After getting over the lack of sticks, an author finds joy in food trucks

Oct. 31, 2011 by Michael Katherine Dinsmoor

If you’re a fan of foods on sticks and your editor asks you to cover a food truck festival at which you’ll probably need to pig out, you cancel all of your other plans and dig your elastic-waisted pants out of the box labeled “Clothes that will make you unpopular.”

When you arrive at the parking lot of Stonewood Center and discover that little to no food will be skewered (it’s gourmet) and your options are limited to eight trucks (one which sells only lemonade-type desserts) you try not to let the disappointment show on your face.

This was my predicament last Saturday as I shook hands with Maxson Bixby Smith II, co-founder with Maita Kissamitakis of Atomic Eats, the food truck event company that organizes this and similar events for food truck owners and their fans.  I mentioned my surprise at the number of trucks, and he explained that fewer trucks ensured greater profit for the trucks involved.

But I soon found out that fewer trucks didn’t mean I’d have less access to good food.  Fad or no, the food trucks know how to make a lot of things that are delicious and hard to pronounce, such as the bull gogi (bull go-gee?) slider from Fusion Tacos.  Its owner, James Lee, sold “Authentic Korean BBQ” according to the words on the side of his truck.  I ate that one fairly quickly.

Or there was my personal favorite, the Crawfish Etouffee (eh-too-fay?) from the Crazy Creole Café.  It sells Creole food, not Cajun.  Get that confused and Guy DuPlantier III will give you a lecture fit for a university on why you are very very wrong.  But then he’ll also give you his pen when yours runs out and you still have three more trucks to visit, so don’t write him off.  His passion for his heritage translates well into the food he cooks, and when you try his fried shrimp with rumaulade (rue-ma-laud?) sauce, you’ll be glad he’s no longer in the termite and pest control business, a fact

Guy was also the only driver I spoke to who was dressed as a chef, complete with small, black toque.  Casual dress was the norm for most everyone else, one food truck owner wearing a T-shirt with scorch holes along the waist where I assume the stovetop met his stomach.  Flat-billed baseball caps were everywhere.  So were bicep tattoos.

These food truck owners live in a world of contradictions: gourmet food on a truck, the desire for a steady clientele while remaining a mobile industry.  There’s even a camaraderie among the owners, chefs, and drivers that is unhampered by personal details.

At one point I witnessed two trucks exchange food.  One of the exchangers was Ryan Martinez, the 23 year-old part-time driver of Del’s Lemonade.

I caught Ryan’s eye, and he shrugged at me:  “That’s one of the perks of working in the food truck business.”  When I asked the name of the man with whom he’d just exchanged food, he shrugged again.  Instead they know each other by their cuisine.  “We just go by trucks,” Ryan said.

That’s another interesting thing about food truck drivers.  They’re their own biggest fans.

Ryan confessed his favorite truck to be Phamish, which sells Vietnamese food.  “I don’t know what the lady does to the meat, but it’s seasoned perfectly.”

Maher Ibrahim likes a truck called Fishlips Sushi.  Maher, who goes by Max, is the owner of Gourmet Genie and the man who exchanged food with Ryan.  When spelling out his name, he pronounces the letter ‘H’ as “etch.”  He didn’t know Ryan’s name either.

Maher is in the food truck business because he couldn’t commit to a brick-and-mortar location.  Either the rent was too high, or he feared the location would limit his clientele. 

With the Gourmet Genie, “It’s like having seven locations at the same time.”

Whether they own, drive, or work part-time in the trucks, it is evident that most of the people working this event value their freedom.  They have freedom to roam, freedom from rent, freedom of dress.  In this sense it’s a very American industry.

And despite loving the food, I am the smallest bit disappointed the trucks at which I ate celebrate their freedom from foods on sticks.  I really do love a good corn dog.

– Photos courtesy of Aimee Grace. For more photos by Aimee, go to www.agracefulphoto4u.com