Bumper For Trucks

Street food ready to roll

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The normally staid Woodruff Arts Center, home of the symphony and its upper-crust patrons, looked more like a funky street festival Thursday, as a dozen food trucks lined up bumper to bumper in the turnaround and King & Spalding lawyers and hipsters strolled or sat in the sun, eating tamales and cardamom-flavored ice cream.

Angel Poventud, his bicycle over one shoulder, took in the Midtown scene and breathed a happy sigh.

“It is a really nice sense of community,” said the CSX train conductor, recommending the lemon-ricotta popsicle from King of Pops. “It wrecked me.”

High-end street food has had a rough road in Atlanta, but this spring it may finally be getting the green light.

Buoyed by efforts from the year-old Atlanta Street Food Coalition, which organized this weekly Midtown event and others like it, street chefs have found an audience and their audience has found them.

“Atlanta is ready,” said Jessamine Starr, leaning out the window of the Good Food Truck, famous for the Poodle, a hot dog on a French toast bun. Starr brought her fare to the Woodruff’s first food truck rodeo in April and immediately sold out.

Greg Smith, president of the coalition, said “a few thousand” customers will walk away with Vietnamese pork sandwiches and other hand-held treats just during Thursday’s lunch hour. This is a far cry from a year ago, when food trucks wandered Atlanta like the boll weevil, looking for a home and just as unwelcome.

What the vendors call cumbersome licensing requirements made permitting the trucks daunting. In a compromise, the coalition arranges licensing for specific locations and times.

The Atlanta Food & Wine Festival also will give street food a boost this week, lining up a dozen or so trucks and carts along Peachtree in Midtown to serve festivalgoers day and night.

“Great food doesn’t just have to come from a restaurant,” said the festival’s food truck coordinator, Loren Hagearty. Hagearty said to expect sweets from the Yum Yum Cupcake truck, lamb sliders from Miami’s gastroPod AirStream trailer and innovative frozen treats from the Westside Creamery. (How about brown butter and candied bacon ice cream?)

At night the street carts will be turned over to a cadre of local and visiting chefs, many of them distinguished with James Beard Awards and from restaurants with Michelin stars, who will keep the carts running until 1 a.m.

Oh my, time flies

Has it really been 3 weeks since I last posted? Wow.......not that I live a terribly exciting life or anything but I do try to at least check in every so often. I haven't even replied to some blog comments and for that I do apologize. I received the email notifications but was busy and stressed and didn't move them to an appropriate folder where I'd remember to reply.  Not a very good excuse or action on my part. So what's been up?  Storms, flooding, running, working.  Nine days straight at one point on the latter, granted they weren't all full days of driving but they were all away from home and in the truck and that's way more than what I like.  Speaking of trucks, Lola's starter problem has finally been resolved and now it's been an air conditioning issue for the past couple of weeks......however that was repaired this last weekend so good to go now.  As far as the storms go I've been extremely fortunate in no damage has been sustained by me but friends in Tuscaloosa, AL had family that was affected.  Scary, sad situation with all that.  The flooding has caused major detours on I40 through Arkansas and that always equals delays.  Quite eerie last week going east on I40 and not seeing any oncoming traffic from where the westbound side was shutdown.

Thank you:-)))). I do enjoy writing & reading others' blogs but I've gotten so busy that I'll have an idea pop into my head but by the time I get stopped I'm usually too tired to pursue it.

Experimental Techniques and Design in Composite Materials, Proceedings of the 4h Seminar, Sheffield, 1-2 September 1998

Chevrolet Pickups, 1946-1972, How to Identify, Select and Restore Chevrolet Collector Light Trucks

Bureau of Mines research, a summary of significant results in mining, metallurgy and mineral economics

International Conference on Vehicle Safety 2002, held on 28th-29th May 2002, IMechE headquarter, London, UK

Up Until Now...Everything Was Okay