Events!

Tornadoes & earthquakes got you bummed out? Here's a few things on the horizon to cheer things up:

Tonight– grab a lawn chair & some cold beers and watch the Detroit Futbol League games on the Belle Isle soccer fields. Or skip the beers & get down with some martinis like the Villages fans do. A funny story about the Villages: when we played them last time– I'm on the Mexicantown team and after the Villages players repeatedly didn't chase down their own missed shots (a league rule), one of my teammates who hardly speaks any English said "they forgot to bring their ball boy." He nailed it. I guess you don't even need to know much English to make fun of villages fans! I kid, I kid.

Anyway, after the games- put your dancing shoes on and head out to Slows for a fundraiser to support Scott Benson's campaign for State Rep. $20 gets you full access to beer, white wine and the polished dance floor. Scott Z and Mike Tee from Macho City will be spinning rare dance records with Brad Hales (Magic City Soul Club). Here's a link to a fine mix of Modern Soul that Brad put together a little while back.

Tomorrow, start your night off right with the West Canfield Street Market. It's a first-timer for this event and the details sound great: locally-made & vintage goods, beats & eats— all in the front courtyards of the Canfield lofts. Sounds kinda like a well-designed block party.


After that, head to Oslo's sleek basement and get down at Fierce Hot Mess' 2nd Birthday Party.




For a taste of how the FHM dj's party, check out the Fierce Hot Mix Tape.

Saturday, the USA continues it's World Cup run with a must-win game against Ghana.

A good afternoon bike ride would be across the new pedestrian bridge over I-75 to get some tacos in Mexicantown. I just did that last weekend.

Don't eat too many tacos though. You'll want to save room for the Cinema Barbeque II at the Burton Theatre. 'Escape from New York' and 'Total Recall' are showing with Brian Merkel (the Abe Froeman of Detroit) grilling fine sausages. Can't go wrong!

Ninjas

Ninja Kicks from a recent trip up to the Thumb area of Michigan. Some great country up there. We ate at restaurant up near Caseville called the Farm restaurant. I highly recommend. The interior could use a bit more imagination, but the food is pretty dead-on. The sun was out for the drive up to the thumb, and the ninja kicks were flowing. We stopped at Bronner's in Frankenmuth- the world's largest Christmas store (their billboard campaign extends as far South as Florida).


Another one from Windmill installation near Bad Axe, MI. I think Bad Axe has a slight edge on Hell, MI for coolest city names. Michelle's ninja kick form has a slight edge of it's own from the high elbow.


From this angle, these silos almost look like the Renaissance Center. I've always liked these classic-looking enameled blue steel silos.


Ninja Kick the Roof in! These are the shortest cottages I've ever seen. The gutters are at about chin-height. Not sure how anybody can stand in there. I think Santa could Ninja Kick his way in there if he got tired of all the chimney dust.


BTW- Have you seen this? It's a 1970s video of the Ren Cen just before it opened. CLASSIC soundtrack. What ever happened to this kind of booster-ism for new building construction?

A Basket Full of Greens

Here's this week's basket from the CSA I joined this past spring.

Contents:
Two bags of salad mix (Arugula, Mizuna, purple leaf spinach, green spinach)
Edible flowers
Turnips/turnip greens
Swiss Chard
Oyster mushrooms
Garlic greens

The CSA is a collaboration between Brother Nature produce, Earthworks Community Farm and Faith Farm. Besides the produce, there's a prepared item in the basket each week. One week was Greg's carrot-based hot sauce, another was an unbelievably tasty jar of 8 Mile Honey. We've had Earthworks jam, oil-based potato salad with fresh herbs, and other good stuff as well. The CSA costs $26/week to join. Each week's basket is a lot for one person to handle, but it's perfect to share. The thing I like best about the membership to the CSA isn't all the special jars of goodness, it's the fact that I eat healthier because I get this produce each week. That sounds like infomercial speak, but it's true. It's like being on a sports team - I hardly work out unless I've got some kind of schedule imposed on me to get my self in action.


The other thing I really like about the CSA is figuring out how to cook with this stuff. Mostly I cook completely amateur dishes with the produce - like Mustard greens with Bacon, Onion and a cold beer. Or a side dish of Potatoes with Rosemary, Olive Oil and Salt. The Fresh Egg Sandwich I made with Traffic Jam Cheddar was a hit, but still pretty basic. Same thing with the Roasted Beet Salad.

But sometimes I pull off something legit with the items like Oyster Mushroom Risotto. Or I set out on a cooking tangent that sounds great at first but falls through in the delivery. Like Meatbread: a mixture of meatloaf and cornbread (this came to me in a dream a few years back, and I cooked it the next night for my roommate and his friend visiting town). Meatbread can also be called Cornloaf. The beauty of this dish is that you can serve it with ketchup/hot sauce, or maple syrup/honey. It can go either way. Just load up the table with condiments and have at it. Meatbread is still more of a "conceptual" meal then an actual "dinner" but one of these days I'm gonna nail it.

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Speaking of falling thru in the delivery... The Hanging Gardens volunteer day took place on 5/21 and it was a great success! I even surprised myself that things worked out as well as they did. The 90% chance of storms forecasted for that day never touched us. I was told that about a mile North of the Forest Arms it was a complete downpour for most of the afternoon.

Things have been growing quite well the past three weeks. We're in the process of putting together some videos and stock photos of the event, but for a taste of what the day was like, check out the public gallery of photos available here.