Safari Supper

Sunday morning I biked to Belle Isle with three other students in my program. It was the perfect day for a ride and we stumbled upon the Heidelberg Project on the way (I actually ended up there again today). As I understand the project was intended to give Detroit residents an alternative view of the blighted neighborhoods they know all to well. Pretty interesting stuff. I think there may be a similar neighborhood elsewhere in Detroit that I heard about on NPR too.

...and then my camera battery died, so no pictures of Belle Isle this time. BUT, if your unfamiliar with Belle Isle it is a city park/island in the Detroit River. You can get there via bridge and once there have a good view of the Detroit and Windsor, Canada skylines. We biked around the island a bit and visited the Conservatory.

We couldn't stay too late though because my classmates and I had planned a progressive dinner (or Safari supper) Sunday evening. Since we are divided nicely into three apartments, one room did appetizers, another the entree and the last desserts.

Appetizers included some tasty breads and oil, deconstructed bruschetta and mozzarella sticks.

My roommates and I were in charge of the entree and we made spaghetti and roasted carrots, served alongside some bread sticks we bought at Eastern Market the day before. The spaghetti sauce ended up being quite the event. We made a meat and vegetarian version. My roommate "Manni" did a great job with the veggie version and really my only job with sauce was to cook the meat. We haven't been eating too much meat here and so we borrowed some frozen meat from the boys apartment. In an effort to split up the 4lbs of frozen ground beef I snapped off the tip of my chefs knife (thanks TJ Maxx) in the meat as well has "butchering" it in a variety of other ways. The boys think it is still edible though, so that's good. 

Finally, dessert was served in the boys room. This dessert may in fact illustrate how awesome the people in my program are. Warm chocolate chip cookies with two choices of ice cream AND an option of coconut cream pie AND candlelight AND music. It was a great end to a great evening with friends. Next Safari Supper on the calendar - can't wait!