Ann Arbor Copia

*We have just returned from taking Claudia to her cancer doctor in Ann Arbor, and I must admit, of all the places we would have shopped for a cancer doctor, I'm glad it was Ann Arbor, because I love to visit this freakish urban blob. The presence of UofM makes this little town a bit like New York, minus the crime and Donald Trump.
*The restaurant scene in AA is so un-midwestern, with heavy ethnic influences and latter day hippies that haunt the University. You don't have to travel far for falafel, or trek for Thai. Korean is around the korner, and African is all over. For organic, range-free, vegetarian, micro-biotic leftists, there are grocery stores and cafes in every section of town. Whole Foods on Washtenaw is the cultural center of all things healthy and free, where you can kill an entire afternoon just marvelling over what can be made from tofu. I believe that every product, on every shelf, was something I hadn't seen before... and I've been in a lot of grocery stores! It was very clear that there is a world of food out there beyond the boundaries of Wal-Mart and Meijer. Whole Foods is also a place for a meal, featuring deli counters for bread, pizza, salads, mediterranean treats, sushi, and things I can't pronounce without sounding Communist. If you consider yourself a 'foodie,' you need to visit Whole Foods, and get an education. Further, if you require an eco-friendly herbal deodorant, they have that too. You will still sweat, but you'll smell like soup. Some people like that. I tried their unagi sushi, and it was fresh and tasteless. Gimme Meijer any day.
*Although the population of UofM features world travelers and commune leftovers from the 60's in large quantity, it also is composed of masses of young americans, who could care less about tofu. They want College Food. The should be a genre of gastronomy all its own, and roughly consists of pizza, subs, burgers, sandwiches, and anything hot enough to burn your face off. Further, these culinary delights should be portable, inexpensive, and capable of being delivered by local teenagers in cars with enough metal left on them to which a glowing sign can be affixed.
*One of our first stops was Zingerman's Deli, which is a bakery and Jewish deli smashed together. Our pastrami reuben was pretty good, but at $13, nothing to write home about. Bread was tough to eat around the crusts. Caroline had a bacon-turkey sandwich which simply disappeared. It was that good. And can I fit in a word about pickles? Don't know where they come from, but Zingerman's pickles come in two varieties: garlic and crisp. The garlic was good, but the crisp tasted like a, well, cucumber! Yes, I know a pickle starts as a cucumber, but I've never tastsed one that stayed a cucumber. Awesome.
*I'll be back to AA on Monday/Tuesday, and hope to report more. We have the bagel shop, Blimpy's burgers, Cottage Inn Pizza, and Po' Boys sandwiches to test out. I'm thinking of wearing my Bill O'Reilly t-shirt with my Glen Beck hat, just to see what happens.