There’s a pop up supper club in Nashville that I wish I could attend. It’s called Buttermilk Road Sunday Suppers, and its mission is “Bringing People Together, One Biscuit at a Time.”

I don’t know the woman behind Buttermilk Road at all, but what I do glean from reading her intelligent writings and cheering her culinary career on from afar, is that she is the kind of person with whom I share what I’ll call a “cultural anthropological” approach to food. Her meals are simple, but beautiful, and each one happens as a “pop up,” which is my latest passion.

What’s a pop up? It’s a temporary shop, hotel, restaurant, bar…. you name it, that operates out of an existing space repurposed in order to house it. Get it? It “pops up” and then packs up. Some pop ups are outdoors. Some operate out of thriving restaurants. Some function only underground and by-reservation or by-invitation. Some fill emptied/abandoned warehouse spaces and after a successful short term run, end up there (or elsewhere) as permanent businesses with homes of their own. Those are pop ups gone permanent.

Some pop ups are shops. Some are clubs. Some are housed in shipping containers. Others fill iconic, American-brand trailers. Some food trucks could be called pop ups. And some pop ups operate speakeasy style from behind nondescript doors in dark alleys. (I love the “secret” aspect of those!)  I’ve learned that pop ups are an architectural design category in their own right, and that London seems to be the capital of all things pop up, though they exist in almost every urban mecca across the globe. Regardless of their form, all pop ups begin as “here now; gone tomorrow” ventures. They are temporary shops, fleeting art shows, or a quilted community gathered under the banner of good food, wine and conversation.

Pop ups are getting lots of coverage in the entrepreneurial business world for their imagination and innovation. They’ve taken the retail category by storm. (I’ve discovered companies that are dedicated solely to leasing & scouting spaces for pop up ventures–companies like Storefront, Hood Branded Environments, The Empty Shops Network, and StoreEnvy).

In the food world, (as I see it) pop up restaurants and supper clubs offer a step up from the food truck movement that has swept the US and Europe. Pop ups cultivate creativity and foster the collective imagination. They promise an ever-changing gallery of meals-as-masterpieces, where different chefs, ingredients, atmospheres, and forward-thinking diners serve as the mixed media palette.

The national restaurant site Eater, a veteran, 16-city blog that is favorite of food industry pros and amateurs, has a pop up category for each of its major cities (Its sister site, the retail-centric Racked, covers pop ups too.) Big brands like Gap and Sephora have hosted pop up shops, and there are pop up collaboratives set up for the sole purpose of showcasing small local businesses. In Belfast, the Big Apple, and Australia I’ve read about art and design coops that host pop up galleries featuring a rotating group of artists and craftspeople.

Obviously, I’m pretty crazy about the whole pop up thing. I’d hop a plane to Antwerp in a heartbeat if a couple nights at Sleeping Around, a shipping container-based mobile pop up hotel were reserved for me. Or I might indulge in a yoga retreat at the pop up ashram coming this summer to Bali. New Orleans has always been at the top of my will-travel-for-food chain, and pop up supper clubs there are some of the hottest tickets in town.

How do I know what’s popping all over the globe? It’s become my new job of sorts: From food truck maven to pop up blogger at Urban Pop Ups. It feels like a natural shift–a move into a higher gear in the world of all things mobile.

I’d love it if you’d follow me on my new site Urban Pop Ups. Pop ups have been called the way of the future. Maybe they’re a fun, new (and ultimately fleeting) trend; maybe they’re here to stay. Regardless, pop up culture is a creative movement that, for now at least, is reshaping urban landscapes, and driving a reinvigorated economy with a healthy dose of creativity and imagination! Go to Urban Pop Ups and learn why.

My local newspaper vendor, a well-weathered man who works the busiest intersection in Santa Fe recently told me, “My mom always said, ‘Honey will take you farther than salt.’” It was Super Bowl Sunday, and I was en route to a watch party when I rolled down my window for our customary exchange. As the light switched to green, I told him that I hoped he would have a winning day, whether his team won the big game or not. And as I accelerated away, he smiled, hollered a booming “thank you!” and then shouted his mom’s maxim to me as loudly as he could.

I’ve been thinking about his comment ever since.

My kids have heard the story more than once (actually, they hear it almost every time we pass the man on our drives to and from school). I’ve mentioned his comment to more than one friend. And I even talked about it an interview I did recently for Food Blog Radio with Gary House, telling Gary that the man’s words would likely show up as a future blog entry—served as some kind of tasty inspiration, even if I wasn’t sure, then, just how.

Funny thing is, I am not a sweet tooth. Pass me a saltshaker over a pot of honey anytime! So when I thought about the comment—about how to write a blog praising honey as better than salt, I’d get stuck. Of course I get what the man was saying. It’s generally nicer to “be sweet” than “to rub salt in someone’s wounds.” But I’ve begun to think my struggle with his mama’s saying might have something to do with my desire to be characterized more as “salty,” than “sweet.”

By “salty” I mean “down to earth.” Much better legacy than syrupy or saccharine! The Urban Dictionary online gives some pretty sketchy definitions for “being salty”—the only one I might be willing to take on is “being pirate-like”. Aye mateys! But seriously, society places a premium (on us females in particular) on being “sweet.” Think about it. All things “loving” are more honey-riddled than salt spiked. We call our lovers “sweetheart,” “sugar pie,” and “honey,” and we beg for kisses from babies by asking for some “sugar.” “Sweetening the pot” means increasing your potential winnings from a situation. And don’t forget, “little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice.” (No, salt isn’t a spice; it’s a mineral.)

But still, I’m voting for salt. Those same sweet little girls, once they grow into women, get celebrated for their down to earth natures. Consider the bumper sticker: “Well Behaved Woman Rarely Make History.” (A Harvard history professor actually coined the phrase in her article on Puritan funerals and it ‘went viral,’ becoming a pop culture slogan before she repurposed it as the title of a book profiling strong women ‘worth their salt,’ such as Rosa Parks and Virginia Woolf.) But, I digress.

I’d take the compliment of “being worth my salt.” And I’ve done my best, lately, to “take it with a grain of salt,” especially at those times when the sweetness of the newspaper vendor’s mother’s “honey” would be a better balm. Like sweetness, saltiness is one of the five basic tastes our palates decipher, and it’s one of the six rasas, or tastes of life, in the Ayurvedic tradition. A Tibetan tantra claims salt toughens the body, and salt’s contraction in our system is said to help focus the mind.

Award-winning and utterly absorbing food writer Mark Kurlansky wrote his fifth book on salt, noting that it is the only rock we humans eat—a seemingly simple ingredient that he says is at the very foundation of civilization. Salt established trade, inspired travel, launched Empires and sparked revolutions. Medieval Europeans wouldn’t harm anyone they’d shared salt with, and in Arab cultures salt is still offered by hosts to visitors as a sign of hospitality.

The preacher’s kid in me knows salt as an essential ingredient in the Sermon on the Mount. It’s where we humans get cast as being the “salt of the earth,” and implored not to become “flavorless,” which in my amateur theological understanding has something to do with not losing our ability to make an impact in, (and help preserve), this incredible, magical world.

I have a particular affinity for the way one early food historian regards salt. Salt corrodes, she notes, but it also preserves; it dries, but it is pulled from and retains water. Maybe that’s the kind of “salty” I believe worth striving toward? The way I see it, better a solid rock or vast sea of delightful polarities, than a fragile, waxy comb dripping with sweet nectar.

Might have to tell my newspaper guy that mother doesn’t always “know best.”

Sunday, February 10th, launched the Chinese New Year, a festival that continues for two weeks, and involves the sharing of food, money in pretty red envelopes, and parades galore. The Chinese New Year marks the change of the lunar calendar, and each Chinese year also comes with an annual animal, one of the 12 creatures in the Chinese zodiac. 2013 is the year of the snake. Gong Hei Fat Choy! SSSSSSSSSSSSS:-<

While the partying is well underway in ethnic Chinese communities, I’ve read that the Chinese are far less excited about this year’s calendar flip than they were last year. 2012 heralded the much-celebrated year of the dragon, a revered beast for the Chinese. Plus it had two first days of spring. From a food standpoint, I thought the Chinese New Year might involve eating each year’s animal symbol, too, but the traditional New Year buffet doesn’t include steamed snake (or stuffed dragon). I figured the Chinese must eat snake, though, and I wasn’t disappointed to discover that they serve the slithering symbol dozens of ways, often marinated in tangerine peel first. They make soup out of it. Fry it. Steam it. Slide it ribbon-like along wooden skewers. Even drink its blood, which one blogger described as “looking like strawberry juice” (though he wouldn’t drink it himself). The Chinese believe that drinking coveted snake bile increases virility, and dried snakeskin is used in powder form as medicine. A quick YouTube search, and you’ll get an eyeful of snake like you might never have imagined!

The only snake I’ve ever eaten is rattlesnake. It’s somewhat of a delicacy in small town Texas, where Rattlesnake Roundups are hosted, allegedly, to help ranchers by fumigating the venomous snakes, a menace to cattle and man, out of their holes. Animal rights groups have opposed the gatherings, mostly because bounty hunters grab $5/pound for the snakes, and no rattler leaves town alive. But it’s hard to feel sorry for a pit of writhing, rattling serpents when you see it. Rattlesnake tastes like chicken. (Yeah, I know.) But really, it does. Or maybe I was actually served Chicken-fried Rattlesnake from that Roundup “chef” in camo and a bright orange cap? I ate the fried rattler after watching another man zip himself into a sleeping bag with half a dozen diamondbacks as a pre-dinner show! Love Texas. Next time you get your hands on a fat snake, I’ve got this “how-to” for fried rattlesnake should the mood strike you.

Panko-breaded Rattlesnake Bites
1 egg, beaten
1 cup milk
1 # rattlesnake, cut into bite-sized cubes
1 cup flour
1 T smoked paprika
1 t seasoned salt
1 t ground black pepper
½ cup Panko bread crumbs
Peanut oil, for frying

Beat egg and milk until frothy and set aside. Mix dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl. Dip snake cubes into the egg mixture and dredge with the flour mixture. Fill a cast iron skillet with ½ -inch peanut oil and heat until bubbling. Add snake and turn, until golden brown and crispy on all sides. Drain on a paper towel lined plate and serve hot, with a dipping sauce of your choice.
Serves 4 as an appetizer.

Snakes have been on my mind a lot lately. I recently wrangled a snake of my own. In a bizarre twist of events, I found myself wielding a chopstick (and it’s the Chinese Year of the Snake!) to coax a tawny serpent out of the entryway of the house I used to call home before my not-yet-ex-husband’s girlfriend moved in all of her belongings. Never mind that I still own half the house, I’d been given a quick 45 minutes to claim family heirlooms and make a list of the remaining marital property I’d like to keep so the girlfriend’s stash could make itself at home. Instead, I stepped into the house and found myself face-to-face with a yard-long serpent flicking a fire-engine red tongue. I thought about letting the snake roam free. Pretending I’d never seen it as it slithered through the house and into the girlfriend’s tangle of boxes and furniture where it might find sweet shelter. But I couldn’t. So my ¾ hour was spent “snake whispering” instead of sorting. I finally succeeded in lifting the snake mid-belly with the chopstick, and in a split-second, it was gone. It disappeared so fast I wondered if I’d actually seen it. But now I’m sure I did, because, as a wise friend explained to me, the snake is a powerful omen. She turned me on to my very own “snake medicine,” insisting that the snake was mine to see. A sign of transformation and healing in many Native traditions, the snake signals the awakening of creative forces and a sharpened intuition. It stands as a symbol of a change of consciousness, and the acceptance of an energy of wholeness. The snake’s “reverse” medicine reveals a resistance to change fully. But if I shed my “outer skin,” my authentic identity will be revealed. As far back as the Tang Dynasty in 7th century China, snakes have been regarded as “pu,” which means they strengthen and restore, supplement and heal those who encounter and consume them. As one feng shui master and blogger proclaimed, the ‘year of the water snake 2013 paves the path for rebirth, new beginnings, and transformation as she sheds her skin."

http://anniejenningspr.com/jenningswire/metaphysics/female-water-snake-2013-facing-a-year-of-transformation/

Happy New Year, indeed!

I’ve just renewed this blog’s spot in cyberspace. I almost let it expire. Dry up. Disappear. Instead, I’m writing a new essay, adding to the mind-boggling amount of verbiage that floats out there for folks like you and me to read.

Renewal seemed fitting at this time of the year and at this time in my life, though the reason I nearly let the hosting subscription collapse might have been a more reasonable response to the email notices I kept getting, informing me that the blog’s expiration was imminent. I started writing the food truck click blog as a food truck maven—the co-owner and operator of Slurp: Santa Fe’s Original Airstream Eatery. Slurp is now closed:  No food truck; no food truck blog, right? But that’s kind of my own hang up, and it’s a pretty sizeable one, I guess, because I’ve written about it more than once before.

So while we’re working behind the scenes to roll out another mobile café and write the book on pop up culture, I get to get comfortable using this platform for my own private renewal. I made a simple New Year’s Resolution: Write More! Write to write. Write simply for the rhythm of writing. Write bits and pieces with no real plan for how they’ll come together, if ever. Just put your words out there. Write. So here’s some silly stuff—some “tasty inspiration” to chew on.

Much of last year I got a daily email called Facts Hub. It gave me my “daily dose of interesting facts,” and while a lot of the “facts” seemed impossible to substantiate, I love this kind of trivia—silly tidbits that are fun to share. I wrote down my favorite food ones and keep flipping across them in the little Moleskine book I stuff full of life’s details.

Did you know that hippo’s milk is pink? Strawberry milk lovers beware! Or that “Many fast food chicken items contain beef additives to enhance flavor”? Beef enhances the flavor of chicken? Huh? That brings a whole new meaning to the “it tastes like chicken” claim. There are success story-type facts, like the one explaining that the “Subway franchise was founded by a 17-year-old who was hoping to save money for college.” And fun, random things that are great to know, like that there are 18 shapes in those sweet little Animal Cracker boxes with their precious string handles. I am comforted as a wine every night gal, knowing that “all 13 minerals necessary for human life can be found in alcoholic beverages,” and equally troubled, (though not surprised), to learn that “there is more real lemon juice in Pledge furniture polish than in Country Time lemonade.” Let them drink furniture polish!

Then there are the inexplicably weird facts—the ones without enough information to be valid on any level, but perplexing nonetheless. Did you know that “more than 10 people a year are killed by vending machines?” How’s so? Contaminated food purchases? Wrists slit from reaching into the machine’s gaping mouth? Smashed under the weight of the entire machine falling over after being beat up or shaken for coins not returned? What does that fact mean, “killed by a vending machine?” And then there’s my personal favorite: “Americans eat 205,000 bags of Oreo cookies, daily.” Yeah, I know; impossible to measure. How many Oreo packages we buy, maybe… but how many hands actually break into those plastic cookie protectors and twist open Oreos? Imagine an Oreo Big Brother watching from the back of every pantry in America. Plus they don’t even come in bags. Not even out of those deadly vending machines. But I wrote it down because it made me smile. And Sing: “O-o—o Ice cold milk and an Oreo cookie. They forever go together, what a classic combination…O.R.E.O!” (go to my Music tab now & get the jingle and a smile for yourself!)

I’ve said it before, but here’s the thing about blogging: It’s all about posting regularly, like daily or twice weekly, or shoot—monthly would be good!

As my high school classmate and hilarious blogger at The Coy McCoy put it in a recent post: “Blogging isn’t writing! It’s graffiti with punctuation!” (Yeah, I know, it’s a quote from a movie, not her. But, I think you should read her blog, so that’s why I credit her here. She makes me laugh out loud at www.jennifermccoy.net  She also honeymooned in an Airstream hotel halfway around the world, which strengthens our “reconnection,” and I’m with her on the mini wine bottles. Read her: www.jennifermccoy.net)

Back to graffiti. I like graffiti; it’s funky street art. And I like writing. So when it comes to blogging with Food Truck Click, I’ve decided I’m going to start thinking of it as “street writing”—fast, colorful, slightly rebellious and noisy acting. Plus, like graffiti, it’s done “on the run.”

I know I have a lot to learn about blogging. Bloggers on the forefront know all kinds of things I’m still mostly in the dark about:  hyperlinks, backlinks, or contextualized links or whatever, SEO optimization, the rss feed, and whether to include ads or not. Plus how to turn your blog into a book, which is what I’d really like to do, but then again, wouldn’t everybody?

Then there are these tips about blogging as it relates to social media like Twitter and Facebook. My sister says her media guru insists posts should be 285 or 300 words only. He’s probably right, but I’m going to make like a graffiti artist and beg rebellion on that one.

Demystifying the blogosphere feels like a need, so I’m talking to other bloggers and blog developers and designers, and reading books meant to explain this platform of expression. But all of this disciplined “study,” seems to go against blogging as a freeform, graffiti-style of writing.

Wikipedia says graffiti is “a rapidly developing art form whose value is slightly contested.” Yep, that sounds like blogging. And compellingly (to me at least), it feels like I can take the whole graffiti thing a step further as a food truck blogger. Get this: What graffiti is to art, or what blogging is to writing, food trucks are to the restaurant industry. Together, food trucks have formed a “movement” so “rapidly developing” that they are causing a stir in cities across America. Traditional restaurant proponents often argue about the value of the food trucks in the food industry. Are they creative outlets for chefs? Are they unfair competition for building-bound restaurants? Are they pioneers of a new kind of urban business model? Food trucks:  Art, or anti-establishment rebellion?

In the spirit of the graffiti artist, I’m prepared to promote food trucks as edgy, noisy, fast-growing and colorful. Our little trailer café is closed for now, and we shifted our attentions into a kickstarter campaign that didn’t fund. Disappointing, sure, but our vision just didn’t translate. What’s resulted, is that our vision has cleared. Ahem! Our book idea has been honed.

We’re still on track to “write the book” on pop-up culture, because we want to celebrate the folks developing this new urban business model. Pop up businesses by their nature buck tradition. And at the same time, they are trendsetting and screaming for attention in cities all across the country. So we’ve dropped the paella tour part of our book, and we’ll park (instead of pull) our trailer when at work on the book. We’re gearing up to gather content more conventionally (send us word about your fave pop up businesses here an on FB), and we’ll pitch our book through publishing channels (instead of microlending platforms). In the it’s-almost-the-New-Year-resolution mode though, we are determined to produce it. Pop Up businesses deserve to be celebrated!

As part of narrowing our project’s focus, we’ll also be setting up a new blog to serve as a platform to promote and exchange info about pop up businesses. We’ll link you to it very soon—to a more interactive food truck and mobile business blog featuring food carts, Airstream-based vintage shops, trailer art galleries and more. We’ll post–graffiti style–fast, colorful, slightly rebellious and noisy stories and images from all the amazingly creative urban business bubbles popping up out there everywhere.

POP!

So we’ve launched! Not like Felix Baumgartner, the man who leapt from 23 miles above our local Land of Enchantment, but in our own fresh, new way.  The uncharted free fall Slurp gives to us today delivers a sweet, rejuvenating high—an exhilarating little hum that keeps us buzzing as we leap into an uncertain outcome. We’ve set our soup ladles aside for the time being and catapulted our creativity energies into cyberspace with a Kickstarter campaign at:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/slurpsantafe/pop-a-book-celebrating-creative-airstream-entrepre

Our project–a beautiful art/food/design book–launches today, (Oct. 17^th) and continues for 30 days, and we want to share it with you—friends, family, dedicated customers, blog followers, friends of friends, Airstream enthusiasts, and the amazing network of like-minded mobile Airstream entrepreneurs out there we hope to celebrate.

We chose Kickstarter because we love it! Kickstarter fits with what we’re all about—about celebrating creativity and developing momentum and action through the building of community. As most of you know, Kickstarter works when folks come together to support each other’s endeavors. If we can create a buzz and inspire others with our project, it will translate into the funding we need to make our dream a reality. If we don’t reach out enough and share our enthusiasm; or, if our vision somehow doesn’t translate, then we won’t get the funds we need, and our project will have to remain on hold.

Oddly enough, we walked into the Slurp Airstream yesterday to discover that we’d been burglarized. It’s always a little gut-wrenching when you feel that violation—when a place or a thing that’s meaningful to you gets so blatantly disregarded by another.  There’s that moment where you stand, stunned, understanding what’s happened and just how helpless you are to change it. It will all be ok, of course. We have insurance, and maybe somebody has whatever it is he or she needs after hawking our stuff in desperation. But, as I moved around the spilled spice trails and upturned appliances left behind, I looked up at Carlos, who wore that look of disbelief and strange sadness that comes with the realization you’ve been robbed. He mumbled something about the trailer having been “abandoned” (read Ch…ch…ch…changes! in the archives)

In response, I pointed to the wording on an empty flour sack we have propped up in the corner. It reads “Promesa”—promise—and I reminded him that we weren’t “abandoning” Slurp, but keeping our pledge to “take it to the next level” for each of us in our creative lives. Then, all kinds of old blog entries came flooding to mind. There’s the one about author Molly Wizenberg’s quote, saying food is never “just food, but a way of getting at who we are, who we have been, and who we want to be.” Yep! Or, the one about “abandon,” in which I comment that a “Slurp” is a “sound full of life—a noisy sucking it all in.” Uh huh! Or, the entry that concludes with a “recipe” for our future that says “from the chaos comes the great chance to exercise wild creativity” and how I hope that we can “make it translate.” Get on over to Kickstarter, please, as soon as you finish reading this, if our creative vision DOES translate! Finally, there’s the one paraphrasing Steve Jobs’ comment on not being able to connect the dots forward and needing to “trust in something… why not paella?” (This one gets lots of play in our Kickstarter campaign, especially in the rewards we have in store for you.)

But maybe the old blog post that rings the most true of all the blog posts here, especially as we face an uncertain, but oh-so-hopeful and EXCITING future is the life maxim translated in the eulogy we wrote for Cliff, a late customer whose face shone in our window every Monday and most Tuesdays, the last year of his life. He’d order his 16-ounce bowl of Green Chile Stew and shout without fail, “…and put some chicken in it!” I promised him in that posthumous blog that we would! We’d “put some chicken in it,” I insisted, saying that “when ladling up soup and LIFE, we’d always opt for the meatiest serving.”

So here we go! A new creative project we can really sink our teeth into. Check it out at:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/slurpsantafe/pop-a-book-celebrating-creative-airstream-entrepre

 

I’ve been traveling again, which always inspires me and brings a world of new perspective to my life. I suppose it’s the whole “exploring new horizons” part of travel that crafts the rich minds of the world’s greatest voyagers. Sure, armchair travelers can wander the vast reaches of their own internal horizons, but for me, there has always been something about the going, the motion of travel—the unexpected and ever-changing nature of the adventure—that delivers a shock to my system.

My friend Lola, the amazing Airstream café owner and soul sister I wrote about in my previous post, sent me this missive as she hit the road from Tulsa to Santa Fe a couple of weeks back:

“Travel brings power and love back into your life

To fly toward a secret sky…

First, to let go, to take a step

Without feet.”

You gotta’ love a woman who texts Rumi quotes (or I do, anyway). And I think the ancient poet really captured it for me with the “secret sky,” “letting go,” and “without feet” part. Food fits into the picture for me because it so defines who we are and where we come from. There’s a story in food—a tale to be told that is familiar to those who prepare it, and inspiring to those from elsewhere. Little else characterizes a change of place like food. Maybe an architect notices a new skyline first. An earth scientist or painter, the landscape, but for me, it’s always been the food that forges the strongest memory of place. And I’ve long-held a dream of writing about the adventure.  In a new locale, the inevitable change on the menus and in home kitchens thrills me. And the thrill, I believe, reveals a lot about who I am and where I come from.

I think it’s always been this way. As a preteen, my sister and I shared space in the back of a 1969 VW bug on those magical Sunday afternoons when my parents drove out of our suburban Oklahoma City driveway toward small town Tastee-Freezes nearby. We’d put the seats down in the back, and prop our feet up around the back window, our eyes catching the clouds or treetops as they whizzed by. Four custard cones later (or 3… Mom hates custard ice cream) we’d pile back into the car for the drive home, somehow understanding that the journey was part of the destination. And strangely enough, those ice cream cone adventures shaped me. The dip cone is part of my identity as a child of middle-America. I know this because I just re-lived the Tastee-Freez adventure a few weeks ago in Skiatook, Oklahoma, where a melting, chocolate-coated dip cone sent me soaring gleefully, and enjoying it illustrated how a food this simple is part of my story.

 

I’ve written about oysters and a craving for salt and sea. About barbecued chicken and homemade tomato juice served at corn suppers hosted by friends in Oklahoma. About avocados and limes plucked from trees and turned to guacamole. And about the French notion of terroir, which is really the best one-word translation for this notion of food and place combined that I can think of. Molly Wizenberg’s book, A Homemade Life, says “Food is never just food. It’s a way of getting at something else: who we are, who we have been, and who we want to be.” She’s right.

There’s the obvious way to travel through food:  Eat allspice-riddled Caribbean Black Bean soup and imagine lunch at a thatched roof café on an island, or dive into a plate of blue corn wrapped enchiladas smothered with green chile and transport yourself to Santa Fe. But there’s also the part of traveling and eating that tells, inversely, about who you are. It’s an approach to food as an essential medium in the mixed media masterpiece of Life.

So on my 3,000-plus mile road trip, the middle destination on the food map was Seaside, Florida, home to an entire row of gleaming Airstream eateries. As long as Slurp has been in business, we’ve heard about Seaside. Airstream enthusiasts love it, beachcombers rave about it, and countless travel and lifestyle mags have published articles about the row of shiny trailers. There’s a barbecue Airstream and an organic, vegan juice bar Airstream. A grilled cheese trailer holds down the middle. And then there’s Frost Bites—the beach-iest of the Airstream bunch making a killing selling $5 balls of shaved flavored ice, plus $24 t-shirts in fluorescent colors that are worn best against sun-kissed skin. The Airstreams sit in a shiny row a block away from the white sands of Seaside Beach, and in the way that describes terroir without any of the pomp usually associated with the word, they work because of where they are. Ask almost anyone what they love about Seaside, and you hear about the funky Airstreams with “food of every sort…” near the beach opposite the Shrimp Shack.

Driving home, I kept thinking about those Airstreams. Should our Airstream Eatery become a sno ball truck? Or what about grilled cheese? Maybe we push our Slurpsicles? Or maybe we do a little bit of all of the above. But the more I work it over, the more I think we consider what we love most about being trailer cafe owners in the explosive food truck world. The answers we develop will be relevant to others, because in doing what we love, we move beyond the food itself and share who we are, where we come from, and who we are becoming. We get to write the next chapter of our story.

We launched our Peace, Love, & Paella Tour with a trip to Tulsa (for context, read the previous post, older In Paella We Trust post, and http://www.tulsaworld.com/site/printerfriendlystory.aspx?articleid=20120715_39_D3_CUTLIN898230&PrintComments=1

Completely unexpectedly, Tulsa, Oklahoma became our “secret sky.” We created paella, a dish that has become part of who we are at Slurp, alongside others making their signature foods—Romesco sauce and Egg salad. Cooking together, we cemented a human connection. We exchanged our stories, and were fed by the stories and foods of others. Lives were shared. Love created. Food definitely became “more than just food,” and our travels could not have been complete without it.

Facebook friends and followers know that we were just in Tulsa, OK, where we made paella for a sell-out crowd 2 days in a row inside Lola’s Gypsy Caravan, an Airstream eatery a lot like ours, owned and operated by a drop-dead-gorgeous mother/daughter duo who welcomed us into their kitchen like old friends or kin.

Inside Lola’s sweet Airstream trailer parked in the shadow of Tulsa’s art-deco downtown, a digital thermometer registered 115 degrees Fahrenheit at one point. But rather than wilting in the heat, Lola, Wren, Carlos, and I thrived! We shared stories, swapped knives and cutting boards, and traded lots of laughter. While we cooked, a pick up band played at the oil-cloth covered picnic tables outside and hula hoops swirled around the waists of willing customers, the most daring of them standing in the spray from Lola’s gently swirling sprinkler.  It was our own little slice of heaven, and as we recapped each day & readied ourselves for the next, we pinched ourselves, giddy over our good fortune!

The connections and coincidences were uncanny—kind of magical really, in that “the stars were aligned…Santa Fe-surreal-sort-of-way.”  I grew up in Oklahoma, and so did Lola, both of us leaving at 17 with the belief we’d never look back in spite of campy childhoods spent romping happily through middle America. Carlos landed planes in Tulsa near Spartan aviation in the 80s, and Lola reminded us that Spartans are those huge metal trailers like Airstreams, only bigger, that have been transformed into food trucks like our own trailers. (See the previous post’s leading image). Lola lived in Santa Fe, and operated restaurants—one downtown, the other at a funky swimming pool clubhouse Carlos has had his eye on for months. Both women lived together down the street from where I live today—“up” the street from Carlos’s house, and Wren wandered the same city sidewalks & funky haunts 20 years ago that our kids are discovering today. Wren’s 11-year-old daughter speaks fluent Spanish. Carlos is from Venezuela. Lola studied Creative Writing, and I dream of writing creatively for a living again. The Lives and Times of Archy & Mehitabel sat on a table piled high with books outside Lola’s front door. I LOVE that book and call my daughter, Alex, “Alley Cat,” in part because of Mehitabel. And Lola’s house? We drove to it talking about the GAP band and Tulsa’s untaught history while rain poured in through the sunroof splattering our heads, and a rainbow formed in front of the house, perched on a hill overlooking downtown Tulsa. Inside and out, it was the stuff dreams are made of, and Carlos snapped pictures gleefully, his artist eyes capturing dozens of delightful details. I guess Wren pretty much summed it up in saying, “we just feel like we’ve known y’all forever.” Yep. I think somehow we have! And as we rolled out of town towing our 1953 Featherlite back towards New Mexico, we realized with joyful disbelief and infectious giggles, that we were sold on Tulsa, Oklahoma —a city that a few days before we couldn’t have imagined loving like we both do. Plus, we’d been given the heart-swelling, smile-spreading gift of  kindred spirits in discovering two of Tulsa’s most beautiful inhabitants.

So it turns out that it was the perfect launch to our new project—an “organic” scheme (read about it in the Tulsa World at:http://www.tulsaworld.com/site/articlepath.aspx?articleid=20120712_455_WK28_CUTLIN823944  and at headline Airstream Culinaire in Sunday’s paper, July15) to create community and cook with like-minded food truck owners across the country, and document our adventures for an ebook and TV pilot. I said in my last blog post that food truck click would be about “tasty inspiration,” and it feels today like we’ve been served up a feast of motivating inspiration in just a couple of short days.  I wrote, “A Slurp is a sound that is FULL of life—a noisy sucking it all in with abandon.” The photo above is of a sign that hung outside Lola’s in Tulsa. Coincidence? Kindred spirits! Tasty inspiration!

Social media are the bread and butter of the food truck industry, and while we’re at the earliest stage of our learning curve as to how to make it happen—that’s the “organic” part—we’re excited to be on to something! In the fast moving world of mobile food, it’s a new angle we’re playing with. Guess we’re somehow “Trusting in Paella,” (read post in archives) and Slurping with ABANDON, knowing that the dots are connecting forward even if we can’t map how they are doing so just yet.

 

 

So here’s the thing about blogging. Everyone tells you that you are supposed to do it daily or weekly—essentially post all the time—if you want to get yourself “out there.” I’m someone who once upon a time collected a paycheck for my writing, back when print was the medium most read, and I’m just not used to this idea.

When I wrote, it was because I had an assignment. The people I knew who wrote every day were aspiring (or established) novelists, and I sort of envied them the time spent with the characters living in their heads. Or, they were fellow reporters in the news agency where I worked, drumming out captions for paparazzi scoops or identifying world leaders in staid political photo-ops—multiple “stories” wrapped up each hour.  We wrote all day, every day. But our writing was to sell pictures.

So in my experience, writing has a purpose—an end. You don’t put your daily musings on paper unless you’re an essayist or syndicated columnist with a loyal following. Or maybe you’re an outside-the-box diarist who believes that anonymous others will benefit from your innermost thoughts. Regardless, as I know it, things get written for a reason. Stories, no matter their genre, enlighten, entertain, inform, or reveal. But your personal thoughts and those voices in your head? They’re to share with those closest to you.

When I set out to create this blog, I did envision it as some sort of regular report on the life and times of our food truck. Everyone tells you that blogs provide a platform for “extending your voice” or “expanding your brand,” etc… And I suppose in some way, Food Truck Click has done that—given voice to what happens inside our Airstream (and inside our heads). But really, when I read back through my archived postings or consider the new ones I might write, I seem to get stuck on the idea of needing to put something out there that’s “meaningful.”

Does anyone really want to hear about how we make Mulligatawny? Or how many blenders we’ve burned out making fresh juices, gazpacho, and smoothies?  Do I want to post recipes and kitchen tips, and comment on the trends of customers? I just can’t get my head around that. I know plenty of food blogs out there do just that, and many of these blogs are read by friends who tell me they don’t use cookbooks anymore, just apps and blogs for their food prep guidance. Plus, I’ve co-written four cookbooks, so I know how to do this kind of writing. It’s just that as the time passes between each of my blog posts, I get hung up on the “meaningful” thing. I’ve come to realize that it’s not the cooking part of our food truck life that most inspires me. It’s the “soup talk,” the  “Airstream therapy,”   the “life is a big, bubbling pot” perspective on Slurp that moves me.

Sure, there are times when chopping cucumbers for Greek Salad or delightfully swirling the pot of Moroccan Sweet Potato Soup with an immersion blender are what it’s all about. Admittedly, I get satisfaction in tasting something that elicits a resounding, “Yum!” from our customers. And I also understand that most of the content that gets spun off of food blogs and turned into books involves recipes and how-to sections, complete with gorgeous food styling photos.  I do dream of creating a beautiful book on Slurp. But what I love—we love—most about our little trailer is the slice of LIFE it serves up for us. How do you translate that?

I wrote pretty recently about Cliff, our late friend and regular customer who died in May. (You can read what I said in the sidebar to the right of this entry.) After I wrote about him, I felt like I’d sufficiently updated the blog with the short piece. The writing didn’t feel like a “must do” or an obligation to put us out there and extend our voice. It didn’t seem like an “assignment” to write a new post because if I didn’t post all the time I’d not be a good blogger. It just felt right.  And it made me think about how I’ve righted my own life lately by writing. I love to write. I love words. And my head swims with constant thoughts. But I also understand that this blog is supposed to bring meaning to our food venture.

I’ve wondered out loud lately, if Food Truck Click was taking the shape of some sort of inspirational food blog. Lord knows there are plenty of daily motivational & spiritual centering-type blogs thriving in cyberspace. Should I recast myself as a soup therapist? A food truck life coach? Hmmm…. Is the voice of Slurp just like the sound of slurping? Yeah, maybe that’s it. A Slurp is a sound that is FULL of life—a noisy sucking it all in with abandon.

Another M.F.K Fisher quote, because she’s my all-time favorite food writer:  “Dining partners, regardless of gender, social standing, or the years they’ve lived, should be chosen for their ability to eat – and drink! – with the right mixture of abandon and restraint. They should enjoy food, and look upon its preparation and its degustation as one of the human arts.”

Come to think of it, the tag line on our logo reads Eat, Drink, Go! We specialize in “to go” foods. In freshly made take-out. Maybe what I put out as Slurp’s food for thought in cyberspace really should be—really could be—“tasty inspiration.” Should I consider my blog posts meaningful (remember, I’m hard-wired to write for a reason, not just to hear my own voice) simply because they share the flavor of life in the trailer?

Slurp is now offering a new kind of “take out”. Food preparation and sharing it as a “human art.” Why not?

It fits the cliches: Food for thought. …A slice of life. …Chew on this one. …Drink it in.

Or,

Slurp with abandon, noisily!

I like it! Now open for tasty inspirations to go. Slurp ‘em however you’d like. Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

I’m just back from Austin, TX, where I lived and worked as food writer and restaurant critic for the better part of a decade just about 10 years ago. Wow! The city throbs with action, buzzes with people and outdoor activity, and can’t be beat when it comes to funky trailers serving food. My favorite find was a HUGE silver Spartan trailer from the 1950s serving fried chicken that fell off the bone, and a mean macaroni and cheese drizzled with truffle oil. The trailer is massive—hard to believe that once upon a time, in the pre-SUV days, it was pulled by a family sedan. Thanks, “P,” for the great food and conversation. Check them out at: www.mspselectriccock.com.

My other favorite spot? Absolutely off the charts cool! The Eastside Showroom, a nondescript, mostly unmarked building on the East side of town that felt one part speakeasy, one part underground dinner party. At the Showroom, cocktails are art. Ice gets hand cubed by vintage-clothing draped mixologists who blend alcohols, tonics, herbs, and aromatics with precision. An air of mystery infuses the space, and small plates might be piled with shishito peppers and a bleu cheese fondue, a mold of tuna tartare, or a combination of produce from a local farm. Drinking and dining there truly transported me. The setting was magical. My cocktail of prosecco, St. Germain, and a pear eau de vie could have been a perfume, and tasted of nectar—an unforgettable elixir! Plus, the interior was the stuff of dreams. The owner apparently does all her own welding, and the dimly lit space was defined by hand-wrought metalwork offset by lighter, funky décor touches. It felt like a setting straight out of some dramatic Southern Gothic novel, and I loved the place!

I must admit, though, that when it came to the food truck scene in Austin, I was overwhelmed. I enjoyed the food trailer parks (literally multiple open lots with groupings of trucks and trailers selling tacos, cupcakes, donuts, Asian plates, barbecue and designer sandwiches), but I found myself narrowing my focus in the face of SO MUCH happening. After pining away for a bustling food “pod” here in Santa Fe and organizing our town’s inaugural Food Caravan gathering at the Railyard Park (read previous post), I came to realize that what I really love most about our little Airstream eatery is the community we’ve come to know and identify with. I might envy the wallet toting crowd most Austin food truck owners draw, but I wouldn’t sacrifice the creative whim that rules our days or replace the connections we’ve created with people of all ages and backgrounds who linger outside our snowboard lined windows.

Once upon a time, I wrote about Slurp’s inspiration—about what got us started. I mentioned the food, of course, and Carlos’s design vision, and the hopes that we’d serve a constant crowd, but I also wrote:

“Sometimes what we serve out of our little windows seems unimportant. What matters is the changing cast of characters who come and nourish us. There’s the young textile artist with the sweet grin and gentle voice, the caffeine-fueled archeology buff, the high-spirited event planning duo, and the retired law professor. There are neighbors who wander up on foot and bike from their South Capitol homes, and state employees who spend workdays inside and come out to share lunch with us. We greet dozens of camera-toting tourists eager to hear our story, and have developed friendships with dedicated retires for whom made-from-scratch soups and trailer-baked bread speak volumes.”

Times have felt mighty lean in our lot these last few months as nearby buildings empty and our newness wanes. But we still love our changing cast, and cook each day with our friends—both real and cyber—in mind. As we move into our future, one of the things we are challenged to do is to translate the community we’ve cultivated into words and images. We have the opportunity to extend our reach beyond our limited parking lot, to folks who may never actually get to eat with us, and somehow we need to hone our funkiness into a formula that draws people to us for the feeling we’ve created—sort of a recipe for the experience Slurp offers to complement the actual recipes for our soups, sandwiches, and paella. We know that in the competitive culinary world, our soups and sandwiches could be bested by a diploma-laden chef or veteran restaurateur, but we think there’s something to be said about our style… our way… our ambiance.  Help us out. What would you say? We’d love to get–actually we really NEED–your input.

Developing a recipe for “Slurp-ing” feels like a tall order today—chaotic and uncertain. But I suppose the messiness, or our “we can’t quite put our fingers on it yet” task of defining our community and writing a greater recipe for how to enjoy our little feel-good haven in an off-the-beaten-path parking lot, provides us with a new inspirational platform. From the chaos comes the great chance to exercise wild creativity! Cross your fingers we can make it translate. And… heed our call for help. What would you want to read about Slurp? Let us hear.