From Scratch: Fair Share Today!!

From Scratch: Fair Share Today!!

Fair Share Today!!

its been a delightfully hectic few days prepping for the Fair Share Fiesta. Talk about farm to table... yesterday I found my self wading through muddy fields for produce (thank you Stick and Stone and Remembrance Farms!) then meeting a lovely group of ladies at the kitchen for several hours to turn those veggies into what tastes to be our delicious Fair Share taco dinner. Meanwhile Fuzz and friends got to work on the pork loin.. slow smoked for 10 hours... lets just say it is unbelievably, sinfully, and dangerously melt-in-your-mouth awesome. Join us tonight at the Oasis Dance Club to sample the taco dinner, have a beer, try a salsa lesson, all while supporting a great cause. The 15 dollar tickets go to benefit Healthy Food for All which subsidizes low income families who want CSA shares but can't afford them. The night is supposed to be warm and their is a great outdoor patio.....fun, food,friends... its a no brainer.. hope to see you there.

Come grab a sneak peak at the Good Truck at the Fair Share Fiesta!

Sometimes when I have been in Ithaca a few months without much contact to the rest of the world I begin to take for granted the access we have to farm fresh food. I forget that it is not common place to have access to things like bountiful winter CSA shares, a vibrant farmers market, and an growing abundance of local meat and dairy producers, right at your fingertips.As a consumer in the Finger Lakes one can, should she choose, eat with a conscience- locally, organically, seasonally- for much of the year.
I am always brought back to reality when I travel outside this little town, talk with a friend or a class mate living in a community either closer by or thousands of miles away, who actually or literally hits me upside the head with: "dang, you're lucky". Sure, my California comrades enjoy their share of food security when it comes to organic produce and amazing regional cheeses,great restaurants and forward thinking chefs, but beyond the Bay Area, and the other scattered liberal communities I have been exposed to, many folks look at me goofy when I talk about CSA's or "farm driven menus". In these moments I am offered gentle reminders of my fortune, for being born and bred in a place where great food is grown and raised with care, and shucks do we benefit from this consideration!
I am grateful all over again for Stick and Stone Spinach, Sabol's eggs, the Piggery Pate, blueberry picking in August and Finger Lakes Fresh lettuces all year long. I am reminded that while thankfully Community Supported Agriculture, organic farm practices and humanly raised meat production is on the rise world wide, we here in Ithaca are already provided copious options to make conscious food choices.
I think about the CSA I have been part of since I moved back, The Full Plate Farm Collective. Full Plate is a multi farm CSA that provides locals with a generous and bountiful weekly vegetable share. In addition the Collective helps raise money for Healthy Food For All, an organization that provides CSA's to families in the area who want a share of the harvest but do not find it financially feasible.
This in mind, when my friend Katie Church, coordinator of the Full Plate, asked me a few months ago if I might like to chef up a taco dinner for the annual Healthy Food For All Fundraiser, my first reaction was "but of course"-a good cause, a fun experience,a chance to try out my Good Truck taco recipes on the community. My Second reaction? "yikes, can I do it?"
In typical human form, I question my abilities. Can I cook for all these people? Will everyone like it" What if no one comes???Genius that she is, my friend Sam fashioned the posters for the "Fair Share Fiesta" and noted the menu to be "brought to you by Good Truck". Suddenly I was offered an opportunity to give back to the community while simultaneously getting a plug for my taco truck! I am dually appreciative.
Well here we are two months later and as the details work them selves out my own personal fears have dissipated. We have awesome veggies donated from multiple local farms, amazing local meat, dairy, beans, and Ithaca Tofu also donated. I have a handful of generous folks that are going to help me in the kitchen and Fuzz to work his magic with the BBQ. The night is "Latin themed" with our menu offering Latin flavors with my own little twist, Latin music and dance lessons offered by Palante, including DJ Michel Luis spinning sweet Latin jams. This "Fair Share Fiesta" takes place next week, Tuesday June 15th, with dinner from 7-9 and dancing all night long afterwords. Word on the street is that Oasis makes a mean margarita. Tickets are 15$ per person with all proceeds going to benefit Healthy Food For all. I invite all of you to please come check it out! The Oasis Dance Club has a great outdoor patio where we hope (cross your fingers) for good weather so all can enjoy dinner outside. Overall it sounds like its going to be a really fun night and a great opportunity to show support for local farms, local families, and The Good Truck. Join us!!

now lets get down to business...

I was wondering if anyone, who had extra garden space or just plain likes to grow things , was interested in growing some stuff for this hot truck? I'm thinking cilantro, onions, garlic, tomatoes, peppers (sweet and hot), any and all vegetables, tomatillos... you know, what ever you are adept at growing. I would be interested in buying as much as possible from those of you who grow too much to handle.. or even want to cultivate the crops for me. We can work out prices and quantities but I have this feeling a lot of you have a greener thumb then me... My own little garden will surly supply some things, and I certainly look forward to supporting the local farmers we have in abundance around these parts, but I also love the idea of getting things from the community... and giving back to those of you who want to sell your stuff to me and The Good Truck...
I know it is around that time when things are going in the ground and people are planning their garden spaces so lets talk soon.
You can post here or email me at thegoodtruck@gmail.com
xxoo
mandy

wow. you guys are freaking amazing.

I am overwhelmed and excited about the support I've gotten from this community and beyond. Who wouda thought?
You all are an inspiration.

The Good Truck

I started this blog with a hazy idea in mind that, though even the word "blog" kind of makes my skin crawl, it would be a charming outlet for my love of compiling words and pictures, specifically in documenting my little communities' regular adventures with good, local food. Everybody was doing it anyhow, and since I would be damned if I ever started tweetering, or any such nonsense, I figured a blog was like the training wheels for my digital make over. Besides it was a school project. My lack of advertisement about the silly thing, and my ability to ignore it's existence from the day of its creation until now, 6 months later, says nothing about my commitment to making great food. In fact, along with our neighbors and friends and all their beautiful new babies, we have been creating, experimenting and dining together in our kitchens and back yards bi-weekly, as always, since that lonely November day that I first created this "from scratch blog". The real reason I haven't been keeping up is that, while we have eaten well and cooked religiously (hello smoked pork BBQ in a blizzard on New Years day) I haven't been very inspired to blab about it on my goofy little corner of the Internet, until today. With the nudge of a few painfully optimistic but ever so inspirational comrades I have finally realized my own "perfect career". The one my Mom told me I needed to find. Combining my love for cooking, serving people good food, using local ingredients and doing all this in a manor sustainable for the earth, I am going to open hot truck. My very own little kitchen on wheels, a non traditional but uniquely delicious taco truck. It will be called the Good Truck.I hope to be stationed on State St. to catch yall at Felicias, the new Korova, during happy hour, or lunch, or late night after a few beers. I also want to be at Cass Park- to serve families and hungry little atheletes at soccer and baseball games. I hope to make it to concerts and state parks- essentailly where ever you are and where ever Johnny Law will allow me to park.

Being me I want to start, well, today. I know I could make the food happen with so much good stuff is growing around us in this delightful and unusual spring climate, and with an amazing company like Regional Access to supply me with the rest. The permits might take some figuring out- but certainly that is something I am capable of. I am not short on enthusiasm, menu ideas, or work ethic but I am short on the other important ingredient to my culinary success- money. What I need is a few investors, maybe even some benefactors, who believe in my idea. Who can envision the success of a local taco truck, serving up exciting, fresh and healthy real foods at decent prices. Some folks who can imagine how nice it would walk over, or pull up, and feed themselves- their families- on organic meat and vegetables that were grown right here in the Finger Lakes, food with no chemicals, additives or unpronounceable ingredients. The truck will have an option for everyone- vegans, meat heads, gluten free folks, all you picky people and all you adventurous ones. My mission statement? To serve great organic food from local sources, to make it all from scratch, and to have FUN. I love fun.

Who wants to help me?

Time to Jump

My mom's career advice to me was simple; find what I loved to do and get paid to do it. Sounded good enough, but for some reason my path to actually landing that ultimate career has been all but straightforward. As those who know me can attest, I have worked in many various capacities, rarely staying put long enough to truly realize a long standing goal. My work history is a mile long, and until recently, my academic career spotty. I have worked on coffee farms in Maui, cocktail waitressed while studying at a culinary school in Italy, held numerous positions in kitchens, cafes, bars and coffee shops from Ithaca NY, to San Francisco CA, to Chapel Hill North Carolina and back again to practically all those places. I have been a personal chef, a line cook and a dishwasher, and learned from traditional chefs, raw food chefs, and macrobiotic ones. In all of this I have harbored some guilt, some residual resentment, that I never finished college. I see my peers out in the world with "real jobs", while I struggle to pay the bills. At the same time, I have loved almost every minute of it. In the end I have learned to cook, and I would trade that for nothing. Brought back to my home town of Ithaca NY under adverse circumstances, last year as my mother battled pancreatic cancer, I saw to it that my time here would not be merely to face the tragedy of caring for, and eventually loosing my mother. When I arrived home I immediately sought a job at one of the area's most treasured restaurants, the locally driven, farm to table focused Hazelnut Kitchen. What I learned from Chef/Owners Jonah and Christina Mckeough was indispensable, their commitment to local foods, exciting flavors and what I think of as the "new American food movement" was contagious. The love I had cultivated over the last 8 years, of food and cooking, increased ten fold. So did my skills in the kitchen. The work was hard, the schedule demanding, yet when I left the job I was more confident and inspired then ever to do something of my own one day. Fast forward to a year later, I have four semesters of school on the deans list under my belt, three part time jobs, and a new idea that would make my mom proud. Inspired by yet another industrious and entrepreneurial young couple, Ian and Sam of Emmy's Organics, I've determined that now is the time to jump. The thing is, I am going to need a little help.

Local Spelt and Wheat berry Bread with butter and honey

Today, as I stood surveying the co-op's bulk section it dawned on me- I am afraid of spelt. Rather, I am weary of spelt, the word itself is reminiscent of tree bark, or something equally as bland. I fear that inviting it into my kitchen is asking for trouble, in the form or one tasteless and "crunchy" disaster or another.

I have never had luck with whole wheat anything- pasta, flour, tortillas, every time I rock the boat with some healthy white flour substitute I have been sorely disappointed. I envision those dense, brown, crumbly loaves that my friends parents used to make, plucked from old Moosewood Cookbooks, and shudder.

Unfortunately I have a little voice, the same one that tells me to go ahead and try throwing tamari almonds into my breakfast cereal (turns out its delish)or jalapeno jam on my PB&J (also, amazing) that same voice that tempts me to experiment, urges me to give the spelt a try. Doesn't hurt that my friend Katie swears the spelt stuff is a total revelation.

It's a local product after all, the berries are grown on land (some of which I grew up on) in Ellis Hollow and they are ground into flour at an old warehouse, just down the hall from the kitchen I work in. Farmer Ground Flour is a new business that I would like to see flourish, and the ability to make bread from their stuff is enticing, but its all brown and mostly spelty. Something had to give.

I ho hum a bit more, images of failed lumpy hippy bread swirl about my dome, and then I cave. I decide I'll give it a go, using a faithful bread recipe, from Beth Hepensperger, for Seven Grain Honey bread. Instead of the hot grain cereal she calls for, to add texture to the dough, I opted to use local wheat berries, I softened them just as she would have the cereal, before adding them into the mix. I replaced the white bread flour for a mixture of Farmer Ground whole wheat bread flour and the whole wheat spelt, added the yeast, some local butter, honey and milk and two gloriously yellow eggs, donated by friends Ben and Emma.

With help from my fire engine red Kitchen Aid (most prized possession) the ingredients gather to form a dough. One quick hand kneed, some careful shaping, and I leave the ball to rise.

Now, some might find it odd but I always taste raw bread dough. I rather like it, soft yeasty, buttery- and this questionable wheat dough turns out delightfully, no exception. I am feeling confident about the flavor, but my real concern is the ability for this spelt-whole wheat junk to give me the rise I want.

I waited patiently, giving it an extra hour to work the magic, knowing that whole wheat can be a fussy beast. The first rise goes remarkably well, but from experience I know we are not home free just yet. The second rise, to take place on the wooden pizza peel, must also be a success in order for my bread to reach the desired height before entering the oven.

Finally I slide the big(!!) fluffy (!!) loaves onto the preheated baking stone and retreat to the office, beckoned 40 minutes later by that glorious marriage of baked flour, water and yeast, when that smell hits my nose I know its done.

They look good- with a rustic dusting of flour on top a crisp golden brown roof. After cooling I slice a wedge, apply the appropriate pad of butter, and dig in. The first bite is great- flavorful, nutty, the texture spongy and light. Maybe this spelt stuff isn't so bad! Fresh bread, even dense fresh bread, tastes good straight from the oven, so tomorrow, for breakfast toast or sandwiches, we will give it the real test. For now I'm happy to report the dough rose well, the house smells great, and thankfully butter makes everything taste just fine.