now lets get down to business...

I was wondering if anyone, who had extra garden space or just plain likes to grow things , was interested in growing some stuff for this hot truck? I'm thinking cilantro, onions, garlic, tomatoes, peppers (sweet and hot), any and all vegetables, tomatillos... you know, what ever you are adept at growing. I would be interested in buying as much as possible from those of you who grow too much to handle.. or even want to cultivate the crops for me. We can work out prices and quantities but I have this feeling a lot of you have a greener thumb then me... My own little garden will surly supply some things, and I certainly look forward to supporting the local farmers we have in abundance around these parts, but I also love the idea of getting things from the community... and giving back to those of you who want to sell your stuff to me and The Good Truck...
I know it is around that time when things are going in the ground and people are planning their garden spaces so lets talk soon.
You can post here or email me at thegoodtruck@gmail.com
xxoo
mandy

wow. you guys are freaking amazing.

I am overwhelmed and excited about the support I've gotten from this community and beyond. Who wouda thought?
You all are an inspiration.

The Good Truck

I started this blog with a hazy idea in mind that, though even the word "blog" kind of makes my skin crawl, it would be a charming outlet for my love of compiling words and pictures, specifically in documenting my little communities' regular adventures with good, local food. Everybody was doing it anyhow, and since I would be damned if I ever started tweetering, or any such nonsense, I figured a blog was like the training wheels for my digital make over. Besides it was a school project. My lack of advertisement about the silly thing, and my ability to ignore it's existence from the day of its creation until now, 6 months later, says nothing about my commitment to making great food. In fact, along with our neighbors and friends and all their beautiful new babies, we have been creating, experimenting and dining together in our kitchens and back yards bi-weekly, as always, since that lonely November day that I first created this "from scratch blog". The real reason I haven't been keeping up is that, while we have eaten well and cooked religiously (hello smoked pork BBQ in a blizzard on New Years day) I haven't been very inspired to blab about it on my goofy little corner of the Internet, until today. With the nudge of a few painfully optimistic but ever so inspirational comrades I have finally realized my own "perfect career". The one my Mom told me I needed to find. Combining my love for cooking, serving people good food, using local ingredients and doing all this in a manor sustainable for the earth, I am going to open hot truck. My very own little kitchen on wheels, a non traditional but uniquely delicious taco truck. It will be called the Good Truck.I hope to be stationed on State St. to catch yall at Felicias, the new Korova, during happy hour, or lunch, or late night after a few beers. I also want to be at Cass Park- to serve families and hungry little atheletes at soccer and baseball games. I hope to make it to concerts and state parks- essentailly where ever you are and where ever Johnny Law will allow me to park.

Being me I want to start, well, today. I know I could make the food happen with so much good stuff is growing around us in this delightful and unusual spring climate, and with an amazing company like Regional Access to supply me with the rest. The permits might take some figuring out- but certainly that is something I am capable of. I am not short on enthusiasm, menu ideas, or work ethic but I am short on the other important ingredient to my culinary success- money. What I need is a few investors, maybe even some benefactors, who believe in my idea. Who can envision the success of a local taco truck, serving up exciting, fresh and healthy real foods at decent prices. Some folks who can imagine how nice it would walk over, or pull up, and feed themselves- their families- on organic meat and vegetables that were grown right here in the Finger Lakes, food with no chemicals, additives or unpronounceable ingredients. The truck will have an option for everyone- vegans, meat heads, gluten free folks, all you picky people and all you adventurous ones. My mission statement? To serve great organic food from local sources, to make it all from scratch, and to have FUN. I love fun.

Who wants to help me?

Time to Jump

My mom's career advice to me was simple; find what I loved to do and get paid to do it. Sounded good enough, but for some reason my path to actually landing that ultimate career has been all but straightforward. As those who know me can attest, I have worked in many various capacities, rarely staying put long enough to truly realize a long standing goal. My work history is a mile long, and until recently, my academic career spotty. I have worked on coffee farms in Maui, cocktail waitressed while studying at a culinary school in Italy, held numerous positions in kitchens, cafes, bars and coffee shops from Ithaca NY, to San Francisco CA, to Chapel Hill North Carolina and back again to practically all those places. I have been a personal chef, a line cook and a dishwasher, and learned from traditional chefs, raw food chefs, and macrobiotic ones. In all of this I have harbored some guilt, some residual resentment, that I never finished college. I see my peers out in the world with "real jobs", while I struggle to pay the bills. At the same time, I have loved almost every minute of it. In the end I have learned to cook, and I would trade that for nothing. Brought back to my home town of Ithaca NY under adverse circumstances, last year as my mother battled pancreatic cancer, I saw to it that my time here would not be merely to face the tragedy of caring for, and eventually loosing my mother. When I arrived home I immediately sought a job at one of the area's most treasured restaurants, the locally driven, farm to table focused Hazelnut Kitchen. What I learned from Chef/Owners Jonah and Christina Mckeough was indispensable, their commitment to local foods, exciting flavors and what I think of as the "new American food movement" was contagious. The love I had cultivated over the last 8 years, of food and cooking, increased ten fold. So did my skills in the kitchen. The work was hard, the schedule demanding, yet when I left the job I was more confident and inspired then ever to do something of my own one day. Fast forward to a year later, I have four semesters of school on the deans list under my belt, three part time jobs, and a new idea that would make my mom proud. Inspired by yet another industrious and entrepreneurial young couple, Ian and Sam of Emmy's Organics, I've determined that now is the time to jump. The thing is, I am going to need a little help.