Are you a Michi-can or a Michi-can't?

As I never got around to writing anything about our trip to Washington DC for the Rally to Restore Sanity, I thought I should make more of an effort for our recent trip to Michigan (another work-based trip for Omar, and some more tagging along for me). Before I start, I should probably apologise for the lame use of the 'Once Upon a Time in Mexico' quote above.

Right, apologies out of the way, on to business.

Ann Arbor was our first stop, and very nice it was too. It's a small town, home to the University of Michigan and because of that it was very similar to Athens. Except that there was a lot more to do in Ann Arbor. And by a 'lot more to do', I mostly mean there were more random shops full of stuff that no-one actually buys to browse around. But that was nice. To be fair, there seemed to be a lot more 'happening', i.e. museums, theatres, music, good food, places to drink tea. In fact, such is there love of tea in Michigan that I'm actively campaigning Omar to look for his next job here if we can move somewhere more cosmopolitan.

As it happens, I didn't take any photos of Ann Arbor itself, but I did take some inside the brew pub we went to:

The shakiness of the photo of course doesn't have anything to do with intoxication on Omar's part. Of course.

Next stop on the tour was Detroit. Despite reading lots of bad reviews of the area beforehand, we thought that we'd pop in for a night, seeing as we're unlikely to be visiting again. Alas, some driving snow and howling winds also decided to 'pop in' at the same time, so we didn't get to do much sight-seeing. We did try to see some sights from the top of the GM-owned Renaissance Center, but apparently we're not la-di-da enough, and only people classy enough to eat in their fancy restaurant could go up to the 73rd floor. Pah.

But it's ok, we found pizza instead.....

And what a pizza it was!

And here are the guys making the pizzas (that blurred object is the guy throwing the pizza base onto the shelf)

 

The pizza parlour was in Greektown, so here's a picture of the main street - eerily reminiscent of Bedford Place's Kebab Alley if you ask me...

The next day we went to try some of the hotdogs that Detroit is well-known for...

 Apparently there's a lot of rivalry between these two hotdog vendors - we couldn't possibly choose between them, so we had one hotdog in each :-)

I preferred the 'dog' itself in American Coney Island, but the chilli on top was better in Layfayette Coney Island. So there you have it.

But our trip to Detroit wasn't all about eating (yes it was). We managed to venture out in the snow and went to the Detroit Institute of Arts.

I bet these guys are regretting not putting some socks on before they went out that morning (arf arf)

I didn't pin Detroit for being much of a cultural centre, but the museum had a lot of interesting stuff. Like these Van Gogh's....
 

 

And this Cezanne, amongst other things... and very splendid they were too. 

So that was about it for Michigan, save for a 9-hour hell ride through the snow blizzards back to Ohio. 

So all-in-all I'd give the parts of Michigan we saw a thumbs up, but it definitely lost marks because we didn't see Enimem even once while we were there :-( Maybe next time...

America's Got the Crunch Factor: KFC Edition

In the second instalment of my 'America's Got the Crunch Factor' series, I'm deviating slightly to include a particularly spectacular item from the kitchens of KFC.

You may have heard of the 'Double Down' sandwich (and I wouldn't recommend looking up the phrase in the Urban Dictionary as I've just done), but it really has to be seen to be believed. It's effectively a cheese and bacon sandwich, where the bread roll has been substituted for two pieces of fried chicken. Oh yes.

As you can imagine, my curiosity was well and truly piqued when I heard of such a magical sandwich, so when I saw this sign on our recent drive to Michigan recently (more on that to follow), I could hardly refuse now could I?

So, despite Omar advising that I exercise some sanity over my menu choice I persevered and ended up with this bad boy:

Oh yeah. And here's me, taming the beast:

 

So, my verdict? Well, I have to say that it wasn't quite as greasy and crunch-inducing as I had anticipated. Such a large amount of chicken ended up being quite dry (although that was probably all the salt) and I was disappointed with the cheese, which didn't really melt and the measly amount of bacon. So a bit disappointing on all counts. That being said, I didn't need to eat for quite some time afterwards, so I guess it did well on the calorie count.

It also made me think of John Oliver talking about the Domino's Oreo pizza:

“That is the single most patriotic item I have ever seen in my life. Have that fluttering in the moonlight at Yankees Stadium as a single tear spills down Derek Jeter’s cheek. Because that is the biggest imaginable ‘fuck you’ you could possibly issue to terrorists. By hoisting the Oreo pizza up a flagpole, what you’re essentially saying is, 'There is nothing you can do to us we are not already doing to ourselves'.”

Amen to that.

So in conclusion, the overall crunch factor is: 1 crunch out of 5. 

Not even a sniff of a stomach ache and no other immediate ill effects. Maybe I've been in America too long.

The jury is still out, however, on the number of years this little escapade has shaved off my life. I doubt I'll be trying it again, you know, just in case.

Thanksgiving and other festivals...

One of the things I like about America is the amount of public holidays they have. Admittedly, every day is a public holiday for me, but it's nice for Omar to have some time off :-)

So 25th November was Thanksgiving Day, and we weren't really sure what to make of it all - it felt a bit like Christmas, just without the presents, decorations and festive jumpers. We had the turkey....

...which in true festive fashion didn't defrost properly and was a bugger to cook. I under-estimated how long it would take to defrost the 13 lbs monster, so we had a traditional early evening dinner. Which of course came with all the trimmings....

... I am pleased to report that Brussels sprouts seem to be part of Thanksgiving Dinner traditional, along with some more unusual trimmings - like sweet potato (understandable), macaroni cheese (?), and a green bean and Campbell's mushroom soup casserole, with onion ring topping (??). Apparently Campbell's Soup contributed to Thanksgiving what Coca Cola contributed to Christmas, as I'm pretty sure the Pilgrims didn't have crispy fried onions and mushroom soup.

And speaking of the Pilgrims, I tried to find out a bit more about the 'meaning' of Thanksgiving and what precisely I was supposed to be giving thanks for. Admittedly, most of my information ended up coming from Wikipedia and the History Channel (I was busy cooking, ok!), but the gist of it seems to be that Americans started celebrating the fact that they managed to survive some harsh winters and bad conditions when first colonising the eastern states.

It would appear, however, that the main reason the first colonialists survived was due to the benevolence of the local Native American tribespeople, who provided corn seed for the Pilgrims to plant when their wheat crops failed, and showed them how to live off the land. So perhaps they are giving thanks to Native Americans? And considering how this particular relationship developed, I felt a bit uncomfortable celebrating what is ultimately the exploitation and overthrow of a native culture. By the British.

But I guess that, like Christmas, this holiday is more about eating and shopping these days than anything else. So maybe it's not as tasteless as I think, well not in that way at least :-)

But have no fear, normal service was resumed the next day....

.... courtesy of Buffalo Wild Wings...

   

...and some Mexican buddies.





Bleurgh.





And while we're talking of festivals, I was fortunate enough to experience my first ever Feuerzangenbowle this year (see the wikipedia page for more background), courtesy of Athens' German contingent. For the uninitiated, it's turbo mulled wine, WITH ADDED FIRE!! Oh yes.

The fire comes courtesy of a rum-soaked sugar cone, which is suspended above the mulled wine/gluhwein and set alight. It looks something like this:

(It's on fire, honest - our host Christian has the singed arms to prove it)

And to facilitate ongoing genial Anglo-Deutsch relations, I led the way in consumption of this uber-gluhwein. Alas, my kind gesture back-fired on me the next day.

But it was worth the sacrifice :-)









So November has been pretty festival-tastic - roll on December!