The Saturday afternoon sandwich line forms outside Zingerman's Delicatessen in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The first time I heard that people lived in Orlando, I couldn't shake the idea: Where would such people sleep? The Magic Kingdom? There's a government? A mayor who doesn't wear a mouse head and pose for pictures?

This is an occupied territory. Not a city.

To that list, add Ann Arbor.If you've ever lived in this bucolic college town (population 114,000), gone to school here (at the University of Michigan), worked here (home to Domino's Pizza and Borders world headquarters) or dreamed of living here (Ann Arbor routinely lands on those Best Places To Live lists), you might take umbrage — but never has a nice Midwestern town been so dominated by a delicatessen.

This is Zingerman's Delicatessen, a red-brick wedge of a building on a cobblestone street. As I learned recently, with all the classes and special dinners and tours and gorging it offers, one can spend days at Zingerman's — the way one might spend days at Disney World and barely see Orlando. Or rather, one can spend a weekend, going from Zingerman's to Zingerman's Roadhouse to Zingerman's Bakehouse to Zingerman's Creamery and also Durham's Tracklements, Kosmo's lunch stand — to the many like-minded establishments here that emphasize quality comfort food.

What I'm proposing, basically, is a food trip for those who can't afford a food trip to San Francisco. Here, the dream is reality, the makings of a va-HomerSimpson-cation, an entire trip around the eating of excessive amounts of corned beef, Guinness-based gelato, burgers coated in pimento cheese, and waffles made with grits.

To be fair to the locals, there is another major cultural force here: the University of Michigan, its iconic blues and yellows splashed across awnings and the backs of every freshman hustling down State Street, its campus and graystone architecture (and new contemporary art museum, resembling an air conditioner) dominating the hub of downtown.

Well, whoop-de-do.

After 27 years, Zingerman's, which lacks only a water slide, has become not merely a local institution but a nationally recognized culinary mecca (Oprah is a fan), a dairy tour, a baking school, a James Beard-nominated restaurant devoted to regional American cooking — an old silver Airstream in front handing out bags of doughnuts and pit-smoked chicken salad.

Indeed, Zingerman's is the nexus of an Ann Arbor Comfort Food Industrial Complex — a community commitment to first-rate French toast, cheeseburgers to dream about and, at one spot, a mason jar of frozen pink called a Constant Buzz.

Ann Arbor — after Disney World, the second-happiest place on Earth.

———

A tear forms in my eye as I stand in line for a cheeseburger here, in Ann Arbor, a true Midwestern Eden, 28 square miles of quaintness, boasting eight species of turtle, two canoe liveries and countless men still sporting ponytails. Ann Arbor, I think to myself, is proof there exists a place in this world where the quality of small things still matters. Things such as comfort and food. To be honest, I am sitting as I think this; my girlfriend is standing in line. I twisted my ankle while leaving the bed-and-breakfast.

My leg throbs.

"Got to stand, no saving tables," the guy at the counter says, an edge in his voice.

We're in a small shack of a burger joint, Krazy Jim's Blimpy Burger. Its motto is nice: "Cheaper Than Food."

The burgers, made from beef ground every morning, slide off the grill as disfigured patties, sweet with grease. The line of customers snakes around the wooden-topped tables at this 56-year-old standby. Just don't sit until you get food. I smile and explain I twisted my ankle, and the woman slinging the burgers perks up and, never turning from the grill, shouts over her back: "Get in line. Get a burger. Get out. Don't care 'bout no ankle. Get your burger. Then twist it. Not here. No. No."

The two dozen people in line stare at me, waiting to see what I'll do. My girlfriend checks her phone and pretends she hasn't heard a thing. I stand and wince, but weighing my pride against that smell — these jerks make great onion rings, and I have this weekend planned entirely around the remarkable comfort foods of Ann Arbor — I stand in line. The guy in front of me turns and grins: "Think you lost, son. You want, like, Zingerman's. They let you sit in there."

--Day 1

8 a.m. I begin my gastronomic Ann Arbor weekend with a light breakfast at Zingerman's Delicatessen, a warm-up breakfast to my actual breakfast later that morning. A spacey young guy who talks extremely slowly and wears a tweed hat takes my order: a bowl of polenta with golden raisins and honey and a house-baked bagel covered in fennel seed with a light smear of the tangy cream cheese from Zingerman's Creamery. The deli has the crowded feel of a club that has welcomed too many into its fold; I am wedged between the artisan pretzels and the smoked-salmon case. I break free and read descriptions of sandwiches for a few minutes — smoked Montreal meats, variations on New Orleans' muffuletta, Berkshire pork shoulder on an onion roll — then head next-door to Zingerman's coffeehouse (an actual house) and read the newspaper and eat a golden mountain of polenta.

10 a.m. Having had my warm-up breakfast, I walk a few blocks to Cafe Zola for the real breakfast. On the way, I stop to look at an example of a local phenomenon, the Fairy Door — miniature doors built into random buildings. At Zola, I ask about them. The rumor is that real fairies built them, my server says, her eyes wide. A 2-second Internet search on my iPhone reveals it's the work of a local artist named Jonathan. Still, the challah French toast at Zola is to be worshiped, made from Zingerman's braided challah, charred, eggy and sweet.

11:30 a.m. Students are huddled in the windows of every coffee shop. The day is overcast. I pick Sweetwaters Coffee & Tea and nuzzle into a mug of ginger lemon tea. It has a spicy burn, but the dab of honey mellows my harsh. There's a high school across the street. A woman stands outside the gates at lunchtime and puts down her bags and slips into a sandwich board. It reads, "Talk to me about socialism." Remarkably, when class breaks for lunch, a number of students stop and ask her about socialism.

2 p.m. In the Kerrytown Market, a block from Zingerman's, I have lunch. I begin with a Seoul Dog at Kosmo. It is a hot dog wrapped in bacon, deep fried, covered in mozzarella and grilled kimchi. I take a bite and put it down, sparing my aorta. Two feet away is Monahan's Seafood, a market within the market but with tables. Mike Monahan, one of the founders of Zingerman's (but no longer a partner), is behind the counter. His fish and chips are rich and crisp, but the oyster poor-boy — on a baguette from a local Japanese bakery, with pickled veggies at the bottom — is as delicately fried as a New England clam roll.

8 p.m. I head back to the deli for a Montreal Reuben, which is peppered, hot, on house-made rye. My cider is the color of squash. My pickle is big and perfect. I consider that it might be wax.

--Day 2

11 a.m. After a morning walk through the farmers market — organic everything, basically — I head for Zingerman's Bakehouse and my afternoon Italian cookie class, which is in a non-descript office park. I learn a few things: They make better Boston Brown Bread than my grandmother; I'm incapable of using a pastry bag; and Gail, my cooking-class partner, has taken "more baking classes than anyone on Earth." Our instructor, his face frozen in a look of amusement, his jackboots covered in a Rorschach of flour and anise seed, walks us through biscotti and amaretti. Gail gets on my nerves.

4:15 p.m. Shouted down by the burger people.

5:30 p.m. Let me tell you about Dominick's. The restaurant's dark wooden-beamed porch and stained-glass windows and posters of old hippies past recall a time when Ann Arbor was the Berkeley of the Midwest. On days when the University of Michigan football stadium ("The Big House") is bursting, when its 100,000-plus attendees spill into the streets and snarl traffic for miles, you can hear the distant roar at Dominick's, which is miles away. I've been here a few times over the years, and each time a large man with beady eyes sits in front and sips beer and wipes sweat from his head. Beside him is a stack of books with titles like "The War of the Austrian Succession." I nod to him, then get in line. Built into the floor is a tiled sign reading "Wait Here." I wait, then order a Constant Buzz ($21.04). It is truth in advertising, a strawberry slush that includes tequila, triple sec, gin, rum and vodka.

7 p.m. For dinner, we drive a couple of miles out of downtown and find Zingerman's Roadhouse, whose chef, Alex Young, has become a multiple James Beard Award nominee. I spend 10 minutes examining the menu, which reads like a roll call of traditional American cooking, every corner of the country covered: oyster hash and deep-fried pork chop and Sprecher's root beer from Wisconsin and buttermilk-fried chicken and Texas cabrito (goat) and six kinds of macaroni and cheese. The hush puppies (in a nod to UM) use blue and yellow corn. Ari Weinzweig, the owner, in a black T-shirt, sleeves rolled, pours water.

--Day 3

11:30 a.m. We head back to the Roadhouse. Ari is there again, pouring water, weirdly attentive for a guy worth a gazillion. I order Hangtown Fry, a variation on oyster hash, made with bacon. It's not on the menu; it's a northern California dish, a mining tradition. But they bring out something very close and full of smoke. The extent these people go to attend to your wishes is nuts. I am eating a bagel when the server comes over to give me a black napkin. The white one might flake on my black sweater. We joke and ask her if they will do anything. Yes, says the server, not joking. She explains that they once ran out and got beer and Red Bull at a supermarket for someone. My friend is allergic to potato, yet his plate has a potato. The server steps back in horror and grabs the plate, then asks him: Do you want to nibble on the part not touching the potato while you wait?

2:30 p.m. We drive to Zingerman's Creamery for a tour. It is as hot inside as Washington in July. The cheesemaker pops fresh mozzarella into his hand, squeezes it through his fingers until a ball forms, then snips it off and holds it aloft. Everyone sighs.

4 p.m. Nine miles away is the Dexter Cider Mill, which is 123 years old, the cider press made of a dark oak stained by hundreds of thousands of apples. Behind the wooden barn, a wheelbarrow holds the apple mash, squeezed of its juices. We grab a bag of hot sugared doughnuts and a couple of foam cups of hot cider and sit on a log, watching the Huron River hustle past.

9 p.m. We wrap up with a Zingerman's Roadhouse special dinner. Once a month, a theme is chosen, a guest chef selected. These dinners are fascinating, and huge — a $45 dinner based on the history of Greek-Jewish food in America, a $45 dinner about the little-known story of black chefs in the White House. This night I attend a Vampires Ball. The food is Irish, every dish a play on a spooky Celtic legend, Chef Alex telling of sauces "churned with a dead man's hand," stepping from his kitchen to remind us that the butter on our Irish soda bread should be so thick that it "touches your gums before the food does."

At the end of the night, my stomach distended, I fall into a coma. Irish folklorist Kevin Danaher, large and smiling and bleary-eyed, sends the guests off with a proverb. It doubles as a nice reminder of the lure of Ann Arbor — and of comfort food itself:

"Easy to halve the potato where there's love."

Associated Press