Renee Casteel Cook - Columbus Food Truck Cookbook, The

Published by American Palate
A Division of The History Press
Charleston, SC
www.historypress.net

Copyright 2016 by Tiffany Harelik and Renee Casteel Cook
All rights reserved

Front cover, top left: Ray Rays Hog Pit. Photo by James Anderson; top right: Porketta. Photo credit Tony Layne; middle left: Local tomatoes. Photo by Catherine Murray, www.photokitchen.net; bottom left: Catie Randazzo of Challah! Food Truck. Photo by Catherine Murray, www.photokitchen.net; bottom right: Beignets from Early Bird Food Truck. Photo by Libby Glover.

First published 2016
e-book edition 2016

ISBN 978.1.43965.622.8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015959408

print edition ISBN 978.1.46713.580.1

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the authors or The History Press. The authors and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

A bird doesnt doubt the wind. Along with the Trailer Food Diaries Series, this book is dedicated to anyone who has ever taken a leap of faith.

CONTENTS

Preface

FOOD TRUCK COOKBOOKS

My first foray into cookbooking began in 2007, when I began amassing a collection of heirloom recipes from my family that I wanted to be able to pass down. The project mushroomed into a large collection of stories and ingredients that I warehoused on my laptop for years before creating a Word document that served as our keepsake family cookbook. I didnt care about publishing it; the idea was to preserve some family history, pictures and recipes to share with future generations. In the course of editing, though, I realized I had a decent formula for writing collaborative cookbooks, and I had a passion for the work, too.

The family cookbook hobby grew on me, and I began writing the Trailer Food Diaries cookbook series in 2009 as a blog. I had gone on a food truck crawl with some neighbors and friends to eat some of Austins newest culinary endeavors that were coming out of food trucks and Airstream food trailers. Some of the food trailers were paired up in parks peppered throughout the city, and some stood alone. We had a map, a plan and a Sunday afternoon off to gallivant through town. What we found was unexpected: several of the trailers were closed on Sunday, some were not where they said they were and others had run out of the very thing we wanted to try. A little discouraged, we ended up with a case of beer at the famous Gourdoughs doughnut trailer and split some doughnut holes (trailer parks in Austin are BYOB).

When I looked to the Internet for help in assessing the food trailer scene as a whole, I found a void. Since I had recently quit my job, I decided to dub myself as one of the first authorities on food trailers in my hometown and started the blog Trailer Food Diaries. I knew the chefs were creative, I knew they had amazing stories to tell and I wanted to help them market and share their recipes and histories so that others could enjoy them.

After a few months of blogging, I met Chef Shay Spence, who introduced me to his father, Roy Spence, founding partner at the illustrious GSD&M advertising agency. Roy soon became an integral figure in shaping the Trailer Food Diaries. Working his way down the corporate ladder, as he will tell you, Roy opened the Royitos hot sauce trailer, fashioning his mission after three critical lessons learned from his father:

1. Be kind to everyone, for you never know what someone is going through.
2. Keep it simple.
3. Dont do mild.

With these principles guiding his inspiring hot sauce trailer, Roy continues to spread the word about the importance of small businesses. Our country was founded on mom-and-pop businesses, he said as he explained why food trailers offer such a great outlet for entrepreneurs of any age to pursue their passions.

A few months later, I pitched a food truck festival concept to C3 Presents. Together, we created the Gypsy Picnic trailer food festival in 2010. With close to thirty food trailers and nearly twenty thousand attendees, the festival showed us just how much Austin loves its food trucks. We did it a second year in 2011 with over thirty thousand attendees, and the first Trailer Food Diaries cookbook was launched: Austin Edition, Volume 1.

Beyond the Gypsy Picnic, I began co-producing Trailer Food Tuesdays, an event every last Tuesday of the month at the Long Center in Austin, Texas. The event hosted an average of ten food trucks per month with live music ambience and the city skyline as the backdrop. Since it was right by the Auditorium Shores city park area, people enjoyed using the trail to walk or bike over to the heart of the city for dinner and dancing.

At the time of the writing of this volume, I have been all over the world researching outdoor cuisine, from food trucks to cowboy ranch cooking. The notion of street food is worldwide and has its roots in almost every culture. Toward this end, I have eaten street food in Peru, Honduras, Mexico, the British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and most of the states in the United States. From my experience interviewing for my cookbooks, I can tell you three key things these folks have in common:

1. They are entrepreneurs. They do not want to work for anyone else and will work an eighty-hour week for themselves and their family to avoid working a forty-hour week for someone else.
2. They have at least one good recipe that someone has complimented them on. Its a recipe they are proud to share with you, and their favorite part of your day is when you take that first bite and your eyes light up. They are cooking to see you smile, not for a big payday.
3. They are community-oriented people. For the most part, the food truck owners report that one of the things they love most about owning and operating their cart is the opportunity to meet so many different people during the day. They are as intrigued about your story and what brought you to their food as you are about their menu.

To date, we have Trailer Food Diaries volumes in Austin, Portland, Dallas/ Fort Worth and Houston. I have partnered with fellow author Steven Shomler of Portland Food Cart Stories on food cart projects in Oregon, so when I got a call from Renee in Ohio, it was with great pleasure that we decided to add Columbus to the food truck cookbook portfolio.

Renee told me she had bought a copy of the Trailer Food Diaries when she first reached out with a cold e-mail in 2014, which resulted in a pen pal like friendship. With her background in advertising and interest in getting started in food writing and my experience with authoring cookbooks, we decided to team up and learn more about the growing food truck culture in Columbus, Ohio, where she had recently relocated. A three-way call with our friend Steven Shomler of Portland Food Cart Stories had us inspired to continue the food truck cookbook legacy. Renee connected with and started interviewing several of the trucks in the Columbus scene. Given that there are over four hundred trucks, this was no small feat. With the mission of learning her new hometown via food, Renee explored neighborhoods from Clintonville to German Village and from the Short North to the campus of Ohio State University and everything in between.