Seriously, it doesn't take much...

to cheer me up. On my way back east, I stopped to visit my friends Jen and Patrick in Ann Arbor, MI. I love this town for many reasons, but they are the top two!

To help me cope with leaving Iowa (Weird right? I mean I seriously had a hard time leaving Iowa for the east coast. Who knew that would happen?)  They greeted me with this dinner:

Baked salmon with veggies in some yummy anchovy sauce. The beverage of choice? Pink Champagne. 

This meal was love. I arrived in Ann Arbor, tired, emotional and in a wrinkled party dress after having driven for 8 hours.  I also ate anchovies for the first time. Yummy.

The following night we had this deliciousness. From the cookbook Modern Moroccan. Once I start making money, and have a kitchen, I'm buying this book.

Roasted chicken with a saffron, apricot, and poppyseed sauce accompanied by a saffron rosewater risotto.

  

Then it was my turn. I kept it simple with a recipe I really like that combines my love of all things Italian with pork and sage.

Pork and beef sage (plus some other yumminess inside)meatballs over rigatoni.

Then there is a restaurant in Ann Arbor that I love called the Jolly Pumpkin which offers these yummy selections:

Truffle salted french fries.

Strawberry Balsamic Martinis
 

 I will learn to make these (the martini). Mayumi over at May in the Bay is all about making the perfect gin martini. This is one of my goals. After becoming an awesome teacher, guidance counselor, novelist, etc.

Oh yeah, and this was the very delicious Manhattan Patrick made for me during Mad Men.

Mad Manhattan

 Jen said, "What should we do with this fresh melon?" and I said. "Make margaritas?" Patrick got to work.

Fresh melon margarita

Last one, I swear. Somewhere in all this for lunch we had a simple Italian meal, on of my favorites in fact. Perfect summer food. Also another good use of melon.

Proscuitto e melone

That's it. There are no pictures of the Zingerman's sandwiches but rest assured they looked as good as they tasted.