Michigan

Michigan:

I have been looking for a job since before I quit my last job. When I tell people where I am looking I tell them: “San Antonio, Houston, Denver, and Detroit.” The response is often: “Detroit, why in the world would you want to live in Detroit?”

There are multiple reasons for Detroit, primarily, my dad lives there and both my husband and I should be able to find jobs there in our field of study, but this is not the only reasons.

While Detroit itself is going through hard times: such as its bankruptcy and the decline of jobs there is many great things about the City and the state it is a part of.

Outside of the cities, away from the urban blithe lies the most beautiful woods and beached in the Midwest.  Remember the beach scenes in American Pie; those were all shot on Lake Michigan Beaches. Four of the great lakes boarder Michigan, Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, Lake Huron, and Lake Erie, not to mention Lake Saint Clair which is almost a great lake.

There are many things to see when visiting Michigan’s great lakes: Sleeping Bear Dune’s State Park, staying in Holland Michigan, Mackinac Island, or Picture Rock are sights to see in Michigan. There is a stretch of highway called U.S. 2 in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula which must be one of the most beautiful drives in the U.S.

Drinks:

When you enter Michigan, from Indiana, one of the first things you might notice is are signs advertising tastings at wineries. There are many wineries in Michigan, and it is not hard to find a good one. Due to the climate, most Michigan Wineries make greet sweet white wines, and fruit wines. If you find yourself at one of these wineries be sure to try a Riesling, a winter white, and the cherry wine. Another wine popular in these parts is the ice wine. Ice wine grapes are harvested immediately after the first frost of the season, yielding a more concentrated elixir. Since a good harvest is rare, the production of ice wine does not occur on a yearly basis. Meaning, that ice wine itself is usually quite a bit more expensive than traditional wines. Expect to pay between $40 and $50 for a small bottle.

Book:

If you are interested in Detroit’s history, but you prefer a book with a plot, read Jeffrey Eugenides’ “Middlesex”, a semiautobiographical work of fiction largely based on Eugenides’ life. The book takes place in Detroit where it shows the characters through the rise of the motor city, the trials of prohibition, the segregation of the races, and the race riots.

 

The book follows three generations of a Greek/ Greek American family, starting with the grandparents. The grandparents are actually brother and sister couple from Greece who fall in love and marry.  The couple keeps their identity as brother and sister a secret in their new Detroit home. After the grandmother learns why it is so taboo for brothers and sisters to marry, she is filled with shame. She pulls away from her husband leaving a deep void in both their lives.

Flash forward two generations to one of their grandchildren.   Calliope Stephanides is grows up in what is seemingly a normal Detroit family life. She goes to school, and is the apple of her dad’s eye, but things start to change for her when she hits puberty. If you think that you had an awkward time in your teenage years, try being Calliope. She grew up thinking she was a normal girl only to find out in high school that she was actually a he. What follows is an identity crisis, resolution, and epiphany dealing with her own family tree.

Food:

For such a depressed part of the U.S, Detroit has some of the best restaurants anywhere, with a food that can fit anyone’s taste, and because the area is so depressed, the most menus are priced fairly reasonably. Though Detroit is still one of the most segregated cities in the U.S. it is heavily diversified. Though I grew up in San Antonio, Detroit is where I first tasted, Ethiopian food, Thai, authentic Middle Eastern Food, and Authentic Indian food. For those who have a pallet that does not crave spice in there food they have that, too. Many people came up from the south to find work in the emerging automotive industry a few decades before, and Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit has the highest Middle Eastern population outside of the Middle East. The result: restaurants that mix tastes from the traditional Midwest cuisine with both soul food and the Mediterranean.

If you are flying into Detroit, a few minutes away is the intersection of Telegraph Rd and Michigan Avenue. If you head a few blocks east on this intersection there are tons of restaurants: Family Café’s, Coney Islands, Greek and Middle Eastern, Indian, Chinese, and even Sushi. Do not be fooled by how hole- in-the-wall a few of the restaurants are, many of them are quite good.

One of my favorite Michigan Restaurants, is a good ways outside of Detroit, approaching Flint, Michigan. It is called the French Laundry in Fenton, Michigan. The menu is mostly a wide array of gourmet sandwiches  for Lunch and Dinner, and a wide array of breakfast items. This is a perfect brunch spot, in a small picturesque Midwest town. You can check out there menu on there website: http://lunchandbeyond.com/.

Work Cited:

Eugenides, Jeffrey. "Middlesex". Published: 2002
French Laundry. http://lunchandbeyond.com/. Retrieved: January 14, 2014
Pictures by: Arvind Jujare