Photo: Heather Shouse, Ten Speed Press (*see below)

Food trucks are not a new phenomenon. In Boston, though, they are just gaining momentum. I don’t remember seeing many last fall, but maybe I wasn’t looking hard enough, or in the right places. Regardless, they are beginning to emerge for the season.

Other cities have had food truck cultures for years. Take Los Angeles, for example. There, taco trucks have been around for decades. Most recently, young food entrepreneurs from greater L.A. and with multicultural backgrounds are striving to reach new experimental heights in the food they’re serving from their wheels.

Heather Shouse, author of a new book, Food Trucks: Dispatches and Recipes from the Best Kitchens on Wheels, points to somewhere between the mid-1970s and 1980s for a dramatic rise in Angelenos selling from mobile vehicles – carts included. She called L.A. “ground zero, the historical entry point for taco trucks on American soil.” Continue reading →

Photo: Eve Fox

Continuing the Passover theme, today’s Food Therapy comes from Eve Fox at The Garden of Eating: fresh horseradish. Eve writes that horseradish is probably the most popular bitter herb to be used on the seder plate. Her post might not be recent, but it is timely. It might also be pungent enough to take your mind off tax day.

Whether or not you observe Passover, horseradish preparation skills are good to have. Add it to mustard, mashed potatoes, roasted meats. All you’ll need is horseradish root, vinegar, salt, water, a food processor, gloves and protective eye wear. (Say what?? Well, it is pungent, and the oils can cause all sorts of irritation.)

Eve, our fearless guide, recommends making this outdoors with gloves and eye protection, and to avoid touching your eyes after touching the root. For you apartment dwellers, that might mean you’ll look like a mad scientist leaning out the window with your food processor balanced on the fire escape. (If that’s the case – please post pictures)!

The featured offering at the Armory bar for Cupcake Camp (Abby Conway/WBUR)

Whoever said the cupcake fad was dead (or dying) has never been to Cupcake Camp. (Could pies, macaroons or whoopee pies really ever replace the cupcake?)

For the second year in a row Cupcake Camp Boston, described as an “ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and eat cupcakes in an open environment,” brought together dozens of bakers and cupcake lovers in one place.

Not only did people wait up to 45 minutes in the cold rain to get in the door, but numerous amateur bakers and food bloggers had spent hours toiling away in their home kitchens measuring, sifting, mixing, baking, frosting and decorating cupcakes to be eaten by strangers. For free.

There is no doubt the event grew up in the year since its first incarnation at P.A.’s Lounge last spring. Continue reading →

Photo: Courtesy of Doves and Figs

We’re doing lots with Passover foods this week in anticipation of the upcoming holidays. Today’s ‘Food Therapy’ continues the theme.

Enter Doves and Figs. Blogger Robin has two relatively unusual recipes to share, both her own experiments. The first is irrestible-sounding: Drunken Passover Grilled Cheese. Maybe this recipe, which calls for sweet wine, will fit our intern Jaime’s budget?

The second recipe will make a smart addition to brunch, which is exactly when Robin plans to serve them: Sweet Passover Popovers.

Next week we’ll be featuring recipes and traditions for Easter foods. What are yours??  We’ll post them here. (Do you, our readers, celebrate holidays we haven’t covered? Give us a shout-out…we will!)

Photo: through my eyes only/Flickr

LOCAL BITES

Beer Summit
If you like beer, clear your calendar Friday and Saturday. Over 50 brewers will be convening in this great city for the Boston Beer Summit at the Park Plaza Castle. Tickets are $42.50, which in addition to samples also includes live music. Tickets can be purchased online.

Marathon Specials
Running the marathon Monday? Worried how you’ll do your carbo-loading Sunday? Not running the marathon, but still want to get your pasta fix? You have many options, but here are three specials: Avila Modern Mediterranean will be serving two $12 bottomless pasta bowls during dinner hours Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Da Vinci Ristorante has teamed up with New Balance and will be offering a special marathon menu Sunday. Clink restaurant, once the Charles Street Jail, will be offering pasta specials Sunday night, as well as a marathon breakfast menu if you’re going out early Monday. If you’ll be running Monday, be sure to bring your race bib wherever you end up eating, because many restaurants will give specials prices or extras to marathon participants.

Fueling the Run
So, apparently gorging yourself on pasta may not be the best way to fuel your body for a marathon. Read this article from Steve Bradt and Anne Trafton at the Harvard Gazette on the science of eating for a major run. Also, look at this related endurance calculator for a very personalized plan on how much to eat the night before. Continue reading →

Photo: RonAlmog/Flickr

Earlier today Good Cook Doris posted three delicious-looking recipes for Passover. These, she promises, make up “Part I” of her dedicated Passover posts. While we wait expectantly for Part II, here are more dishes to consider before you do your weekend shopping: several matzo-based recipes from our friends at how2heroes that’ll inspire and entice you. Go on…

• Matzo Brei (or, matzo pancake). This is SO easy and looks REALLY good. From the kitchen of Boston-based Debra Samuels.
• Matzo Ball Soup, icon of icons
• Matzo Salty Surprise (chocolate, toffee — a slightly different take on GCD’s, above)

Plus, these….

• Kugel (Noodle Pudding) from a mom and daughter team
• Charoset (a “wicked easy” snack) 
• Macaroons (these last are wheat- and gluten-free, “simple, yummy”)

Tomorrow, Jessica Alpert regales us with more Passover fare, straight from the kitchens of Boston chefs. Tune in!

Photos: Courtesy of Michelle Jaeger

At the PRK “Meet Up” last month, Michelle Jaeger and I somehow got talking about cake. About her family’s Passover torte, to be exact, which may not sound unusual until you hear how the crust is made. Michelle offered to send the recipe to us, in order to share it with you. It’s been a part of her family’s Passover celebration for 25 years.

Meet Michelle. She’s a publicist, a graduate of Boston University’s Culinary Certificate Program, a die-hard Red Sox fan, a rower and a coxswain. She says that when she’s not baking for friends and loved ones, she can be found on the Charles, in search of the perfect stroke. Tweet her @tartandfit.

Growing up, I used to dread Passover. While I was certainly impressed with 12-egg cakes that actually stay up, they didn’t suit my taste buds. There were other options on the table – wine cakes and Mandelbrot, flourless cookies and brownies, plus macaroons from a can – but I found them too sweet, or too dry.

My dread turned to anticipation the year my mother discovered a recipe for a fruit and nut torte. From Day One, this was a keeper. Over time, we’ve built a tradition of finding and trying new recipes for the holiday, rotating many in and out of our repertoire. This one, adapted from Carol Guthrie’s original, has been a constant for about 25 years. It’s got a great balance of texture and flavors: the nut torte is pleasantly spongy and not overly sweet, the curd is smooth and tart, and the whole thing is topped with fresh fruit. It’s so good you can make it for any occasion, and people will ‘ooh and ahh’ and scarf it down in no time. They might even eat it for breakfast, as I’ve been known to do.

PASSOVER NUT TORTE

There are three major components to this recipe: fresh fruit, lemon curd and the torte itself. If you are pressed for time, or the thought of making lemon curd sends shivers down your spine, buy some at the store and pretend it’s yours. I won’t tell. Continue reading →

Photo: Courtesy of Fun and Fearless in Beantown

It’s really frustrating being a 20-year-old cook. There’s that whole not-really-having-money thing, of course (try buying organic when every quarter you have determines whether or not you can wash your clothes that week), but more than that: all the best recipes need booze.

Consider: French onion soup. Moules marinieres. Chocolate stout cake. All of them, drenched in sweet, forbidden alcohol. I may be the only college student in history who has sent her older roommates to buy Franzia not for a game of slap the bag, but for tomato sauce.

Here’s another frustratingly, deliciously boozy recipe: beer-braised chicken, made by Michelle from Fun and Fearless in Beantown. It looks fantastic – obviously.  Michelle made it last Monday, a rainy New England day much like today. The chicken was “a perfect comfort food,” she wrote, as if you’d expect anything less from a dish of potatoes, chicken and good ale.

Ugh. There are fifteen days left until my 21st birthday. Only fifteen days. But man, does that seem like a long time.