’t the midwest.”) In other words, our version of “camping” involved a car backed right up onto the camp site, a large tent, an air mattress under our toasty warm sleeping bags, the previously mentioned large canopy, a battery-powered iPod player, and a plastic cocktail shaker set. One of the other “camping” amenities we had once Jim and Rachel and kids arrived included a camp stove (indispensable for future camping, in my estimation). The “comfort station” (I love Canadian euphemisms for toilets and showers) were about 100 yards away. So, is this camping? Well, compared to the people who pull up in their 800 square foot RVs, yes. Compared to people who want to go and spend a week in the back-country and poop in the woods, no.
  • Hey, pop quiz: What can make camping really unpleasant? Why, rain, of course! And what did we have plenty of off and on for the first 18 hours or so? You guessed it! Rain and wind and cold. Wind was like white noise outside the tent Friday night– good sleeping for me and Will, but not so much for Annette. In more pleasant weather, I can see the appeal of spending the day on the beach of Lake Huron, basking in the sun as the kids frolic in the waves. In the weather we had, we went to the beach Saturday about 11 am and said “Holy shit, it’s cold and rainy!” and returned to the camp a bit later. Fortunately, the previously mentioned GeoSport Shade and the coverings that Jim and Rachel set up provided more than enough cover to sit around and enjoy fireside cocktails.
  • It was also cold, cold, COLD. Like in the upper 30s at night, and highs in the low 60s (maybe) during the day. The plus-side of this is it was good sleeping weather and there were almost no bugs.
  • Will’s favorite part of camping by far was running wild with Jim and Rachel’s kids on the beaches, the dunes, and a forest area they called “The Wasteland.” I don’t think it was an Eliot reference. My favorite part was the food. I suppose this might be different if the weather had improved a bit (we did get a chance to hike around a bit on Sunday), but the food experiences were excellent. Jim and Rachel cooked a great beef dish over the grill on Friday night, and we made chili over the fire with a newly purchased camp Dutch oven Saturday night. The breakfast coffee, sausages, oatmeal, and other treats just seemed to taste that much better in the out of doors. There were plenty of other tasty camp snacks, and I made some pie pan concoctions, including midnight (or so) Nutella and banana grilled sandwiches that I thought were magical. So, based on food along, camping has a lot of elements that I could definitely get behind.
  • So, an overall successful camping trip, depending on your definition of “camping.” I can easily imagine more trips in our near future, though probably not until it warms up a bit again.
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Seafood Risotto, the Food (W)hole, Sorrel, and beyond

This evening’s dinner was the result of a couple of convergences.

We’re sharing a “share” this year from a local organic farm with Steve and Michelle. One of the advantages and disadvantages of this sort of thing is you have to kind of take what you get from the farm based on what was harvested that week, and this past week, that included the semi-mystery green, sorrel. Meanwhile, in an effort to find a healthy meal that was a little bit different, I came across a recipe for seafood risotto, which actually included (of all things!) sorrel.

So, I went off to the Food (W)Hole and bought the seafood fixings: shrimp, calamari, and clams. I think the fish monger was not used to selling these ingredients to the “I’ll take a pound of salmon” crowd (which includes me, btw) because he kept asking me what I was going to be cooking, suggesting I add some saffron, etc. I’ll have to mention how this all came out the next time I see him.

How did it all turn out? As they say on Southpark, I learned a few things today. First off, sorrel when cooked is pretty good, thugh probably not as good as it is when it is raw. Or perhaps not as good as it might be when it is just slightly cooked. Second though (and unfortunately), when sorrel is cooked (or, perhaps more accurately, overcooked), it turns everything a somewhat unpleasant-looking olive green. Imagine Army-issue colored rice with some seafood mixed in. Like I said, it tasted great but looked, um, ikcy.

Perhaps the next time I cook this up, I’ll mix the sorrel in last, maybe after shocking it in some cold water or something. Live and learn.