Enough about media, let's talk food

This is called Michigan Dish after all.

We decided to go against the Ann Arbor restaurant apartheid and dined at Gratzi's, one of the posh non-student eateries on Main Street. A bit of an indulgence (quality food here, sadly, sets you back a bit) but the professor we are subletting from was in town - so we spent an evening of stimulating political conversation in Gratzi's lush surrounds. Their earnest menu changes regularly to focus on a different Italian region; this month they are celebrating Piemonte. My Scaloppine con Foresta was merely adequate: milky-hued veal atop some salty, slightly chewy mezzaluna pasta. I really should have ordered the pork tenderloin with dried cherry mustard sauce with polenta. But the wine was superb: a Luna sangiovese from California. We had much more luck once we descended into La Dolce Vita - their swanky dessert lounge cum cigar and cocktails bar. A special occasion destination, with the sort of obsequious service well-to-do Americans enjoy and a thick menu of alcoholic chocolate drinks, amongst other temptations.

On Saturday we knocked together another Bronte-style paella (chorizo and prawns with preserved lemon). Not a huge success, sadly, despite the small fortune we spent amassing ingredients. I blame the Calasparra rice. Hailing from the Murcia mountains in the south east of Spain, it is meant to be the granddaddy of paella rices. Bloody stuff drinks up all the precious stock and takes ages to cook, by which time I managed to make it gluggy. Now I've blown what little cred I had in this town as a foodie.

Wept streams of tears with Joan Didion on the couch on Sunday.

We the media listen to Gillmor

We were most chuffed to get the opportunity to meet Dan Gillmor - visionary, former San Jose Mercury News tech economy columnist and patron saint of citizen journalists everywhere. He is now in a somewhat entrepreneurial role behind Internet startup Bayosphere, a grassroots journalism website "by and for the people of the San Francisco Bay Area".

Gillmor, a former Knight Wallace Fellow, delivered this year's Graham Hovey lecture to many members of the university faculty in the grounds of Wallace House. In his introduction to Gillmor's address, KWF director, Charles Eisendrath, pronounced Gillmor's recent book, We the Media, required reading for any media professional: high praise before a potentially hostile crowd (I was probably the only representative from new media in the entire marquee).

He began with a lovely possibility of New Orleans newspaper the Times-Picayune winning a Pulitzer for exposing the corruption behind the post-Katrina rebuilding of New Orleans - thanks, in large part, to their citizen journalists. Big media, he says, must open up communication, must have 'conversations' with their readers/consumers if they are to remain (or regain?) relevant.

Create transparency. Give your best reporters blogs. If you don't have any of your own, point to the best ones in your community. And news websites, citizen journalists and blogs are not the enemy of circulation - eBay and Craigslist are.

We didn't get answers, we didn't get a blueprint... rather Gillmor threw out a lot of ideas and challenges. Have a read for yourself at his blog.

The shindig at the house gave us plenty of time to chat with Gillmor - and he revealed he still has not been paid by a national Australian newspaper for a column he wrote for them last time he visited. He is refreshingly genial and humble - no swagger, no ego, no bullshit.

Speaking of Katrina, on Friday some of us returned to Wallace House to have lunch and chat with Greg Button of the University's School of Public Health, back from gathering first-hand accounts from evacuees at the Houston Astrodome. Heartbreaking stuff on the shocking way the evacuees were treated in the militarised refuge: guns pointed at them, the sick and feeble made to stand in lines for hours in the sun to fill out forms or see doctors, made to leave all belongings behind when boarding buses for their new homes interstate, refused re-entry to the refuge if they'd lost their plastic ID bracelets, forced to sleep under bright lights with loudspeakers blaring through the night - some of these announcements giving them only one hour to decide if they'd like to board a bus for another part of the country. People were forcibly removed from one arena to another at 3:30am, no reason given. And then there were the stories of difficulties in getting certain products into the compound, with workers deciding, in the case of a donation of laptop computers, that the evacuees wouldn't know how to use them anyway, so they didn't get distributed. Where are they now? Dr Button spoke to Michigan Radio about his interviews.

Let the games begin

On Tuesday evening the Knight Wallace Fellowship sherry nights began with a visit from Daniel Okrent, the former Public Editor of the New York Times. Dan spoke about his role at (and his special place somewhere removed from) the Times, a position was created after the Jayson Blair incident. After Dan's Q&A session, two of the Fellows gave presentations on their lives and motivations as journalists - leaving the rest of us a little sick at the thought of having to follow up with our own in the coming months.

By the time the talk was winding down we could smell the waiting banquet (prepared by two different Fellows each week, and their spouses if they're very lucky). Semiha (CNN Turk) and Tony (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) set an impossibly high standard with their "Turkish soul food", including some incredible keftes and some cubes of peynir. You can see this classy pair pictured above (thanks to Sedat for the photo).

Today Charles (Eisendrath, the program's director) and his wife Julia invited the spouses and significant others of the 2005-06 Fellows to lunch at Wallace House. What a bunch of beautiful, intelligent and genuinely warm women! Note: there are some male spouses of Fellows this year but they weren't at today's lunch). I was especially inspired by Rainey's career - she's a museum curator at the Boston Historical Society but while in Ann Arbor is spending some time at the Clements Library with their phenomenal collection.

This Thursday we're looking forward to hearing Dan Gillmor address us in the backyard of Wallace House to deliver this year's Graham Hovey lecture.

Another 30 degree Celsius day! Can our luck last?

Something gold, something blue... and something new

Visited the Big House on Saturday for our first college football game: Wolverines vs Eastern Michigan. What a spectacle - so over the top. It had all of the hysterically devoted fans and colourful displays of cult-like mass behaviour I was hoping for. The stadium is the largest college stadium in the land and seats 110,000. That's pretty much the population of Ann Arbor.

Like anthropologists on a field trip, we witnessed bizarre rituals by the inhabitants: the kids rattle their keys at certain parts
of the game, they do a "claw" gesture on mass at another juncture, they share a complex language of songs and chants, and abusing the opposition (even their marching band copped it). I've been in sporting crowds in Australia with obnoxiously one-eyed fans before but I've never seen such a homogenous display of team pride and sheeplike adherence to the group behaviour. And I'm not sure how passionate I could be about a game where you know in advance you are going to pulversive the opposition, but the kids loved it! The final scoreline was 55 to 0 and yet the fans were still baying for blood.

Inhaled a $1.50 hotdog from one of the myriad hotdog stands set up outside the stadium prior to the game... the bun as soft and almost as sweet as a marshmallow.

The actual game? We left after halftime and the amusing marching band performance (the uni brass band performed a Monty Python and the Holy Grail act - complete with the songs, formations of different shapes on the field - including the monty python foot - and many injokes about opposition teams that had to be explained to us).

I'm also amused to report I have now played Beer Pong at the student house tailgate prior to the game. It's a game played at EVERY student house in town on game days where you try to throw your pingpong ball into half-filled cups of beer at the other end of a table. If the other team lands a ball in one of your cups, you have to drink the beer. The Knight Wallace Fellows (pictured above: Coach John lines up his shot while Thomas from Rwanda looks on) took on some kids (from whom we procured our football tickets) and showed them age beats smooth and youthful skin any day. One of the kids was even named Scooter. A tailgate, by the way, is a party on a football game day. Think Melbourne Cup day, except every Saturday. It's an alcoholic BBQ or picnic, so named because folks set them up in the carpark of the stadium out of the backs of their cars. The term can also apply to parties on golf courses, private gardens, and front lawns of student hovels.

After we left the game we adjourned to a bar for much pizza, sangria and beer before Min-Ah, the South Korean Fellow, fell asleep at the table. Stumbled home, crawled into bed at 6pm and awoke 4 hours later feeling dazed and wondering if writing
off an entire Saturday when I am not a sporting fan was such a good idea. But I am glad I went - as ignorant foreigners we had to see all the razzle dazzle once.

Morris dancers

Gotta love this town. Where else could you see the Mark Morris company perform for only 10 bucks?

After the performance Morris faced the audience for a Q&A, and came across as a foul-mouthed, arrogant bitch. And a coupla decades older than his mugshot in the program too. A fine choreographer though.

Salman Rushdie was here last week too.

Thinking of home

Did anybody see Johnny Apple's wrap on Sydney's dining scene in this week's New York Times? I confess to having a little prick in my eyes and quickening of the heart when I saw this photo of Bondi when sitting in a lecture theatre on the other side of the world. Glad to read he's finally discovered the best spot in town, Sean's Panaroma.

Quote of the week: "Who's Kate Moss again?" - Gerard

Travelling north

Another weekend in a rental car exploring the Michigan wilderness. Drove to the monied north to inspect the, ahem, wineries. I don't think the Clare Valley should be worried about competition from the rieslings produced here just yet. It seems dry is a dirty word for US wine consumers. The winemakers - a decision I'm sure is driven by the market - even add sugar to some of the reds!

It's a pretty big concern up here though, with some gorgeous tasting rooms and large crowds of tasters driving around the wine trail. They're producing whites and reds, with the rieslings getting the nods from the foodie set and sommeliers in Detroit and Chicago. My pick was the Gewurztraminer from Peninsula Cellars, but sadly was beyond the budget of this unemployed uni student. Their Select Riesling may have been the goods, but we couldn't try it.
For a bit of fun you can also drink various brews made from local cherries and apples, sometimes spiced for a bit of mulled wine effect.

I have to say the wine trail of the Old Mission Peninsula makes for a gorgeous day out in the car - it's a spindly piece of land jutting into Lake Michigan's Grand Traverse Bay. At any time you can see water on either side, through the cherry orchards and vines. With farmer's produce stands every few hundred metres or so, laden with raspberries, white raspberries, apples, cherries and other stone fruits in jewel-like colours.
The country up here is former lumber country - it was deforested pretty swiftly and the demands for timber after the Great Chicago Fire finished the job - so here and there are some spectacular lumber baron mansions like the one pictured,

now a gorgeous B&B where we spent one blissful night. Situated in a tiny blink-and-you'd-miss-it town of Bellaire on a chain of lakes, at first sight it seems little more that an outpost for fisherman and boaties. Imagine our surprise when we had the meal of our trip so far at a Sydney-class restaurant, Lulu's: a baby spinach leaf salad with port-soaked cherries, goat's cheese and walnuts... house-smoked beef brisket and cheddar whipped potatoes with caramelized onions... pork with a fennel and cheese crust.
As part of our travels on Saturday we dropped in on the Grand Traverse Pie Company in Traverse City to sample their fare. If the definition of happiness is walking into a kitchen to survey (and inhale the aroma of) a row of freshly-baked pies, sweet and savoury, then this is a jolly place for you. They cook up the luscious fruits which grow so plentifully in this part of the world: cherries, berries, apples, peaches and the like, with their juices bubbling out of the crusts. Said crusts could possibly benefit from being a bit crisper but it's a sweet treat nonetheless. I bet they'd taste even better when it's cold outside!

Last word: if you can help it, try not to be in the breakfast room of a major hotel chain off the Interstate on the morning of September 11 when they have Fox News on the wide-screen TV.

Smorgasbord of study

This study caper is a bit time consuming. We've been flogging ourselves attending lectures, keeping up with reading and submitting homework (Kimba) or writing screenplays (Gerard).

And eating too. How yummy does this sandwich look? It's full of smoked turkey breast, Zingerman's Creamery manchester cheese (like a Camembert), oven-roasted onions from a local farm & dijon mustard.

First day of school!

Awwwwwww.

A tough life

It's the calm before the storm - Labor Day holiday today so classes start tomorrow, Tuesday. Went textbook shopping today ("Are you the new professor?", the student bookshop clerk asked, brightly) then took a load off at the Espresso Royale cafe pictured above. (Coffee is the fuel which Ann Arbor runs on). Very handy location at one of the major campus crossroads so the people-watching is good. They also offer free wireless internet and have a row of Macs for the laptop-bereft. And the iced vanilla lattes are good too. Waiting for the cold to start before I work through the rest of the menu (peanut butter mocha coffee, anyone? How about pumpkin spiced latte?)

Tragic Times

Much to devour in today's New York Times. From Frank Rich, who likens Katrina to the sinking of the Titanic ("New Orleans's first-class passengers made it safely into lifeboats; for those in steerage, it was a horrifying spectacle of every man, woman and child for himself"):
Thanks to Mr. Bush's variously incompetent, diffident and hubristic mismanagement of the attack by Katrina, he has sent the entire world a simple and unambiguous message: whatever the explanation, the United States is unable to fight its current war and protect homeland security at the same time.

And novelist Anne Rice, whose mansion in the Big Easy's Garden District is a stop on every walking tour of the sublime suburb:
During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs.
Well, we are a lot more than all that. And though we may seem the most exotic, the most atmospheric and, at times, the most downtrodden part of this land, we are still part of it. We are Americans. We are you.

And a delightful "Kitchen Voyeur" column in the magazine on Jean Halberstam (spouse of David) and her culinary creations, which include deep-fried peaches. No, I haven't been in the US for too long, but I am intrigued! (They look a bit like the Krispy Kremes which are for sale in bulk in the Kroger's supermarket opposite our apartment, yet sell like the proverbial hotcakes as luxury food items in Sydney, go figure). Halberstam says of their lovely life: "every morning [her husband] wakes up and says, first thing, 'What's for dinner?' It's his reward. And mine."

Yummy late summer Sunday roast this evening: a buttery Amish chicken with garlicky potatoes and plum relish out of gorgeous Italian black plums with a silvery bloom. Made a vinaigrette out of an impulse-buy bottle of 'orange muscat champagne vinegar' and bought an oozy wedge of French brie. Pity the wine didn't hold up it's end, but we should have known better than to buy Napa chardonnay. All overblown oak, from a region far too warm for that grape.

Jolly good fellows

Shopping for classes, chasing leads on good professors (such as the legendary Good Life course in the Law faculty, or the gifted Ralph Williams from the English department. On a tip-off from the Fellowship's administrator, the warm and exceptional Birgit, I explored and was accepted into the Residential College language program. A bit like a university within the University, it offers intensive (2-3 hours a day, 4 days a week) language programs with dedicated faculty.

Thursday afternoon was the Fellowship orientation, where we were all bedazzled by the riches of the coming year's program, and awed at the expectations upon each member of the group. Then there was much chatter and mingling at a reception (featuring cake with the sweetest icing I have ever experiences, not to mention the intensity of its blue-and-maize Uni of Michigan colours) before many of the fellows repaired to the beer garden at Ann Arbor institution, Dominick's. Beneath maple trees and winking lanterns, we drank beer and sangria out of large jam jars and scarfed on pizzas until the sun went down and we were kicked out. The bonding of the 2005-06 Knight Wallace Fellows is underway. Walked home, all the better to see the parties lighting up every house.

Saturday was the first football game of the season and college year. Imagine 107,000 people, all clad in blue and/or gold, moving en masse towards a stadium. Student house parties spilled out onto the streets, BBQs were fired up by excited groups of kids with the occasional parent in attendance, plastic drink cups littered the lawns, every car flew an M pennant. Tailgating (where you serve food and drink out of the back of your car, typically the football stadium carpark or somebody's lawn) parties had been underway since breakfast. Is this really going to be the scene every Saturday? Wish I had the merchandise licence, as literally everybody in town is wearing a player's or supporters shirt and/or cap. 'We' won, by the way. Go Blue!

Crash course

Will try to get through this before being let loose on campus.

And can you believe this is happening in the country said to be the world's superpower?

Light my fire

O wow. Forgive our childish wonder for a moment, as last night, for the first time, we saw fireflies. Little flashes hovering over the pond for a couple of seconds, like a miniature fireworks display in our own backyard. We had just finished a very messy meal of Chia Shiang's mu shu pork and lo mein chicken (with a Rioja rosada) on the balcony. For the first few minutes I wondered if the critters were an effect of the wine.