Food Love Archives - Croissant in the City

Classes, Farm Life, Food Love, Life, Urban Farm

Heartbroken And Without A Home

Tree with a sail boat carving nailed to it at the first house.

Originally this post was stuffed full of wonderful photos I had taken of the new home we were in the process of purchasing. It was situated on 1.4 acres of land in Phoenix and we were so excited. A new home for Christmas and the bebe’s first Christmas to boot!

We sold our house in Gilbert, packed up all our belongings and hauled them to storage, moved into my parents living room with our Tuft & Needle mattress and a few boxes of our belongings for a couple weeks until we closed. And then the appraisal happened.

If you don’t know, the appraisal is the part of the home buying process where a 3rd party you hire comes and evaluates if the property is worth what you are paying for it. They save this inspection until last, and our sweet little house with the red door and the 1.4 acres of land appraised $30,000 less than what we were paying. The sellers didn’t want to drop the price, and asked us for a week to take all the bills for the money they had spent to remodel the house back to the appraiser to see if that would bring up the price. We saw this sinking ship before us and decided to jump back into the house hunting pool.

Quickly, we came upon another house. Back in the area we wanted to be in, and plenty large enough for us to grow into. There was no 1.4 acre lot, but we fell in love with the house and the neighborhood. And there was plenty of room for me to have some backyard chickens and citrus trees. And then the inspection happened.

A bunch of little things came up, but two big things, the pool they supposedly had replastered (unfortunately, it had not been and would have cost $6,000 to redo) and the roof, of which we needed a whole new one! We went back and asked for the $10,000 to re-roof a brand new house priced at the top of the market for the area. This afternoon they told us no way. We walked away.

To say we are crushed is an understatement. We had fallen in love with both houses. And now we have no home and no prospective home. To the greedy grinch house flippers of the world, I say bah-hum-bug! Do things the right way and make the house safe, then add some nice touches to it. Do a good job and people will pay you top dollar for the houses you rehab.

Citrus tree at the first house. I love how it just popped out of the cement near the pool.

I honestly don’t know what we are going to do now. Retreat. Lick our wounds. Figure out a game plan. Head back out into the fray. There just seems to be nothing we like anywhere in the area we would like to be in (and it’s a rather large area). It’s discouraging, but I do believe we will be in the right place for us. I just hope it’s sooner rather than later. Send us some good vibes and let me know in the comments below if you have a really insane house buying story. I could use some commiseration or a good laugh right about now.

And now for some food business…

Peach crostada with an oat crumble. Eagerly awaiting peach season.

I’m looking forward to getting back into teaching some cooking classes, probably in the middle of the new year. I’m currently working on the curriculum for the classes. Every class I teach I learn something more I want to expand on or add or edit out.

I am searching for a great location to teach the classes, so let me know if you know of a great space or see anything while out and about.

I have also started to freelance again. The goal was always to get back into writing more, and now writing seems to fit into my schedule a little better than baking full-time.

Processed with VSCOcam with c3 preset — Lemon curd handpies. We teach handpies in our Pie Perfection class.

You may notice that everything on the Pistol Whipped Pastry website, with the exception of some apparel items, are listed as sold out. Since we just had a baby, and it’s her first Christmas, I am taking a break for the holidays. We will be updating the website with some old favorites, new products, and some new branding (woot woot!) come February.

Lets leave this kind of sad post on a happy note, and feel free to comment below with any of your holiday baking questions. I will be more than happy to take a little time in another post to try to answer and help you all out with your holiday baking projects.

Before we go, you should definitely go check out the interview I did recently with my friend Marlee for her blog, I Just Make Sandwiches, where I answer baking questions from her readers.

Lastly, send us some love and cross your fingers we find the right house soon, as I desperately need to have my own kitchen again. Bakers gotta bake. Am I right?

Pistol Whipped Pastry Instagram | Rachel Instagram | Pistol Whipped Pastry Facebook

December 16, 2016 by croissant | 0 comment

Bits and Bobbles, Food Love, Life, Photography, Pistol Whipped Pastry, Recipes, Snacks, Wine

The Great Granola Bar Shipment

It’s been a crazy week. We made, hand cut, wrapped, and labeled 6,300 granola bar samples. I am ever the optimist when putting together a project, but unfortunately, I grossly miscalculated how much time it would take to put this project together. Luckily, I have some amazing friends and a fantastic husband who all pitched in to help get the job done.

As we placed the last label and packed the last box, I felt a huge weight lift from my shoulders. I reveled in crossing the finish line by our new fire pit with a glass of wine, caramelized onion chicken breast, sautéed kale, fingerling potatoes and Mr. PC, before allowing the flood of new tasks lining up for this current week to infiltrate my mind.

This is by far the largest order we have had, and yet when we are bogged down, we stray more to meals that are simple and fast. Usually a quick pop into a favorite restaurant or a jar of my family’s sauce that I’ve stocked up in the freezer tossed with some pasta and maybe a little protein and parm.

However, once we had finished, we turned our minds towards food. I wanted to sleep, and yet jump into my home kitchen and start making meals again. Meals I could linger over while sipping wine, nibbling on bits of veg while I chopped and tossed onto the pan for roasting.

In the interim, until I could get dinner on the table, we need something to snack on with our wine (for me) and bourbon – High West – with an ice sphere (for Mr. PC). Behold, a bulk bag of raw almonds and a garden lush with fresh rosemary. Massaged with a little olive oil, sprinkled with Maldon sea salt, and roasted till toasty. The perfect fireside snack, it is silly simple, but it was such a perfect nibble.

I love insanely thoughtful, simple, and delicious bar food, and these nuts are exactly what I want to graze on while have a leisurely drink by the fire with my hubs.

Now, all I want to do is read the box of cookbooks that arrived on my doorstep in the middle of the great granola bar shipment, while eating roasted almonds.

Salted Rosemary Roasted Almonds

Rachel Ellrich Miller

Ingredients:

1 1/2 # Almonds, Raw & Whole
2 TBSP. Olive Oil
3 Sprigs Rosemary, Fresh
Maldon Sea Salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place almonds on a parchment lined sheet pan. Massage olive oil and rosemary (remove the leaves from the stem by holding the top in one hand and sliding your hand down the stem with the other hand) into almonds, coating all throughly. Sprinkle with sea salt.

Roast for 10 minutes, pushing nuts around, and rotating pan. Then roast for another 5-10 minutes, until slightly darker and slightly golden inside.

Remove and cool. Pile into a bowl and serve warm with your cocktail or adult beverage of choice.

November 14, 2014 by croissant | 0 comment

Desserts, Farm Life, Food Love, Pastry, Pistol Whipped Pastry, Travel, Wine

A Willcox Weekend

Mr. PC and I are in love with Willcox, Arizona. The land stretches forever in every direction, with farms and vineyards lining the roads. People are kind, waving to us, even though they have never seen us and may never see us again. The main drag of downtown is slowly being revitalized with wine tasting rooms, and hopefully restaurants will follow.

The purpose of our trip was a going away party for our friend Simona. She has an amazing career as a wine maker, venturing around the world to different wineries, helping through the entire wine making process. We met Simona a few months ago when we went to Willcox to help our friends at Sand-Reckoner plant some vines (see story here).

We brought a dessert bar with dark chocolate cupcakes topped with vanilla buttercream, a s’mores station (Simona had her first s’more and while a little too sweet for her, she did enjoy it), bourbon coconut rice pudding, and mason jars of lemon posset.

As everyone arrived at the Pillsbury Wine Company tasting room, a variety of dishes filled the table and full bottles of wine collected on the bar. There wasn’t a bad bit of food in the place. Citrus salad, grain salad, peaches baked with goat cheese, baked squash, marinated steak tacos, and Simona’s veggie lasagna.

Everyone sat outside eating, drinking wine, talking and watching the rain storms roll overhead. A beautiful weekend with lovely people.

If you have the chance, get down to Willcox wine country and taste the beautiful wines they are making.

Simona, we will miss you! Safe travels on your next journey! xo

Rachel Ellrich Miller is a pastry chef and food writer in Phoenix, where she bakes, eats, hangs out with her amazing husband, Mr. PC, and drinks copious amounts of Arizona wine. You can get more information about her pastry at http://www.pistolwhippedpastry.com, or her Sugar Rush column on Phoenix New Times Chow Bella blog.

July 28, 2014 by croissant | 0 comment

Decor, Desserts, Dinner, Food Love, Life, Pastry, Pistol Whipped Pastry, Wine

Wedding, House, And Building The Business

Dessert from our mini moon at Bourbon Steak.

I married my love, Mr. PC. We tied the knot just over two months ago in a sunset ceremony surrounded by our family and close friends. While it was a beautiful day, we are still exhausted and attempting to recover.

I wish I could have spent more time with family and friends that came in from out of town. Everything went so quickly and the wedding day was a blur of hugs and quick conversations. I don’t feel like I was able to talk to everyone enough. Happily, I was able to at least speak with everyone who attended, but for me, it wasn’t enough. Now they are all home, we are moderately recovered, and I wish we had more time with our families and friends. Check out the lovely armadillo cake one of my best girlfriends made me over at my Sugar Rush column on Chow Bella.

Even though I was not allowed to make my own wedding cake, I still represented Pistol Whipped Pastry with some tasty cupcake treats for my family and friends to take with them as well as a dessert table at the rehearsal dinner. I wanted to give my out of town guests something from my bakery, plus, I love doing orders for dessert tables or dessert favors for weddings, and my wedding was no exception.

Of course, there is always drama when you put many different opinions into one space. I have chosen NOT to change my name at the present time. I like my name. I have a business and a career built on my name. Never did I think that it would matter to me, to change my name, until a couple months ago, when someone asked me if I was practicing signing my new name. I hemmed and hawed, caught off-guard at how much I didn’t want to change it. This has been my name for 31 years. I’m not ready to part with it just yet.

When we went to sign the marriage certificate after the wedding, the venerable female reverend told me that I HAD to change my name, because legally, my name is now that of my husband, and I could get into serious trouble with the law if caught with my maiden name on my license and social security card. My photographer frantically waved her hands and shook her head no behind the silver-haired reverend. It’s a great story to tell, and I eagerly wait being arrested by the police for not using my married name.

We hit the ground running after the wedding. Pistol Whipped Pastry is taking off and I am thrilled. Crazy busy. Somedays, I wish I could clone myself, but I am really excited about all the progress. We are booking events left and right, and I am getting to work with so many amazing people. Check out the new line of gluten free pastries I am doing at Kaleidoscope Juice. I’m writing for some fabulous publications, and being extended some amazing writing opportunities that I can not wait to share with you all.We bought a house in December, you know, because we haven’t done enough this year, yet. Life is good.

The recovery process after a wedding seems to involve the regaining of one’s appetite. I feel like I didn’t eat for about a month prior and during the wedding. My trainer was amazed at how quickly I was losing weight. “No appetite,” was not her favorite response. However, we are making up for it now, by eating good food.

It’s like I hit Suzie Homemaker mode this weekend, roasting a chicken, then making stock from the remains. Homemade chicken soup. Apples for applesauce gurgling away in cider on the stove. The windows opened. Prepping dinners for the week. It was the first time in a couple weeks I had cooked a homemade meal, and it was fully relaxing. As much as I love the precision and measurements of pastry, I equally love the dash-here-and-pinch-there of savory cooking as well.

Chicken soup, pink lady applesauce, and new wine glasses.

I make chicken stock quite a bit, since I typically roast a chicken about every other week. I throw the whole chicken carcass into the stock pot, fill with water till just covered. Add a couple chopped carrots, some celery, an onion, a bay leaf, salt and pepper, and simmer for about 4 hours. Make sure to skim off and discard the foam as it collects on the surface.

I strain my stock through cheesecloth or a fine mesh sieve. Store in deli containers in the freezer for use whenever needed.

With the proliferation of kale and other hearty leafy greens popping up from our local farmers, I have been chopping and tossing those greens in near the end of the soup making process.

Our new house is perfect. It’s exactly the amount of space we needed and in a great area, that is up-and-coming. I finally have a dedicated office to house my books, Pistol Whipped Pastry gear, and all the great photography gear & props I have been collecting.

I am loving the blank slate that is before me, daydreaming up how I want to decorate. I have already procured some paint samples, and have a pinterest board full of creative DIY ideas of how I want to organize and create my perfect workspace.

Over the next month I will be working on putting together my office space, and sharing it with you here. The challenge I am facing is the need for a lot of storage, but I don’t want it to look like I work in a storage room or a closet. With a growing collection of cookbooks and vintage cake stands, I want to be able to display them, but not feel overwhelmed in the small space.

I guess it’s time to open a bottle of wine and start painting the walls. Do people have such things as painting parties? Hmmm…

January 8, 2014 by croissant | 0 comment

Bacon, Breakfast, Brunch, Dinner, Food Love, Lunch, Pastry, Recipes, Wine

Caramelized Onions and Quiche

I went through a phase a few years ago where I was obsessed with caramelized onions. I made them everyday to eat on thick toasted slices of bread I was testing, tossed with pasta and goat cheese, or with my morning eggs. They were sweet, charred, and with a dash of salt, perfect on just about anything. Due to some comments from friends and my sister, I am pretty sure that my house, as well as my person, were pretty pungent, but I didn’t care. I love the smell. It was comforting to come home and have the scent of onion perfuming the air.

Working as a pastry chef can be challenging at times, to keep your creativity fresh. I read everything I can get my hands on, taste the work of other chefs, travel to new towns to see what is happening in their food scene, scour the internet for new techniques and back myself against a wall, to force myself to come up with new ideas and methods.

Some days, I go back to my favorites. Hunting for new scone flavor variations the other day, I wandered around the kitchen. I scoured the walk-in, the freezer, dry storage. That is when I saw the onions. As freshly baked bacon wafted through the air, I started to piece together a new scone flavor. It is simple, but caramelized onions, bacon and cheese scones are one of my biggest sellers, so apparently others feel the familiar tug of comforting flavors too.

I hadn’t made caramelized onions in a long time and once I started at work, I couldn’t seem to stop. Zipping to the market after work, I filled my basket with onions and headed home to continue my caramelized project.

Pale onions, on their way to being caramelized.

One of my favorite ways to eat caramelized onions is in quiche. Silky custard of eggs and milk, flaky pie crust and all the little bits and pieces you have left over in the fridge, tossed into the mix. I keep a pie crust rolled out in a pie plate in the freezer at all times. It is my quickie dinner when I just don’t feel like assembling a full meal. I mix up the egg and milk (or cream if you are feeling dangerous), toss in the bits and bobbles I can find. Pop it in the oven for about 45 min-1 hour. While it bakes, I toss together a small salad, and pour glasses of wine. It’s simple, like the caramelized onions, but it’s comfortable.

As Mr. Paul Child walked in the door, mid-caramelized onion sautéing on the stove, the first words out of his mouth were “Ohhhh! What smells so good in here?” I knew I was marrying the right man.

Caramelized Onions and Quiche

Rachel Ellrich Miller

Ingredients:

For the Caramelized Onions:
2 large onions (any variety that you like)
A couple tbsp good olive oil
A pinch of salt

For the Quiche:
Pie crust in a 9.5" or 10" pie plate; chill very well (or keep in the freezer like I do)
7-8 eggs
1/2 cup milk (you can also use all cream or half milk, half cream)
Various odds and ends (I used zucchini, red pepper, teleme cheese, caramelized onions and bacon)
Salt and Pepper

Directions:

For the caramelized onions:
Heat a sautee pan over medium heat. Pour in a couple tablespoons of good olive oil. You want to keep the onions from sticking to the pan, you do not want your onions drowning in oil. Toss in your onions. This process will take a bit, so be patient. Allow the onions to sweat, stir occasionally. The onions will start to color. When they do, try not to move them around too much. You do want to move the onions, to allow the color to cover all the onions, but you also want them to color, and moving them around a lot will not allow them to get nice and caramelized. If you like a paler caramelization, take them off at your preference.

Quiche:
Whisk egg and milk together. Toss all your odds and ends in the frozen pie crust. Pour your egg mixture over.Pop in the oven at 350 degrees for 45minutes to an hour. Basically, it should not be jiggly in the middle and golden brown on top. I always end up covering the top with aluminum foil near the end, to keep the top from over browning.

Serve with side salad and a glass of Arizona Sand Reckoner white for a perfect summer evening.

June 17, 2013 by croissant | 0 comment

Desserts, Food Love, Recipes

Christmas Cookie Exchange

I feel like Christmas cookies fall into the category of spaghetti sauce or stuffing at Thanksgiving…your mom (or grandma) makes the best, no contest. We all grew up eating specific cookies, that if they weren’t there, it just wouldn’t be Christmas. I love those cookies and the stories that go with them. One of the best Christmas presents I ever received were a batch of cookies and the recipe from my friend Jenn. When I saw the Great Food Blogger Cookie Exchange, I knew I wanted to be apart of the cookie love, share some recipes and stories.

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The last couple years, my mom and I have been tweaking old recipes (my one grandma only ever used Crisco in cookies…YUCK!) and adding some new favorites to our cookie plate. My latest addition are these cookies, that I’ve been thinking about for a while now. A combination of two of my favorite flavors, pistachio and marmalade. The cookie is a buttery shortbread-esque cookie, cut like a linzer cookie and filled with a sweet, yet slightly bitter, clementine marmalade.

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Pistachio Shortbread with Clementine Marmalade

Rachel Ellrich Miller

Ingredients:

Pistachio Shortbread Cookies

1 # Unsalted Butter, At Room Temperature
1 1/4 cups Granulated Sugar
1/4 tsp. Almond Extract
2 each Eggs
3 1/2 cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1 1/2 cups Pistachios, Ground
1/2 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. Fine Sea Salt

Clementine Marmalade

20 each Clementines
1 each Lemon
6 cups Granulated Sugar
1 1/2 cups Water

Directions:

Pistachio Shortbread Cookies

With a food processor, pulse pistachios until they are finely ground, but still have some small chunks. Add them to a bowl with flour, baking powder and sea salt. Whisk all the dry together, so that they are combined.

In your mixer with paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugar. Slightly beat the two eggs and add the almond extract to them. Add them to your butter and sugar mixture, till fully combined.

On a low speed, add flour mixture slowly until fully combined. Place in 4 small plastic ziplock bags and place in the fridge overnight or for at least 6 hours.

Once the dough is chilled, roll out on a lightly floured surface, to a little under 1/4" thick. Using your cutters, cut tops and bottoms, and if you want to do the linzer look, cut a smaller window in one of the halves of the cookies. I roll the dough one time, straight from the fridge, and then collect the scraps, chill them and then re-roll them once more. Anything after that can either be baked and eaten as scraps or thrown out. Re-rolling dough multiple times builds the gluten and make your cookies tough, so try to only do it once and then enjoy some delicious cookie scraps.

Chill each tray of cut cookies in the freezer for 5-10 minutes. Bake at 350 degrees for 5 minutes, rotate the pan 180 degrees, and then bake for 4 more minutes (Please, keep an eye on the first pan that you bake. Every oven is very different and baking times will vary. You want to bake till they are just getting a little brown on the bottom.)

Cool your cookies on racks. Assemble with clementine (or any marmalade of your choice). I use 2 teaspoons of marmalade to fill each cookie. Store in an airtight container for up to a week (mine don't last very long, so I honestly don't know if they will last longer than a week ;o) ).

Clementine Marmalade

Halve and then thinly slice clementines and lemon. Place in a large pot with sugar and water. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring and allow sugar to fully dissolve. Remove from heat and cool. Place in a covered container and leave at room temperature for 8 hours (or over night).

The next day, place the mixture in a large pot and bring back up to a boil. Reduce the heat and allow to simmer for about an hour, stirring constantly. Most jam or marmalade recipes call for you to bring it to 220 degrees. You can most definitely use this method, but I use a different test to know if my jam/marmalade is done. Place a couple plates in the freezer at the beginning of the process. When the marmalade has thickened, the fruit has turned translucent, and you feel it is done, take a spoonful and place it on the plate in the freezer. Leave it in the freezer for 1 minute. Take the plate out and look at the marmalade. It should not run down the plate if you tilt it. You should be able to run your finger through it and have it stay (similar to a la nappe when making creme anglaise). Typically it will also form a little skin on top and wrinkle when you run your finger through it. This is when it is done.

Allow the marmalade to cool slightly and then in batches, pulse it in your food processor. I do this, so that when biting into the cookie, you get a little bit of the gooey marmalade and a little bit of the peel. I hate to bite into the cookie and have a huge strand of peel slop out.

At this point, you are able to can the marmalade (please follow canning procedures of boiling the sealed jars - if you need more information on this, please let me know) or if you are using it all for cookies, place the marmalade in a coverable container and allow to cool. Store in the fridge once it has cooled. (I also like to place a piece of plastic wrap directly on the top to prevent a skin from forming on the top, before I put the container lid on.) When you are ready to fill your cookies, take marmalade out about 20 minutes before to take the chill off and make it easier to spread.

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Through this process, I’ve had three boxes of delicious cookies and some amazing notes reach my doorstep or inbox. Kristina from Atlanta, GA, sent soft cake-like sour cream cookies. Missy from Portland, OR, sent me some Oregon Hazelnut Thumbprints filled with Raspberry Jam. Kate from Menifee, CA, sent sugar cookies in memory of her mother and their first Christmas without her.

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Enjoy these cookies, and please have a safe holiday!

December 13, 2011 by croissant | 0 comment

Food Love, Food Truck

The Phoenix Food Truck Festival

In my opinion, food festivals aren’t the best avenue to check out a bevy of restaurants in one foul swoop. I have work in restaurants that have participated in them, and I feel like editing a dish down for simplicity to serve and eat (and be cost effective), then turning out 3,000 small bites of said dish leaves a lot of black holes to fall into. As a customer, I don’t want to show up, pay the amount of money I could be spending on two apps and two drinks, to sardine shimmy my way through a throng of people, to leave hungry. But these are food trucks! They are used to working on the road, in these conditions (albeit not for this quantity of people at one time), and for most of them, they have no brick-and-mortar to be worried about back at the ranch.

The concept of food trucks is quickly becoming an over-publicized trend, but I have to admit, I still find it brilliant. Adding mobility to really good, simple food has the potential to revolutionize fast food in our country. Can you imagine your kid asking for a pork belly slider, instead of a burger from Mc Nasty’s?

I didn’t buy my ticket ahead of time because I wasn’t 100% sure I was going to be able to go. Good thing my friend bought two tickets, because we got there at 5pm to a line wrapped down and around the block, and the tickets were sold out. However, it looked like they were still letting people in…so I’m not sure exactly what that deal was. I went up to one of the people organizing/working the event and he told me yes, they were sold out. “So these people are standing in line for what?” I asked. “No idea,” he shrugged.

Retrieving pre-paid tickets was well organized and we were quickly inside that magical chain-link fence. Enveloped in the calm chaos of trying to cram 23 food trucks, their staff and 2,000 something people into a small dirt lot. Lines snaked and criss-crossed each other everywhere, but the people were relaxed, happy perhaps to be ensconced in the weekend, with beer and delicious food in their near future.

We jumped on the first line we saw, which was for the Udder Delights ice cream and the Superstition Farm Truck, with guest chef Payton Curry. Ice cream was good and very creamy, but I would have liked a stronger pumpkin or sweet potato flavor. I was hoping for the huckleberry, but they were in the process of spinning it. Great job distributing it. Small cups they prepackaged and it was so easy to grab and go, no line.

Superstition Truck was serving fried mac and cheese balls with a spicy, creamy sauce. Payton was dishing up a delicious chanterelle salad with some fatty pieces of mushroom. Unique and vastly different from the other bites we would be tasting. Somehow I missed his lentil soup. The trucks were jammed with cooks cranking out food, as people continued to flood on to the lot.

Fried mac and cheese balls? We needed some beer after that. We got on the beer line and half way through our wait, we realized we had to get our id’s checked and get tickets at a different tent. Jumped on that line. Then wristbanded up, beer tickets in hand, we finally went back to the beer line.

On to a line for a rig called Duck Duck Pig. My love for porkers is something deeply disturbing. The exec chef at the last restaurant I was at found it peculiar when I’d make up pig songs as we broke them down on our huge stainless steel prep tables. I am having a dinner party this next month at my house, dedicated to the pig, called oinkfest. I haven’t yet gotten a pig tat with primal cuts, but don’t think it hasn’t crossed my mind or been drawn on with sharpie to see where it would look best.

Imagine then, my horror to wait in the piggy line and be handed another fried mac and cheese ball. Listen, I get it, I’m not getting pork belly at a festival where you have promised unlimited samples of your food. Throw a girl a little pulled pork, though. Duck Duck Pig’s mac and cheese ball (superior to our first ball of the night, with golden crusty outer crunch and raging hot interior) did have some bacon in it, but I’m running on cheesy starch now and I’ve been on line dreaming of meat. I have a sneaking suspicion that Duck Duck Pig has killer food, and I hope to get some of their goods in the near future.

Disappointed and starving, we jumped directly onto the next line. We have no idea what line we are on. It looped around another line and moved at a fairly brisk pace. 10 minutes later we are holding plates with shrimp tacos from the T-licious Tacos truck. They momentarily ran out pork tacos and we are invited to check back later. The food was a little cold, but it was okay. If it had been hot, I think it would have been quite delicious.

The next line, for Hey Joe Truck, serving up Filipino food, wove it’s way around tables and near the stage in a horseshoe shape, so we ended up back where we started, this time with a half of a spring roll and some noodles. Very hot and tasty. I thought about getting back on line for more, but the line was one of the longest.

Sweet Republic line was pretty short, so we swooped over there for some fresh mint chocolate chip ice cream. Creamy, and perfect combo of fresh mint flavor with chocolate chip.

My friend Carolyn and her band Pick and Holler were playing on the stage area, so we figured since we were standing there, we’d wait on the Torched Goodness line. It went so quickly and in two minutes I was holding a nice little portion of crème brulee, which I normally never order when I’m out. Seriously, as a pastry chef, do you know how much crème brulee I’ve consumed? It’s not enjoyable to me anymore, however, Torched Goodness has some stellar crème brulee. It’s cream, not overcooked (like I find in most restaurants) and with a perfectly torched sugar shell on top (another faux-pas many restaurants make burning the shit out of the sugar). LOVED the little sprinkle of sea salt on top. Kudos to Torched Goodness for a great execution on a dessert.

At this point, two beers and not much food, it’s about 830pm and we are STARVING. I need some food, as in, more than one bite per 30 minutes. We made our exit and headed over to the Roosevelt Tavern.

I commend the organizers for dreaming up this event, but from what I experienced, there has to be some more organization, limits, and quality of what you are getting. I am not judging, just giving my observations here. This was a huge event and you learn from year to year what works and what doesn’t work.

Organization: The space was too small for the number of people. Bigger space and perhaps all pre-sale only tickets so that the trucks know exactly how many people will be in attendance. Enter, and the next tent is the id tent where you can get your over 21 bracelet.

Limit: Are you going to limit the ticket sales and allow people to really get a taste of these places? Great that there were unlimited samples, but at 3.5 hours in, I’d eaten 7 bites of food and there was no way I was going to hit all the trucks before they ran out of food, let alone go back for another sample. Froufrou pops was already out of product by 830pm, and I really wanted to try their popsicles.

Quality: Aside from the Payton’s mushroom salad and the Sweet Republic ice cream, I hadn’t eaten anything that was totally unique and rocked my world. The first two trucks I went to were both serving fried mac and cheese balls. I’m coming to taste what your truck normally serves. I saw a few of the regular menus, propped up near their respective trucks, and they didn’t have mac and cheese balls on it. I’ve worked events like this and get that you have to make something cost effective and easy to turn out for the quantity of people, but it defeats the purpose of the event, in my mind, if I’m not tasting what you are known for. For tickets for two people $60 and $20 for four beers, we are $80 deep, still hungry, and largely unimpressed.

I would love to see how the organizers of this event edit for next year. This has the potential to be a fabulous event. If some changes are made, I would buy another ticket and gladly return to see how they’ve changed things up.

October 27, 2011 by croissant | 2 Comments

Food Love, Restaurant