Any culinary journey to Michigan would obviously lead me to Homer in south central Michigan.  “Homer is home” is the motto of this small village.  For me, it was always my home away from home, as I only lived there until I was three years old. However, my father grew up there and we would return to visit our family.  Homer is a place where the “Main Street USA” of yesteryear lives on.  It is a small place and therefore change is not quick to take hold.  What better place to look for culinary history! Among the buildings on Main Street sits Cascarelli’s Pizza.  Cascarelli’s Pizza has been there since 1835.  Its precipe is a simple one. Serve quality pizza made from the best ingredients and serve great beer to go with it.  In a traditional main street fashion, the pizza maker is right in the front window, where passerby’s can see the pizza being made, and put into the large pizza ovens.  The pizza itself comes out extremely hot and has a thin and crispy crust.  The traditional pizza of pepperoni, mushrooms, and extra cheese is the classic here. Unlike pizzas served at many restaurants today, Cascarelli’s pizza has mountains of perfect mozzarella cheese that covers all of the toppings.  Part of the fun is trying to separate the strings of cheese from the pizza as you put it onto your plate.  As long as I can remember, this classic pizza hasn’t really changed and has been handed down through generations of the Cascarelli family.  If you want non-traditional pizza though, you can get that too.  On a recent visit with my uncle, he suggested we try a pizza that featured grilled chicken, asparagus and feta cheese. At first I wasn’t too sure, but decided to give it a chance. It turned out the ingredients worked in perfect harmony.  The more I thought about it, the more I thought that it was an appropriate pizza for Michigan.  The asparagus was very fresh as asparagus grows wild in the area.  What better then to make a pizza with local fresh ingredients!  Cascarelli’s also has a large beer selection of both draft and bottled beers. I tried Bell’s Oberon which is made in Kalamazoo. Bell’s beers are now distributed throughout most of the Midwest and now much of the East coast. Oberon is a summer wheat beer with well balanced fruit and and spice, that makes for quite a nice drinking beer.  Another local beer that they offered was raspberry ale from Dark Horse Brewing Company in Marshall.  This was another excellent beer with just a mild raspberry flavor.  This last visit was also the first time that I had tried their spinach artichoke dip. Wow! Definitely, the best I have ever had. It was extremely rich and flavorful. It makes it hard to save room for pizza, but at Cascarelli’s you will find room.  My family always had great things to say about Frank Cascarelli who was the proprietor for many years. Glad to see that his family is still keeping the tradition alive.  If you want to take a step back in time, and discover what traditional pizza used to taste like, head on over to Homer, Michigan.  Much like the Bob Seger song, you will find your feet “Down on Main Street.”