So many bakeries, so many nationalities, so little time.

On those days when work gets to me, (C'mon! We all feel it sometimes) I remind myself how much there is to love about being in and around the D.

And I'm not even referring to the fact that my mom has started cutting strawberries for me to go along with the oranges she peels for my lunch every day.


My latest fascination is with ethnic bakeries. Somehow we managed to visit a Mexican-run bakery, a Greek-operated bakery and a Middle-Eastern-style bakery all in one weekend.



As I mentioned in my earlier post, we stopped by Mexicantown over the weekend and popped into the Mexicantown bakery. We then made a quick 1 a.m. stop in Greektown to take our out-of-town buddies to the Astoria bakery. And then we ended Sunday night with a stop in my very own Dearborn to visit the Shatila bakery, which specializes mostly in Middle-Eastern pastries and foods.



We popped in Shatila bakery because silly Caribou coffee was packed and Borders had no seats. Lucky us. I think Shatila is even open until 11 p.m. on a Sunday.

I was amazed by all of the bakeries but thoroughly excited by the last one. That was, in part, because it's on Warren Avenue in Dearborn -- a street that reminded me how much I have to explore here. Warren is lined by bakeries, grocery stores, restaurants, clothing stores and other shops run by Arabic families.

See, Dearborn has a massive Arabic population. Almost a third of the city's nearly 100,000 people is Arabic, according to my good friend Wikipedia. And visiting Shatila sort of seemed like a stop in a foreign country as I looked over names of pastries like Baklawa, Ballourie and Burrma, or Mamoul (cookies) filled with dates, walnuts and pistachios. I was actually a little timid about ordering so I stuck with something easy -- two shawarma(s) to go.

I'm actually feeling exhilarated by the discomfort. It means learning something new and stepping out of my comfort zone.

(It wasn't nearly as bad as the time my college roommate Ame and I got stuck in Spain and couldn't figure out how to get to our destination. Ame resorted to charades with someone at the train station, pointing dramatically to herself and then out toward the open sky, exclaiming, "Me. Valencia. Me. Valencia.")


Anyway, there's much more to try at Shatila, including the specialty Kashta ice cream. From the Metro Times: "Kashta is the Lebanese name for a heavy cream obtained by simmering whole milk. Shatila’s ice cream of that name is simply the richest-tasting you will find. Think of the fanciest, fattiest French vanilla, and notch it up." There's also mango, lemon, apricot and other flavors.

All this in Dearborn, where I went to high school. Go figure.