Click (Food): Vegan Dating Shows, Snackrilege, John Salley's Vegan Wine and a Portobello Banh Mi

Vegan Metalhead foodcarts, former NBA players making vegan wine, vegan singles for dating shows and lot's of food wrapped in bread. That pretty much sums up the last two weeks. Let's take a deeper look: 

Happenings:

• First it was the farm to table movement. Now we have freezer to table. Wait, that's already a thing. Anyway, Amy's, maker of those frozen pizzas and microwaveable meals in your grocer's freezer section, will be opening a drive thru restaurant in California


• A vegan metalhead food cart with dishes like Kale 'Em All salad and Tofu Balls to the Walls? Let me guess... it's called Snackrilege and it's located in Portland


• Former NBA player John Salley owns a wine business that caters to the vegan crowd. It's called The Vegan Vine and you just missed a tasting of it in Philly. Unless you were there, then you didn't 


• NBC is seeking vegan singles for their new dating show. No word on what they plan to do with these singles


• Five hotels that get real friendly with vegans.


• Ashitha Nagesh, a vegan, writes that animal activists need to stop comparing the treatment of animals to slavery. I'd also like to add the Holocaust to the list


• Hungry Hearts: Finally! Rejoice! A vegan movie character! In an actual movie that played on some big screens! Not so fast...the vegan character happens to be mother who is going crazy and starving her baby at the same time

Recipes:

Vegan Avocado and Heirloom Tomato Caprese from The Chubby Vegetarian

The Chubby Vegetarian has never let me down. He is one of the few internet people I trust completely. This means I rarely mess with his recipes. If he calls for Japanese eggplants, I look around until I find them. No matter what the cost. So I was planning on doing the same with this dish. No substitutions baby! But then I read 1/4 cup of fresh cilantro leaves on the ingredient list. That seems like a mistake? 1/4 a cup of cilantro? Why would someone ever want to do that to another human being? I mean don't we all have that abnormal twist in our genetic makeup that makes eating cilantro taste like that time your mom washed your mouth out with soap because you called your brother a name better left unwritten?   

Portobello Banh Mi by Kiss My Bowl

Ha, ha, ha. Shanna, of Kiss My Bowl blog fame, is just like me. No, I'm not saying she is egotistical. No, I'm also not suggesting that she is obsessed with fantasy role playing video games and keeps visiting that one site because the anime girls are super "fascinating". I mean we are the same in the sense that Banh Mis (is that the plural form?) make her wax nostalgic for a childhood memory that doesn't exist. Her mom never slaved over a hot Vietnamese oven to craft a sandwich of epic proportions, yet every time she eats one she remembers her childhood. My mom also never slaved over a Vietnamese oven to craft a Banh Mi. In fact, when I requested she make me one for Christmas dinner, I caught her looking for a Banh Mi mix in the Hamburger Helper aisle. I'm kidding, mom (no I'm not). 

Peanut Butter Banana Ice Cream Bites from Vegan Does It

I'm not a chocolate fan unless you put it with peanut butter or bananas. Then I'm a chocolate fan. This recipe goes one better and puts chocolate with both peanut butter and bananas. Please excuse me while my head explodes.

Mushroom and Lentil Sliders from Tinned Tomatoes

I have a certain bit of amnesia when it comes to veggie burgers. I have to, otherwise I would quit trying. Wait, this sounds familiar. Didn't I write this exact same thing two weeks ago? A sucker never learns. I like the thought of these because they are sliders. That means the burgers themselves are smaller. So the chances of them leaking everywhere and ruining my bread (or bed as auto correct would have you think) has to be greatly reduced right? RIGHT?

Chickpea Salad Sliders from Milking Almonds

More sliders. More little morsels wrapped in tiny bread. As Trine, of Milking Almonds, suggests any excuse to eat something wrapped in bread is definitely the way to go. I think that's where my bread...er...head is at.

Where We Eat: Give & Grub Food Truck

Everyone knows that the more people that get involved in something, the more likely it is to be ruined. There’s even an ancient proverb that speaks directly to keeping collaborations to a minimum: “too many cooks spoil the broth”. I think it is time to mark that proverb with a big ol’ asterisk, one that is footnoted at the bottom with the words “the exception to this proverb is Tampa’s Give & Grub food truck.

Five Companies, One Goal
A project by Laser Spine Institute, the Give & Grub food truck was created through an integrative  partnership between five different organizations. Each of these organizations brings their own unique expertise to the table. As an extension of a collaboration between Laser Spine Institute and the Tampa Bay Lightning, and through a mutual desire to “stick it to hunger” in the local community, the idea of a “food truck for good” was developed. The purpose behind this food truck would be two-fold. First, for each menu item sold, Laser Spine Institute would donate a meal to a hungry child in the Tampa Bay area. Second, the menu items offered would consist of gourmet, food-truck friendly versions of Tampa Bay Lightning players’ favorite meals. To help out with the food insecurity side of things (food insecurity is when access to adequate food is limited by a lack of money or other resources) Laser Spine Institute reached out to Feeding America Tampa Bay and Metropolitan Ministries. If anyone knows the food insecurity issues in the local area, it’s these two groups. Both agreed to join the fight. The final piece of the puzzle was to find and staff a food truck. This part of the project was taken care of by California based Roaming Hunger. With Laser Spine Institute leading the charge, these five organizations began working together to achieve two things: feed Tampa Bay citizens gourmet food from a food truck and use the profits to fight back against hunger.

How it Works
Give & Grub travels around the greater Tampa area visiting business parks, local events and Thursday and Saturday home Lightning games. Here they offer their seven different menu items for sale. Each item that is sold is tallied and a meal is given to a needy child or family. Don’t live in the area? Unable to get off work to visit the food truck during the lunch run? Lightning games end too late for you? No problem. Give & Grub has made it easy for you to participate via the internet. Just use the hashtag #GiveandGrub on your social media posts and a meal will also be donated to children and families in need. The food is donated through weekly backpack drop offs at targeted elementary schools in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties. Through their partnership with Laser Spine Institute, Feeding America Tampa Bay sources these backpacks with food and every child in the school receives one to take home (the schools range in size from about 250 to 450 kids). Each of those backpacks includes five meals for the weekend. Once a month Give & Grub has a huge “blowout” at a local boys and girls club. This involves filling the food truck with a Lightning player (or the street team if a player is not available), kid friendly food and more backpacks. The kids then get to experience what it is like to go up and order from the truck, take home a backpack and possibly meet a Lightning player. Laser Spine Institute works with Metropolitan Ministries to make all the kid-friendly food that is served during these monthly “blowouts”. To date, Give & Grub has given back 25,000 meals. Their goal for the year is 150,000. Currently they are on pace to reach it.

The Food
So what about the food that Give & Grub sells from the truck? As I mentioned before, the truck offers seven items. One of their most popular items is the Chicken Parmkos (honoring Steven Stamkos). It consists of Chicken Parmesan on homemade bread that is baked fresh in a commercial kitchen the day the truck goes out. The sandwich is served alongside housemade potato chips. Fun fact: Give & Grub also makes their own pickles. My sister-inlaw opted for the Parmkos. It was a huge sandwich that she couldn’t finish in one sitting. She was a fan. Another popular item is the Hedman Steak Tacos (named after Victor Hedman). I’m not sure if Hedman is into tofu or not but Give & Grub offers a tofu version for the vegetarians. The tacos are served with marinated tofu, roasted corn, Pico de Gallo and Tijuana rice. They are then topped with spicy chipotle ranch and served alongside a container of black beans and fried plantains. The tofu on these tacos is hands down some of the best I’ve had in Tampa. Sate Asian Grill and Taco Bus are the only places comparable in the tofu department. Whatever that tofu was marinated in gave it a nice flavor that lingered long after each bite. Also standing out were the peppers that were layered across the bottom of the tortilla. They too had a very distinctive flavor. The tortillas themselves? Fabulous. Each taco comes double wrapped in flour tortillas. These tortillas serve as a safety blanket, protecting the tacos from extreme conditions. I took a set of tacos to go and the tortillas were still crispy the next day. Most tortillas can’t stand up to the Branson family fridge and they go soggy with fright. Give & Grub’s just laughed at the weather whole time.

                The Hedman Steak Tofu Tacos

The surprise of the day belongs to the other vegetarian friendly item on the menu, the Bishop Bowl. I say this because I did not expect to be a fan of it. The bowl is named after goalie Ben Bishop. It is piled high with blackened tofu (or shrimp), wasabi caramel, mango, plantains and cilantro rice. The dish nicely melds together Cajun cooking, Japanese spices and South American fruit. The bowl is huge. It probably weighs more than a quarter of what Bishop weighs. Both J-Fur and I were really impressed with the bowl. Again, the tofu and peppers were top notch. But they were only part of the fun. The sweet of the mango and plantain and the slight spiciness of the wasabi caramel helped finish off a dish that pleases all the parts of your palette. Z-Bot was also a huge fan of this dish.

                          The Bishop Bowl

Give & Grub’s food proves that having too many cooks doesn’t necessarily have to spoil the broth. Sometimes, if the wrists flick just right, all those hands can actually create an amazing product. But what truly sets the truck apart is that all the profits from their amazing product go to help better the Tampa community.



My visit to Give& Grub netted me a lot of food. It took all I had to finish it in one sitting. After the last bite I immediately felt like *thumbs quickly through CD collection, ah, here it is* I was in Fat
Heaven. That’s why they are the perfect match for a Give & Grub visit. That and they pay homage to Roaming Hunger’s locale. Check out the band’s “LA Girl” from their self-titled EP.

The Tastes and Sounds of Downtown (Orlando)

This summer something fabulous is going on in the parking lot of Firestone Live in Orlando. Every Wednesday night from 6:00-12:00ish a collection of food trucks and musicians set up shop to serve local patrons. Dubbed the Tastes and Sounds of Downtown great food is flinging, craft beer is flowing and local bands are performing about thirty feet away on a stage. It is exactly like town fairs in Pennsylvania, only the food is good and the music isn't okie bluegrass.

J-Fur and I, along with our friends Bob and Elizabeth, made the 1.5 hour drive mainly because of the food. The fact that Stockholm (here and here) was headlining was the proverbial icing on the cupcake.

Our first stop was the Batter Bowl Truck. This all dessert truck was one of the newer food vehicles in town, making its debut in July. Last nights menu including four different cupcakes, goat cheese brownies and Lemon Olive Oil Gelato (made from Lemon Olive Oil that they lugged back from California). J-Fur went with the Red Velvet Cupcake with Cream Cheese Icing:

Her first comment when she saw it was "Holy no icing." She smeared it with her finger to cover the remainder of the cupcake and took a bite before offering me one. My take was that it was great. I hate too much icing so I thought the amount was just right. The cream cheese icing was more cream cheese, less sweet and the cake wasn't overly sugary either. J-Fur thought it could use a tad more sugar but she is an addict. I kindly disagreed. I picked the Goat Cheese Brownie knowing that I normally don't like brownies:

The beauty of this brownie is that you can actually see the goat cheese swirled into the top. Taste wise the brownie echoed the cupcake in that it wasn't overly rich or sweet. The goat cheese served to temper the overpowering fudge taste that most brownies suffer from. Overall the Batter Bowl is my kind of dessert truck. It is dessert that doesn't hit you over the head with disgusting sweetness but let's the subtlety of their ingredients linger on your palette. To use a teacher analogy: the Batter Bowl desserts are sort of like the kid who whispers an insult into a bully's ear causing the bully to loudly announce "I'm gonna kick your a@@" right in front of the principal.

Our next stop was the Tastebuds Catering Truck. Bob and Elizabeth went with the Tostones (which were sold out by the time I snapped the picture of the sign) and Tequenos while J-Fur and I ordered two Tequenos. I was slightly worried at the sound of "cheese sticks" because I could only think of the mozzarella sticks that a lot of Italian restaurants serve. I am not a fan of these because they are too much cheese and not enough breading and they usually end with my gut hurting.

These Tequenos (sorry about the picture) were the perfect balance of dough and cheese. It helped that they weren't covered with the fried breading of other cheese sticks but a dough that was much smoother. It is reminiscent of the dough that covers empanadas. The dipping sauce was a spicy cilantro sauce that thankfully wasn't overpowering on the cilantro side of things. Otherwise I wouldn't have eaten it. Another great experience.


Next up was the Pure Mobile Cafe truck. This truck offers all vegan choices. It is run by Jen Dostie who also sells loose leaf tea and organic skincare and makeup at her website Everything Organic. The Pure Mobile Cafe had falafel and homemade naan, spicy tempeh tacos, and a beat salad. It also offered sides of hummus and pita, sweet potato fries as well as three of Jen's teas. There was a vegan brownie with vegan chocolate ganache for dessert. What I really wanted was the falafel and homemade naan but it was already sold out by the time we arrived. That meant tempeh tacos for me:


The tacos included tempeh that was baked in a slightly sweet sauce, avocados, radish, mixed greens and a side of vegan chipotle ranch sauce. There were a lot of different flavors and textures in the taco and I really liked that. I especially enjoyed the crunchy/soft combo provided by the radish and avocado. It is similar to the lentil/cabbage tacos I made the other day. I decided to end the night with their vegan brownie:

The Vegan Brownie was ok. I like how they gave me the option of an end or middle piece. I'm a middle fan because I like it soft all around. The brownie was moist, not overly dry like some vegan desserts can be. Really the only reason that it wasn't great was that it was pretty sweet. After having the Batter Bowl's brownie I think the added sweetness was drawn out even more. J-Fur also tasted it and she commented on the sweetness as well (if the sugar queen comments then...). In reality it comes down to your taste preference. Do you want sweetness with your desserts or do you want something a little more subtle? Oh yeah and do you want something dairy free or chock full of goat milk? I'd eat the vegan brownie again, I'd just be more prepared.

Finally, once all the food was out of the way, there was the matter of enjoying Stockholm. The crowd had thinned a lot by the time they were on so it felt like they were performing for just me (and the other twenty friends I had standing around me). I'll just pretend it was like my sixteenth birthday party and my mom hired them to play for it. I had a pretty rad party (thanks mom!). The lack of a crowd didn't temper their show at all and that is a good thing. If the band keeps at it, I don't think they'll have many more shows that size.

Other performers included: Everyday Ghosts, Waiting on Wonders, John Holbrook and Great Deceivers.

Stockholm at their finest:
Stockholm-Bad by Design