Landlocked lobster love
July 17, 2012
We Minnesotans may be landlubbers but one thing is for certain—we have good food. I know there are many excellent restaurants around the area, but my personal focus on eating out for two and a half summers has been with our new industry of (mostly) high-end food trucks. Two summers ago there were just a handful on our streets. Last summer there were a few more. This summer there has an explosion of new food trucks, and I don’t mean in the combustible sense.
The chefs who run these trucks aren’t afraid to make good food. And I certainly am not afraid to enjoy it. In fact, in the last couple of weeks, I have had the pleasure of consuming three completely different lobster rolls. Yes, you heard me. Lobster rolls. Here in landlocked Minnesota. (I don’t count Lake Superior. There are no lobsters there. Delicious lake trout, yes. Lobsters, no.)
Next up: Get Sauced
Newcomers: SushiFix
I myself step up in tornado relief
May 26, 2011
I’m not trying to make it sound overly grandiose, I was just going for parallel construction with the title from Monday night’s entry because this is a related story. As the big scheme goes, it was only a baby step.
Tonight, I joined the Smack Shack food truck crew in north Minneapolis and helped dish up free food for tornado survivors for three and a half hours. It was nothing fancy—hotdogs with or without chili, some Hamburger Helper pasta, and ice cream. Chicken nuggets and chicken wings also made brief appearances. But for the neighborhood people, many of whom literally have no roof over their heads, or who asked for extra to take back to the people who had stayed at the house to safeguard it, it was plenty alright.
The important thing here for me is that this was the first volunteering of any kind I’ve ever done in my entire life. For some background on how out of character this is for me, please take a minute to read this recent post, the theme of which was a fortune cookie fortune which read “conscience is a man’s compass” and which involved some self-examination on the topic.
I can’t claim that it was some bolt of lightning striking that got me out there tonight. It’s true that when I see accounts of disasters on the news, I sometimes wish I was in a position to be able to jet off to the location and give some man-hours to clean-up, recovery, whatever. My thinking is usually in terms of physical labor versus interacting with people. I am uncomfortable around people a lot of the time.
My reason was much more mundane and self-serving. Smack Shack is one of my favorites of the food trucks that began appearing in the Twins Cities last summer. As a loyal customer both to the truck and to the bar in whose kitchen they wintered, I have established an acquaintance with the proprietor and chef, Josh Thoma. The trucks fascinate me because all of the chef-proprietors turn out amazing food from a kitchen that fits in the back of a UPS van.
When the tornados hit last Sunday and I watched the live feed from one of the news helicopters, I again had the stirrings of the feeling of wanting to help, and wished I didn’t have a really big project at work that was due yesterday (and which I’ll finally finish tomorrow morning) so that I could take a couple days off for this local disaster. But I did have to go to work, so all I did on Monday was make a donation to the org GiveMN.org.
Then in the afternoon, the tweets started to come through. Several food trucks, including my three favorites, were going to make their ways to the tornado zone to hand out free food. I instinctively thought that offering my labor to one of them would be an easy way to help for a few hours and give me a little brush with food truck fame and allow me to importantly note that I worked side-by-side with Chef in tornado relief. Unfortunately, I was busy Monday night.
Due to not finishing my work project on time I didn’t feel I could go out Tuesday evening either, which I found particularly bothersome after Chef Thoma tweeted for helpers at Smack Shack. Finally tonight, Wednesday, I was available and got myself to the truck right after work.
So that brings me back to what I wondered about at the end of the “conscience” post. My reasons for being this evening’s hotdog bun stager extraordinaire were at least seventy-five percent selfish. But would the people who got some free food and could watch their kids being delighted by a small bowl of ice cream with sprinkles have cared if they knew why I was really there? Isn’t it okay that whatever my motivation, everybody got something out of it?
I can’t say explicitly that it was a life-changing experience and that I’m going to run off and join the Peace Corps or even that I’ll start volunteering at some local soup kitchen. What I can say is that at the moment, I seem to be overcome with an unusual peaceful, semi-fulfilled, extremely mellow feeling.
Photo by Smack Shack
Food trucks step up in tornado relief
May 24, 2011
As if I didn’t already adore my local food trucks for their amazing culinary delights, today, in the aftermath of yesterday’s tornados in the Twins Cities, one of which tore through the Camden neighborhood in north Minneapolis, several of the mobile kitchens went up to the area to aid in relief food dispensation. I admire them even more. It doesn’t matter that it was mostly hot dogs and bottled water donated by grocery stores. None of them hesitated in committing to the effort.
A photographer named Tony Webster has a gallery on Flickr of shots from around the neighborhood (one of which I linked to above). There wasn’t utter obliteration as in Joplin, Missouri, but the damage was still pretty devastating.
We had had almost two inches of rain in the previous 36 hours so the ground was saturated. A lot of the damage was caused by entire trees being uprooted and falling over onto structures, rather than simply snapping and not expanding their footprint too much. I’ve seen photos of entire blocks of trees just toppled over on their sides. It weird and sad. And, of course, plenty of roofs were torn off also. That’s odd, too, to see into homes like you were the Jolly Green Giant who just pulled them off to see what’s inside.
Fortunately, unlike in Joplin, there have been “only” two related deaths so far.
If you’d like to donate to a local relief organization, GiveMN.com has a fund. I contributed what I could.
Smack Shack. At one point there was an impromptu prayer session in front of the truck.
World Street Kitchen. The comfort of a hot meal, however simple.
Chef Shack. A worker refuels.
Photos by Tony Webster, Smack Shack, World Street Kitchen, Chef Shack
I ate Robbin???s cousin for dinner
February 5, 2011
Today I shocked myself by doing something that I never in a million years thought I’d ever do.
Early in the day, Surly Brewing shared that the Ngon Vietnamese Bistro would be tapping a special edition cask of their Bender Ale that was made with vanilla bean. I thought that sounded like a delightful variation on a beer I like, and I’ve been reading good reviews of the restaurant for a long time.
I looked up Ngon’s menu and the word “rabbit” immediately jumped out at me, as in Crispy Rabbit Dumpling. My reflex was to huffily dismiss it as a place I’d never go on principle because they serve up fluffy bunny rabbits. But then I read the description: “Singer House Farms rabbit rolled in a crispy shell with herbs served with a sweet curry sauce & tomato basil confit.” To my horror and amazement I found myself thinking “that sounds really delicious!” I do like curry, after all.
All day long, I kept returning to the menu in fascination, spurred by the strong desire to go have some of that special Bender. Of course I could choose to eat something else, but Crispy Rabbit Dumpling continued to sound appealing.
As I thought about it, I thought why not? Maybe a dumpling would be the perfect way to satisfy my curiosity because it would be in a less recognizable form than, say, something that looked like my rabbit Robbin’s hind leg.
I went to Ngon (changing my previous notion about indulging in some Smack Shack lobster goodness for a Friday treat) and bravely ordered. The server asked me how it was and I gave her an honest answer—interesting, I’d never eaten rabbit before. Interesting in a good way? Well, I have a pet rabbit and this is just a little weird.
“Interesting” applied more to my conflicted emotions about the act of eating it, but in the end it went just fine. It tasted like it belongs in the dark poultry meat family. I’ve found that goat is kind of like that, too, though a little grainier. I have been getting more adventurous with my eating recently and if I am going to even loosely apply the term foodie to myself, I can’t be squeamish.
I was slightly disappointed with the Bender as I couldn’t taste any extra vanilla flavor in it.
I also had a small salad and Black Sesame Shrimp, both of which were tasty as well.
The lighting was very low, so these aren’t the best photos but you get the idea. I tried to throw a little more light on the plates with the table candle, and it wasn’t until I had been moving it around for a couple minutes that I realized it wasn’t even a real candle but a good fake that flickered and all.
Not such a cheap date
August 21, 2010
Yesterday’s goal was to buy the cheapest thing on the menu. Today’s goal was to spend nothing. I failed miserably, because I didn’t have time to plan ahead. That’s a little bit of a lame excuse. I do often pack my lunch for work, but the extra whammy today was my attendance at the Twins game tonight.
So in chronological order, my FAIL went like this.
Supper. I had planned to stay at the office until it was time to go to the Twins game, but because I switched bags and forgot my key, I had to leave when the last other person left. That spurred my decision to check out the Town Ball Tavern within Target Field because I had plenty of time. As you would expect, the food was overpriced, but the Summit pints that I am powerless to resist at the ballpark were, at $6.75 each, 75¢ less expensive in the Tavern than on the concourse. I ordered the Twin Towns Turkey Sandwich (I think that’s what it was called), which was basically a grilled cheese and turkey sandwich, for $10.50—exorbitant, I know. I had three bargain beers as well.
At the end of the sixth inning, I could no longer take sitting in my seat, packed in on a warm and humid night with no breeze to circulate the stagnant air, so I retreated back to the Tavern where there was air conditioning and big screens and had one more bargain beer. Total beer savings, $3.00.
Post game. By game’s end, I was hungry again (stupid beer) and so popped in to Pizza Lucé on the way back to my bicycle for a delicious slice of pizza with chicken, mushrooms, and onions, $3.95. Wonderful as their beer selection is, I did resist the temptation and just had some nice, cold water.
So that was fourteen hours, two meals, and one event out of the house. Grand total: $51.45. Ouch. It’s no wonder I’m always out of money.
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