Street food isn’t just about pretzels and hot dogs anymore.  The new trend in many large cities is for a truck  (sometimes themed) to serve up gourmet street food at various locations throughout a city. 

Not surprisingly, L.A. and New York were two of the first cities to see the rise of street vendors on wheels – many of whom update their locations via Twitter, blog posts, text messages, and/or websites.  People scurry to the locations of the popular ones in droves.  L.A. is famed for Kogi BBQ which marries Korean food with Mexican (think a burrito with Korean filling) while N.Y. has such inventive ones as the Treats Truck and the Dessert Truck which serve up gourmet desserts on the street.  (The Dessert Truck was even featured on an episode of Bobby Flay’s Throwndown on the Food Network).

My near and dear city of Boston is sadly lacking in these types of mobile street vendors for the most part, but I’m heading to Seattle later this month and I’m excited to try at least one of their well-known street vendors.  The first vendor in Seattle that I heard about was Skillet Street Food, known for serving up gourmet, bistro-style food using local ingredients.  They serve up breakfast and lunch and they seem to be famous for their bacon jam (featured in burgers and other items).   And, you’ve got to check out the site of Maximus/Minimus because they have the most unique wheels – they’ll make you squeal!  And, the food sounds good, too – mostly pork and veggie sandwiches.  The sandwiches are available with Maximus Sauce or Minimus Sauce – Maximus is spicy and Minimus is sweet and tangy.  And, finally, Marination creates unique Korean-Hawaiian inspired dishes such as Kimchi Quesadillas, spicy meat dishes and even some Spam-based meals (think I’ll skip those…but the menu’s definitely intriguing).  Serious Eats has a great list of street food carts in the U.S. and Canada that use Twitter if you’re looking for more!

I love this concept – gourmet food for the masses – affordable, quick, and at a corner near you soon!

I recently finished reading Clementine in the Kitchen by Samuel Chamberlain, a nonfiction account of an American family with a French Cordon Bleu trained chef.  I was intrigued by the story as it is partly set in nearby Marblehead, MA, and it is part of a series that Ruth Reichl was editor of.

The Chamberlain family spent many years living in France and returns to America around the start of World War II.  The book accounts the family’s transition from France to America as the French-born and trained Clementine accompanies them.

From some perspectives the book is amusing and enlightening as it allows the reader to compare and contrast many points: France and America today, France and America during World War II, America during World War II and today, food trends then and now, and American lifestyle then and now.  Clementine arrived in America speaking only French, and knowing only French culture, so her naivetes to American culture are amusing.  However, at points, the Chamberlains nearly refer to her as property, which is not amusing.

At many points, the book is a dry account of high society life in Marblehead in the 1940s and nearly half of the book is actually a list of arcane French recipes.  They’re worth a scan, but there was little there that I could envision making today.  In addition, much of the terminology in the recipes is out of date.

Clementine is a likeable figure in the story, and the book would be interesting to a food historian, but is probably a bit dry for the average reader.  Reichl’s introduction is as entertaining as her writing always is, though.  Not a read for everyone, but good for some!

I go nuts for gadgets. If I see a gadget that peels a banana, I want it – it doesn’t matter that I don’t eat bananas!  I mostly rein in my gadget habits and try to buy only what I need…or at least what I really, really want… But, having tried so many gadgets – good and bad, the least I can do is share my gadget successes and failures.

My recent gadget obsession has been around the Switchit Spatulas.  They are simply fantastic!  (I may begin to sound like an infomercial here…)  If you don’t have one and haven’t seen one, the Switchit is ingenious.  It has two useable ends – a narrow spatula on one end and a wider spatula on the other.  They come in a range of bright, modern colors, they are heat resistant up to 650 degrees, and they are incredibly sturdy.  You can use them for anything you’d use a traditional spatula for, the only difference is that once you use one of these, you’ll never want your old spatula back!  I have two, an all-purpose one with wide and medium ends, and a great one with two narrow-ish ends.  They’re great for everything from mixing to cooking to coaxing that last stubborn bit of peanut butter out of the jar.

The Switchit is made by a company called Chef’n, and finding their website for this blog was dangerous work because now I see that they make all kinds of great gadgets and tools – Switchit spatulas for flipping burgers and pancakes, ice cream scoops with ice breaking edges, and a nifty tool to slice and remove grapefruit sections.  I don’t have one of those…excuse me, please, while I go locate my credit card…

We have some great gourmet pizza shops in this area with gourmet toppings, flatbreads, and the like.  But sometimes we just need good old-fashioned traditional take-out pizza.  We’d tried a few spots – one was too greasy, one just kind of bland.

Then we tried Angelina’s, with several locations in MA (we tried the Salisbury location for take-out).  Intrigued by something called the double-decker, I went ahead and ordered it without a question.  I was impressed when my husband brought it home and I discovered it was essentially a pizza within a pizza!  The lower crust is wrapped around the upper crust at the edges so that it all holds together beautifully.  You may think it’s just two pieces of pizza on top of one another, but there’s something about the layers of flavor and the thickness of it, all baked together – it’s like pizza lasagne – repeated layers of tasty ingredients.  Of course, eating one piece of a double-decker is like eating two standard pieces, so I filled up more quickly, but I think that at about $16 for a one-topping double-decker this also makes it a great value since it’s the equivalent of two large pizzas in one.

The traditional one-layer pizza at Angelina’s is also great.  We went with eggplant and feta.  The eggplant is lightly breaded for a bit of crunch.  Their sauce is tasty, the cheese is good…it’s comfort food at its best.  We’ll be trying the Angelina’s subs and other offerings soon, so stay tuned!

My husband recently went out of town to a wedding (I was unable to attend), and the gift bags for the guests included some snacks.  One of the snacks was Newtons new Fruit Crisp bars.  We aren’t huge Fig Newton fans, but we like trying new things.  He tried one, our niece tried one, they didn’t like them – he brought the rest home and warned me, but I still had to try one for myself.  They don’t sound like an entirely bad concept – I like cruchy and fruity snacks – but the execution is horrible.

The crispy portion of the snack is like a really horrible generic cracker – think of a Saltine minus the salt.  It’s a very thin, crispy, tasteless wafer surrounding a bad, jammy filling.  The flavor is supposed to be Mixed Berry, but aside from a reddish-purplish color there’s nothing that screams “berries!” about these.  They turn to a kind of mushy paste in your mouth.    There are two crisps to a package, and the enitre package is only 10o calories, but they’re still a waste of calories.  I’ve never liked Pop Tarts, but these make Pop Tarts seem like a real treat.  I hope the hosts hadn’t tried the Fruit Crisps before sharing them - otherwise, I have to wonder what their guests did to deserve such treatment!