Zolli’s Chuck Truck: Coming Soon

Posted on by zollipop
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Precursor to Zolli's Chuck Truck?

In April 2012, I intend to fit some wagon wheels onto a Winnebago and roll Zolli’s Chuck Truck into action.  I’ll cruise around Winnipeg, with the sun-bleached skull of some sort of antlered creature affixed to the spot on the back where the spare tire usually goes.  I’ve always had romantic notions about the chuck wagon, that original food truck of the prairies, so why not start my own? Some days I’ll wear a cowgirl hat, and on days when I’m feeling especially jaunty, I’ll put my hair into pigtails with ribbons. I’ll fit my obese cat with a vest and get him to ride in the passenger seat as a sort of out-of-place mascot.

As confident as I am in my concept, I figured that it would be only prudent to research the competition. Street food is a well entrenched cultural phenomenon across the world, particularly in India and Southeast Asia. Not far behind are North American cities such as San Francisco and New York, where twitter-fiends stalk their favourite trucks across the boroughs.

But in Winnipeg, not so much. You won’t have any trouble finding a hot dog cart, but as recently lamented by Bartley Kives in the Free Press, original and interesting Winnipeg street-food options are few and far between. Some blame the suffocation of city by-laws, others the cold weather.  It’s probably a bit of both, combined with the fact that our downtown doesn’t support the same kind of residential population as in other large cities.

Bison Smokies - A Winnipeg Twist

So as part of my recognizance, I took a stroll down Broadway, dodging a man in a worrisome amount of cammo and crossing my fingers as I walked under some scaffolding erected by ‘Altered State Scaffolding’.  I settled on a Banh Mi from JT Spring rolls, which wasn’t really a classic Banh Mi, but could be described as a very tasty pork sandwich.

Tasty Pork Sandwich from JT Spring Rolls

I figure the main competition for my chuck truck will come from El Torrito (@ElTorrito1), the new cooked-to-order taco truck usually parked outside the Hydro Building on Portage for lunch and on Henderson across from the Dairy Queen for dinner. I loved their Chorizo Dog – the meat was pleasingly light in texture and deftly dressed with a zippy tomatillo salsa and coriander.  I had mixed feelings on the tacos – the meat was tender and perfectly seasoned. But by the time I was done the chorizo dog and ready to move on to the tacos, their juices had made the corn tortilla soggy, and they broke apart all over the plate when I picked them up. The napkin was outmatched.  My overall impression was that the filling and the shell were a bit at odds with one another – my mouth was full of the taste of tortilla in a way that overshadowed the meat and salsa. When I had similar tacos in San Francisco’s Mission District, they placed a generous amount of filling on a double layer of tortilla, and now I know why.  El Torrito might be well served by a similar approach.  On the whole, though, anyone willing to serve tomatillo salsa on the sidewalk is a hero in my books.

El Torrito's El Grande Special

Just as anyone choosing a baby name goes through the various permutations of Grade 6 bully humour that might eventually cost them a lot in psychologist bills, I have been thinking about the name for my food truck. Will someone with a can of spray paint add an ‘Up’ prefix? What will that mean in terms of touch-up paint costs and my overall profit margin?

Maybe I should pick a different concept?  The Dehli Deli?  Dosas, Samosas, and More? How about The Flatbread Truck?

Nah, I’ll stick with chuckwagon theme. I’ve always wanted to wear cowboy boots to work. I’ll be parked outside the museum at lunch and the Palomino Club from midnight until 2AM.  Anyone know where I might be able to pick up some wagon wheels?

El Torrito Taco Truck on Urbanspoon

A Letter to Tofu

Posted on by zollipop
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Dear Tofu,

It’s time for us to part ways.  I wanted it to work out, I really did. But after much searching of my soul, the Weight Watchers recipe database, and the medical literature, I have come realize that I need to let you go.

I remember our first times together: that day I whipped you into a creamy  dip, the time I grilled you into succulent satays, that evening when I stir-fried you with tons of herbs into a delicious stirfry.  Sure, I mmmmed in satisfaction, but now I have to admit: I was faking it.

Tofu and Brussel Sprouts: Looks Good, Doesn't Satisfy

It was after a trip to California and Hawaii that I first sought you out, Tofu – the wine, cheese, and shrimp trucks had put five pounds on me where I didn’t want it to go.  You lured me in, manipulated me, with the promise that you would, “…absorb any flavour…”,  but your chalky undertones persisted underneath the chile sauce and the buckets of fresh herbs.  I thought I would lose some weight and gain a friend in you, Tofu, but when my booty stayed extra-bountiful, I began to feel misled.

The rumblings of dissatisfaction started in my stomach, a gnawing that only a snack could cure.  But then it went further – I was waking up suddenly in the night, as though I had just had night terrors, with this incredible yearning for food food food.  I turned to science, scouring the medical literature, looking for reasons why I wanted to cheat, why I wanted to turn to other protein sources in my moment of need.

But the medical literature is great at complicating everything whilst really explaining nothing at all, so my search for the taproot of my appetite left me with only one solid fact.   No matter which diet you flirt with, even if you manage stay married to it for a year or more, you will likely never permanently lose more than 10 pounds from just dieting.  Weight Watchers, Ornish, The Zone – they all provided references for you, Tofu, but now I just can’t be sure they’re right. It’s like pouring your heart out to a counsellor and then spotting them going into a rub-and-tug parlour.  I have doubts, Tofu.  Serious doubts.

And so while I tried to ignore the shrieking of my appetite, soon it was unsuppressible.  I cheated, Tofu, I cheated with a hot dog. Not a Soy-dog, just a regular mystery meat wiener. It wasn’t even a good hotdog: it was small, pale, and on any other day I would have laughed it out of town.  But I wolfed that wiener down, the pork fat coating my throat and tongue like nectar of the Gods.

I can't believe I cheated with THIS

Trying to pretend it hadn’t happened, later on that night I tried to enjoy you with (I can’t believe I was so misguided) brussel sprouts and chile sauce on brown rice. Unspeakable, I know.  But after eating that final meal with you and feeling so terribly unsatisfied, I knew deep in my heart that I had taken the wrong path.

So I’m sorry, Tofu. We aren’t going to work out.  And after much experimentation and reflection, I have to say: it’s not me. It’s you.

The Forks Market: Keeping Zolli Humble

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I was getting all set to proclaim myself a hero, a god-like figure perhaps, when a basket full of shrivelled kiwis shocked me back to reality.  Around this time last year, I had marched into the Forks Management office, armed with a dessicated rutabaga, some gonad analogies and a camera. The nice young lady I spoke with responded neutrally to my concerns.  A year went by.  The produce continued to suck.

So imagine my shock and awe when I walked into the Forks to see that Tutti Frutti, that purveyor of rotten food so vividly chronicled here and here, was Tutti Gonzo! In its place: Casa Bella.  The produce looked great!  The staff seemed to be arranging it, picking it over, just like in a proper market!!!  The meat at the affiliated counter looked fresh.  There was some artfully displayed, colorful antipasto – a wise choice if considering perishability.

Casa Bella

I started imagining how I would take all the credit for the change, fresh off my success from being recognized by Saveur. Were the ‘powers that be’ reading my blog?  Is waving around a dried up vegetable in someone’s office actually impactful?   Would they erect a statue of me the junction of our two mighty rivers? I would collaborate with the sculptor – posing with a basket of root vegetables thrust towards the sky. Would we decide to minimize the size of my nose, or maximize it for full Grecian goddess effect?

But most importantly, could I finally start shopping for food at the Forks?  Anything seemed possible, the sky was mine.  So today, armed with a shopping list, I drove down to The Forks.

I was crestfallen when I neared the fruit vendor and heard a man say with an East Indian accent, “No, no, no, my goodness, a mango should be full … plump even!”.   I saw him gesturing like he was holding a D-cup between his two hands.  He and his friend walked past, shaking their heads at what passed for a mango in Winnipeg.

And so, my dreams of grandeur ended. Although the State of the Vendor is much better than it was last year, there is still room for improvement. They are definitely making some good efforts – there were some big baskets of local strawberries and BC cherries.  But why why why why why is there a row of Kraft dinner above the (empty) local tomato basket?  Why aren’t there big beautiful bags of our local Nature’s Harvest pasta there instead?  Do you really want me to buy coriander that is sitting in a tub of brown water? Did you not consider that if you purchase a massive bin of corn, it will start to wither before you can sell it all?

Who thinks this is a good idea?

Perfect for Vichyssoise

Local Tomatoes and Kraft Dinner

Yummy

Kiwis - Taking me back in time to that rutabaga that looked like Gandalf's scrotum

Please tell me these are plantains

The sales clerk saw me snapping photos, and taking me for a tourist, he started chatting with me about how he too owned a Canon.  And while I humoured him with reciprocated pleasantry, what I felt like doing was leaping on top of his counter, brandishing one of his mushy mangoes, and asking, “How could you dare make small talk with me when THIS is in my line of sight!!”. (I would froth at the mouth slightly for effect.)

Still working on it

Mmmmmmmangoes!!!!

In the final analysis, it looks like there is still some work to do. While it looked like The Forks was turning the corner at, “Keeping Life Delicious”, it’s possible that all they have done was Keep Zolli Humble. I would like to think that the former would have been a greater accomplishment.

(Note: since this post, further attempts have been made to keep Zolli humble in the form of strongly worded comments about ripe bananas, mangoes, and kiwis. I am content to respectfully disagree and stand by my post. Someone obviously took this post very personally – in the end, if that translates into better produce at The Forks, I am happy to say Mission Accomplished.  I am glad there are other people who are passionate about making the Forks into a true market.

Please don't try to tell me these are ripe. The one on the left is so mushy it has a dent in it.

I’ll be the first person to admit that I am not a chef or a farmer. I am a food consumer.  But I have travelled the world visiting its great markets, and I am a faithful buyer from Vic’s and Crampton’s. You just don’t see brown/rotting/shrivelled/overripe food there – ever – nor do you see it at St. Norbert’s Farmers Market or any of the great markets of the world. But the sad fact is that consumers will walk away for years if they visit a store and are unable to buy dinner because the quality is suboptimal, even once.)

That said, I have revised the post with some additional photos of the more handsome produce at Casa Bella in an attempt to balance off my reader’s concerns.  Thank you everyone for your comments – and Casa Bella owners – keep at it – you’re almost there.  Let’s just chalk this up to growing pains and move on. But please get rid of the Kraft Dinner.)

Dinner to go - good idea!

Good lookin' BC cherries

Local strawberries - nice!

Reading: Plenty (Yotam Ottolenghi)

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I like justifying my food obsession by interacting with others who are similarly fixated, which is why I found myself analyzing peppercorn quantities with likeminded gluttons on the Internet one day.  One of my favourite food forums, Chowhound, has a web-based cookbook club of sorts, where every month food enthusiasts from around the world dissect a cookbook in exhausting detail.  The pick of May was Plenty, by Yotam Ottolenghi.

If you are willing to let vegetable dishes take the centre trivet on your table, this book is for you.  It is more a vegetable cookbook than a vegetarian cookbook – Ottolenghi promotes a reverence towards plant foods themselves while sparing the reader any self-satisfied dialogue about the moral, environmental, or spiritual fallout of an omnivorous diet.

Highlights:  Bold and creative, most of the recipes could stand alone as a main dish, supplemented by some bread or rice. Black Pepper Tofu was a massive hit at my table, although some of my fellow Chowhounders found it to be too assertive. (Hence the analysis of peppercorn quantities.)  The semi-dried tomatoes on salad was a definite make-again, and the Herbed Pancakes with Lime Better was awarded with a ‘Excellent !!’  pencilled into the margin.  Throughout, the instructions are clear and the photography is innovative, often shooting food from directly above, rather than from the more standard side angle with a narrow depth of field.  I have this strange feeling the author would smell good, sort of spicy and fruity.  Anyhow….

Lowlights: There were no disasters, although a few recipes were alarmingly high in artery-clogging saturated fat.  Putting 11 tbsp of butter into a tofu recipe did seem a little counter-intuitive.  And if you are looking for a 30-minute meal, move along padre – many of these recipes make you pay for flavour with time.

If you want to know more: Refer to my detailed recipe notes: Plenty

If you want to buy it: Click here for McNally Robinson or here for Amazon US

Sticking it to the City: Revenge of the Acer Negundo

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Unbeknownst to me, the house I purchased 8 years ago didn’t really have a sewer system. Two odiferous basement floods and an insurance nightmare later, it turned out that my sewer main had been draining into a de facto septic pit under the asphalt of my Riverview street.  While installing a storm drain some years ago, the City of Winnipeg had transected my sewer line, and for years the trees around my house grew enviably greener than those of my neighbours.

A grand historic elm on my boulevard became collateral damage during the sewer repair, leaving us with a hot spot on our roof and a depressing bald patch in the landscaping. And even though the City allows me to mow the boulevard grass once a week, they won’t, apparently, allow me to plant a new tree on it without going through a process which might rival a patent application in complexity.

So, in selecting a tree from their pre-approved list of ‘Trees the City Will Let Me Pay to Plant on the Boulevard’, accessible on their website under the ‘How to Make the Taxpayer Assume Responsibility for the City’s Mistakes’ tab, I was feeling a little, ahem, bitter.  Was there any way I could exact sweet revenge?

Enter the Acer negundo (Manitoba Maple) and a small flask of Frosty’s Manitoba Maple syrup.

While Canada produces 80% of the world’s maple syrup, the Manitoba syrup market is relatively untapped.  This might be due to the fact that the indigenous Manitoba Maple produces less sap than its cousin the sugar maple, although a 1992 Feasibility Report states that the syrup-making Trappist Monks in Holland, Manitoba harvest yields equal to that of the Quebec maple. So drill a spigot into any Acer negundo greater than 8″ in diameter, and you can expect a flow of 1-10L/day in the March tapping season, which might run anywhere from 2-14 days.  Read more here for background info and here for a detailed how-to guide. At a sugar concentration of 2%, you can boil a mere 43L of sap into 1L of edible maple syrup, which you can sell for $15.00.  Or you can pour it on your pancakes.

Manitoba Maple syrup is reputed to have a nuttier and more complex taste than its Eastern Canadian counterpart.  And since the product is rare, organic, hand-made, and shelf-stable, it could feasibly hit the gourmet mail-order big times and take its place alongside Alaea Hawaiian Pink Salt and Greek Orange Blossom Honey on the virtual shelf.

So I’ll apply to plant a Manitoba Maple on the boulevard that I mow but don’t own. The city will own the tree once it’s planted –  although I am sure they will permit me to rake the leaves come September.

Then I will sap the city’s tree (that I bought and planted) of its sap.  It’s probably illegal to tap maple trees on the boulevard, but the city won’t notice – they are too busy training 311 operators to block my access to anyone that knows anything. My parents have a massive Manitoba Maple in their yard, which with its five trunks could easily accommodate as many spigots.  I figure that if I take a week off work in March, and invest in an industrial sized sap evaporator, I could probably make 4-5 L of syrup, grossing me $75.00 or so.

Then I’ll use my earnings to pay two weeks worth of  property taxes. Ah, sweet revenge.

What a waste of time, you say? Aren’t you just going to end up tired and sticky with not much to show for it, you ask? Perhaps.  But the sweet sweat of the that tree will taste better than a lawsuit.

Interested in trying Manitoba Maple Syrup?  My Boulevard Maple should be mature enough to start production in about 10 years. Email me in 2022 and ask for Boulevard Revenge Syrup.

Otherwise, purchase Frosty’s locally at Crampton’s Market, or online through their mail order site.