<p>emerald - you can do a pork loin roast to avoid frying. My mom always pan fried pork chops but roasted the whole loin in the oven - delicious. It makes good sandwiches too.</p>
<p>I’m from Michigan (near Detroit) and went to college in Ann Arbor. One of the things I remember well–Vernor’s. My mother didn’t allow us to drink pop–which is what those in the Midwest call soda. I had my first taste of pop at a friend’s home and it was Vernon’s ginger ale. Loved it. Haven’t had it in years–so I can’t speak to whether it’s changed.</p>
<p>For some reason, I got a Zingerman’s catalogue this fall and I ordered all of my holiday presents for friends and relatives who don’t live nearby from it. I got lots of thank you notes/emails that specifically mentioned the things I ordered there. Wonderful place.</p>
<p>I love Vernor’s. Didn’t know I did until I became an adult and then it was Love! </p>
<p>My D would tell you that the thing she misses most about Michigan is Olga’s. It’s probably only her but she has to stop when she’s home.</p>
<p>Things I love about Michigan
After 900 days of cloudy weather, the sky up north is so blue and so beautiful. The nights are so dark and you can actually see the stars. When the weather is good (which it is occ) it is beautiful up here, warm days, cold nights, blue sky, the beautiful blue of Lake Michigan.</p>
<p>Lake Effect, you never know exactly what it’s going to bring you.</p>
<p>Seeing deer tied to the roof of a car over Thanksgiving. Nothing says Thanksgiving like gun season.</p>
<p>Being able to buy deer bait and ammo at the gas station. Even though it’s illegal to bait deer. If you are up north in the fall, that is what all of those big bags of carrots are for.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I had to laugh at that one–I’ll add: No boys in high school classes on the first day of deer hunting season.</p>
<p>^
I can top that. In PA we don’t even have school on the first day of deer season.</p>
<p>The first day of hunting season is when you can “hear” the sun come up!</p>
<p>And Bromfeld - I ordered one of the Bacon Boxed Gifts from Zingerman’s for my brother. He raved about the bacon chocolate bar, which apparently tastes wonderful (even though it sounds awful.)</p>
<p>I can top post #105;</p>
<p>Back in my day, on the first sunny Friday of ski season in the pacific northwest some public schools would be nearly empty. On the following Monday, more than a few kids were seen with casts on one limb or another.</p>
<p>Don’t miss seeing the road signs full of holes from shot guns.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Vernors used to be really gingery. (It was one of the few things I looked forward to when visiting the inlaws in Michigan.) Then it was bought out by either Coke or Pepsi–can’t recall which–and now it tastes like Fanta. Bland.</p>
<p>In Maine you can tell it’s deer season because the horses are wearing blaze orange blankets and the cows are painted with blaze orange. 
Then there’s moose season and the ongoing debate about whether it is ethical to bait bears with doughnuts.</p>
<p>As disgusting as they are, there is still something engaging about Waffle House</p>
<p>About those artichokes… I learned to eat them at an early age on Long Island. It comes from being in an Italian family. Still, it was fun visiting California in late September and seeing nothing but artichokes, garlic, and pistachios at the farm stands.</p>
<p>You mean Awful House!</p>
<p>I grew up in the northeast, but my grandmother was a glorious southerner from Virginia and she taught me a lot about southern hospitality. Unfortunately I have good and bad feelings about the south but because of her, I do have some great respect for her “southerness.”</p>
<p>Great Host
Fabulous cook, grits, po boys, fried fish, superb collard greens, pound cake
Graciousness
Red clay dirt
Early springs
large produce such as corn, tomatoes, okra, sweet potatoes, green beans
heirloom is now the new avante garde way of growing vegetables and flowers but they have been doing this for years
beautiful fruit trees
rich ancestry, which is a real american story
homecoming traditions
Walmart
Lots of green open spaces</p>
<p>Here’s what I like about the South:
- cypress swamps
- Gulf seafood
- a North Carolina “pig pick”
- country blues
- New Orleans music, all flavors
- banjo pickers
- country fiddlers
- zydeco
- Florida conch chowder
- hush puppies
- mint juleps
- sweet potato pie
- barbequed ribs</p>
<p>Here’s what I don’t like about the South:
- self-righteous religious zealots
- politicians who pander to self-righteous religious zealots
- hypocritical politicians who pander to self-righteous religious zealots
- the Klan
- fried food
- vegetables cooked in lard
- sweet tea
- the Confederate flag
- rural poverty
- apart from New Orleans, the paucity of cities with a real urban feel
- smoking (far more common here than in the north, and less controlled by law)
- “pro-death” culture (high rate of homicide, high rate of capital punishment)</p>
<p>OOh, another thing I like about Michigan - the variety of fresh produce! Strawberries, cherries, asparagus, sweet corn, “honeyrock” melons, apples, blueberries… Spring and summers are wonderful food seasons here. There’s a movement afoot to drastically reduce the size of Detroit and convert large swaths of the city to gardens and farm land - I’ve heard it ridiculed by some but I think it’s a great idea!</p>
<p>And bclintock - my family still jokes that in NC you’re REQUIRED to smoke. I’d swear there was a time when newborns were given a carton of cigarettes when discharged from the hospital.</p>
<p>Self-righteous liberals are just as obnoxious. And possibly more dangerous. See AGW as the flavor of the month. Few things embraced by right-wingers will break the country financially. Liberals could do it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Really? I didn’t mean to turn this into a political thread, but I just can’t resist your provocation: How about two wars that were not only unfunded but accompanied by massive tax cuts—unprecedented in wartime—coupled with an unfunded new Medicare prescription drug benefit, combined with a trillion-dollar bank bailout? That was the fiscal record of the last administration, which inherited a huge budget surplus and left its successor with a massive budget deficit.</p>
<p>The surplus was generated by firms that were frauds AKA 99% of dotcoms who burned through cash at a high rate overpaying young liberal arts grads. When that justifiably crashed and burned in a few years–just before Clinton left office we were left with–a recession. The war was another issue which I think history will find more positive than current thinking. A loose cannon was thwarted and it’s hard to say what mischief he’d be up to today or in the future.<br>
The bank bailout etc, can easily be placed at the feet of both parties as the difficulty of getting any new regulations has shown. Big money Wall Street can afford to buy both parties.</p>