Chowhound is a bi-weekly column about what’s trending in Detroit food culture. Tips: [email protected].
Top of the market: Took a stroll around Northville’s farmer’s market recently. I doubt the Westminster Kennel Club sports a showier stable of breed-trendy labradoodles than the group I noticed strutting around here. Between them and their owners — an equally fashionable parade of peeps pushing designer strollers in their yoga pants and backward baseball caps — this place is American Gothic 2.0, millennial version. And many of the vendors here cater smartly to that crowd. If you’re shopping for artisan mixing spoons ($20 and up), custom-carved rocks (doorstops, paper weights?), $30 leaf lettuce in a planter, and/or custom cutting boards on which to slice local cheeses (on sale at premium import prices), shop here on Thursdays through September. Do I sound a little judgy? Go see for yourself. While you’re there, pick me up a cold-press, oat milk latte, and gluten-free Snozzberry scone. And a natural dye hemp leash for my new yorkipoo.
More market share: Offering alternative value perception nearby, Country Fair Market made a markedly better first impression after I pulled in looking for pressure-cooked fried chicken on the recommendations of several folks who’ve sung the place’s praises to me of late. Long staked near the Salem-Northville border on a two-lane stretch (9760 Seven Mile Rd., Northville, just west of Chubb), Country Fair’s unassuming liquor store front belies a big-time, blue-ribbon, bird-broasting operation.
“We sell about 1,500 pounds [of chicken] a week,” owner Larry Kassab quickly calculated for me, scratching his head over numbers he swore he’d never really figured before. That’s a 3,000-piece bucket per week, folks, more or less. Out of a little, roadside country store. That’s freakin’ finger-lickin’ amazing and, yeah, so’s the chicken. And the pizza (made fresh). Big bowl salads and deli subs, too (ditto). If you go, and you should, check out the selections of chewing tobacco, some in sacks the size of throw pillows. Perchance you imbibe, browse the booze aisles as well. Alongside labels found in the average liquor store, you’ll spy some real surprises: Don Julio 1942 tequila ($169.99), Johnny Walker Blue ($249.99), and bottles of 2013 Caymus Napa Cab priced to move at $199.99. I doubt convenience stores in heaven stock better inventories. I’m still kicking myself for not picking up some homemade walnut Baklava and white chocolate-macadamia cookies when I had the chance. Passing by them once while wandering around waiting for my order (chicken and pizza customers are encouraged to call in 30 minutes prior to pick-up), they were all gone by the time I got called to the counter to settle up. That won’t happen again.
I left Country Fair floored by what a find it truly was. Eight pieces of perfectly fried chicken: $12.99. A two-topping pizza, made fresh to order: $12.37. And a new place to pick up all the above and more (hell, I even bought an $8 Eddie Bauer shirt): priceless, period.
This salad tastes like ass: So, is there really a three-second rule in play at restaurants? Do servers actually spit in customers’ food if sufficiently provoked? I have to say no, for the most part. Having said that, let me tell you a story; a cautionary tale for those of you willing to piss-off the less-than-perfect strangers who handle your food.
In my early twenties and waiting tables at a gourmet burger chain (the name of which you’d likely recognize for having eaten there yourself), a cold prep cook with vindictive ice in his veins did something decidedly below-the-belt in vengeance toward his girlfriend’s father, who’d stopped in where we all worked to see his little girl and have some lunch.
“He hates me. I hate him,” Chef Vigilante let me know the second he saw the man walk in and sit down. “You’d better not order anything from my [cold sandwiches and salads] side [station],” he warned his nemesis under his breath. Then sure enough, it happened. It was a Cobb salad, and I can still gag over the recollection of what went down next, even all these years later.
Taking a hard-boiled egg in his hands, Chef V shot me a diabolical grin before looking both ways for any other witnesses. Coast clear, plan hatched, he reached into the back of his pants and packed the egg between his buttcheeks, where he held it for a ten-count before bringing it back up for air and a slicing. All at once repulsed and riveted, I watched him top his girl’s dad’s Cobb with something he'd just cozied up to his sphincter. She walked it out, unaware, to her father. He ate it. For the record: I never heard that he suffered any ill effects. Still.
With Chef V gloating to himself over getting even, only I noticed his girlfriend kissing her dad on the lips as they said goodbye. Talk about cross contamination. If she only knew.
“My dad loved your salad, Sweetie,” she came to the service window and let her man know two minutes later, before leaning in and laying a big, sloppy smooch on him.
“My pleasure, baby,” he smirked back, giving me some sly side-eye.
“Out of curiosity, how’d that kiss taste?” I couldn’t help but have the last laugh, telling him how he’d ultimately rubbed shit in his girlfriend’s face and then kissed the Tootsie Roll center of his own ass. Did that wipe away his shit-eatin’ grin? Neh. Only spite’s sweet savor lingered on his lips. One thing’s true enough about causing crap and kissing ass. If you make it a habit, you’ll acquire a taste for it.
Life’s a game of inches: Two half-drunk doctors sat at a bar talking shop. One questions the other’s career choice.
“Why proctology, for God’s sake?” he scoffs toward his colleague.
“I know. Sometimes I wonder myself,” The other admits, raising a hand and looking to his friend through the short gap between his outstretched thumb and forefinger. “I was this close to being a gynecologist.” C’est la vie.
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